Gamer's World | Rising SEA: Unmissable Videogames from Southeast Asia

I spent much of October on the road, visiting several game expos to see what's up in videogames in Southeast Asia. My tour took me to Malaysia for LevelUp KL, Bali for the Indonesia Game Developer Exchange (IGDX), and Singapore for "gamescom asia."

Each event had its own distinct vibe and lineup of games. Between them, however, they painted a singular picture: Southeast Asia's videogame scene is on fire.

Japan, the United States, Europe, and China are still undoubtedly generating most of the hits. However, the rise in well-made, culturally interesting, and downright fun games coming out of Southeast Asia cannot be ignored. Start with the Millennial zeitgeist vibes of Coffee Talk – a game in which players work at a midnight cafe and listen to the worries of their nocturnal customers while serving each of them just the right cup of coffee. 

Or try the sheer joy of kaiju brawler game Gigabash. In ths one, Godzilla and Ultraman grapple with a host of original monsters and reduce cities to rubble in their wake. 

Simply put, the region has produced a growing, diverse range of games that have found audiences the world over.

Honing Skills in the Background

Indeed, many hit games from Japan and the West are partly made in Southeast Asia anyway. Series from Final Fantasy and Spider-Man to Dark Souls and Baldur's Gate use outsource studios in places like Malaysia and Singapore. 

Through working in the background on multimillion-selling AAA games, local developers have picked up the skills they need to compete in the global game scene. And they have started to apply these skills to their own original games.

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"I have no doubt that the next big games will come from Asia," said ex-PlayStation boss Shawn Layden. His comment came when I interviewed him at gamescom asia for IGN Japan. Layden worked in top positions at Sony's game business in Japan, Europe, and the United States. He oversaw the whole company and its game studios before retiring in 2019. Then, he later worked with Chinese game giant Tencent as an advisor. 

Having seen the game business from all angles, Layden's advice to local developers at gamescom asia was: "Don't aim for global success. Aim for local success. Make games for your neighbors."

The Japan Influence

He's not wrong. Gamers in Southeast Asia are of course influenced heavily by the anime culture of nearby Japan and by Hollywood movies. However, they have a shared local culture that binds them together. Of course, countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore each have their own unique history and culture. Nevertheless, their proximity means they have a ton of crossover as well. And each time I have attended game expos in the region these past five or six years I have felt envious of it. 

Japan, where I live, very much stands apart in Asia. Despite its complex history with China, Taiwan, Korea, Russia and the United States, Japan is totally its own entity. It often reflects neither Asia nor the West. 

Extras at gamescom asia

The game industry and many other industries work so differently in Japan that their successes and challenges are often unique. Meanwhile, game developers in those countries in Southeast Asia share a camaraderie that allows them to work together. And this is apparent in their games and their gamer communities.

gamescom asia featured a huge booth from Capcom where attendees could try the upcoming Monster Hunter Wilds. Or they could compete in a Street Fighter 6 tournament. Moreover, there was another sizeable PlayStation booth featuring the newly released Astro Bot. 

The largest concentration of games was found in the Indie Wavemakers booth. Dedicated to independent games from all around Southeast Asia, this booth featured dozens of new and upcoming titles to play.

Some personal highlights include Unyielder. It's a gloriously OTT "boomer shooter" game from Singapore in the vein of classics like Doom and Quake, which was recently signed up by Japanese publisher Shueisha Games.

Love Eternal, a puzzle platformer with minimalist pixel art graphics and demanding gravity-inverting gameplay, was great, too. So was Grifford Academy, in which a group of modern-day teenage girls are plunged into a fantasy RPG world. 

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Then there is Common Wealth, a game that takes a cynical look at Singapore's colonial past. It tasks players with deciding the fates of citizens of a fictional but familiar city undergoing a difficult move to self-governance in an alternate 1960s.

SEA Game Awards 2024 at LevelUp KL

At LevelUp KL, I participated in the SEA Game Awards 2024. These celebrate the best games in a number of genres from across SEA. Many of the nominated games were also available to play on the show floor. Despite LevelUp KL being produced by the government agency Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), it gave equal space to games from across the region.

Lost & Found Co, a Where's Waldo-style game from Thailand where players gather around the screen to search for hidden items in a series of beautifully animated illustrated scenes, was one of the winners.

Another was KISS: K-Pop Idol StorieS. It's a management sim from Indonesia that puts players in charge of a K-pop girlband on the path to fame and fortune. Paper Pal, an adorable 3D platform game from a talented group of university students at UOW Malaysia, also won.

A special award was given to Larian Studios Malaysia. It's the Kuala Lumpur wing of Belgian game developer Larian Studios, whose 2023 game Baldur's Gate 3 stormed the No 1 spot on Game of the Year lists across the world. 

Swen Vinke's Insider's View

Larian head Swen Vincke told me after the awards ceremony that he chose to open a studio in Malaysia because of the country's large English-speaking talent pool and vibrant art and animation industry. He sees his KL team as more than just a support studio. 

"The studio in KL owns quite a lot of the game. Dark Urge was made in Malaysia, and the lead scripter for House of Hope was here too," he said. He was referring to the Dark Urge character and House of Hope location in Baldur's Gate 3.

Vincke explained that by having studios in locations across multiple time zones, development can continue around the clock without anyone having to work overtime. "Our KL team can give the game to Europe at the end of their work day. And then Europe can give it to North America, and then they can give it back to KL," he said. "It doesn't work for every element, but it works for quite a lot of things."

IGDX in Bali

IGDX took place in between LevelUp KL and gamescom asia. It was my first time visiting the event, and indeed Indonesia. 

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Held right by the beautiful beaches of Bali, IGDX also featured some games from around Southeast Asia. It even had booths dedicated to games from France, Russia and other places. Moreover, the expo, held with the cooperation of the Indonesian government, was crammed with excellent local games. 

Among them, my favorites include My Lovely Empress. This is a strategy game that puts players in the place of a recently bereaved Emperor who must make complex decisions that balance the needs of the nobility and the peasants they rule.

Another is Grim Trial, an action-heavy rogue-like dungeon crawler with cool fast-paced action and striking anime-style cutscenes. Kidbash: Super Legend, is also fun. It is an old-school platform game with engaging combat and exploration reminiscent of Mega Man and Kirby 64. Also impressive, War Angels, is a graphic hospital-management sim that offers a brutal look at the human cost of war. Then there is Petit Island, whose Animal Crossing-style island village is based on Bali but populated by colorful animal characters.

In all of these countries, the missing puzzle piece is a lack of AAA publishers. 

Constrained by the Industry Giants

The global game charts are dominated by a handful of massive corporations, from platform holders Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft to larger third parties such as Electronic Arts, Tencent, Take-Two Interactive, and Capcom. Currently, none of these originate in Southeast Asia. However, the best games in the region all come from smaller independent studios or mid-sized publishers. And these studios have proven their willingness and capability to learn.

In this day and age, that might be enough. Game development has become a less expensive, more manageable process, and the barrier to entry is low. It's no longer difficult to release a game on major platforms like mobile, Steam, PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox. 

And as Shawn Layden said, making games for your neighbors is a great way to start. I certainly met several investors at each of these events who were looking for great games to take global. That suggests a high level of confidence in the region.

Over time, it feels inevitable that a global smash hit will come from Southeast Asia. No one thought anything of games from China a decade ago, and now Chinese games like Genshin Impact and Black Myth Wukong make headlines all around the world. While the Western game industry goes through an implosion of layoffs and changing business models, Southeast Asia is quietly on the rise.

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Author: Daniel Robson

Daniel Robson is the chief editor of videogame news site IGN Japan. Read his series Gamer's World on JAPAN Forward, and find him on X (formerly Twitter).

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