Past Silksong: SA’s gaming business ranges up

Adelaide’s greatest gaming hit made international headlines, however it’s removed from the entire story. Meet the native studios, creators and communities driving the subsequent chapter of South Australia’s rising game-dev scene.

When Adelaide-based studio Team Cherry launched Hollow Knight: Silksong, it crashed Steam – the world’s largest PC gaming platform – and have become a worldwide sensation for the three-person group.

The sequel to their 2017 indie hit Hollow Knight was already probably the most wish-listed recreation in Steam historical past, with over 5 million followers ready to play – and on launch evening, greater than half 1,000,000 jumped in directly.

It was the type of record-breaking second most studios solely dream about – and it began proper right here in South Australia.

But Silksong is just one a part of SA’s gaming scene. Across Adelaide and past, indie studios are constructing all the pieces from darkish horror to feel-good adventures, exhibiting simply how a lot vary – and coronary heart – our game-dev business has to supply the world.

Why it’s recreation on

The newest stats are in – 82 per cent of us play, the common participant is 35, and as of 2025, simply over half are ladies.

Behind that zeal sits a thriving local industry that punches effectively above its weight. 

Australian studios generate round $339 million a yr, make use of greater than 2,400 individuals, and earn 93 per cent of their income from abroad – proof that our video games don’t simply join at house, however world wide.

And with 11 per cent of the nation’s builders based mostly in South Australia, native creators are serving to form that success – making video games as various and inventive because the individuals who play them.

And this yr, South Australia’s recreation makers took their creativity to the worldwide stage.

From Adelaide to the world

Just weeks earlier than Silksong’s launch, South Australia’s gaming group made its mark at Gamescom 2025 – the world’s greatest gaming conference, the place six native studios showcased their work as a part of the South Australian Film Corporation’s (SAFC) SA delegation, introduced in partnership with Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) and supported by Create SA.

The SA showcase featured all the pieces from heartfelt life sims and story-driven adventures to horror, comedy, puzzle and VR motion video games – proof of simply how diversified the native scene has turn into. And even past the official stand, South Australians have been making international noise.

When Adelaide’s personal Team Cherry introduced Silksong’s long-awaited launch date, it turned one of many greatest reveals of your complete occasion – shining an additional highlight on the state’s thriving video games scene.

Among the SA contingent was Bad Plan Studios, the Adelaide indie behind upcoming horror-comedy roguelite End of Ember.

Co-founder Chad Habel says the expertise was “absolutely enormous – the scale, the atmosphere, the learning. It was incredible just to see our game sitting alongside titles we’ve admired for years.”

That momentum has saved constructing, with End of Ember not too long ago chosen for the Games Showcase at SXSW Sydney – one among 9 South Australian titles featured within the Showcase, highlighting the energy and variety of the state’s builders.

The delegation met publishers, pitched their video games, and – maybe most significantly – bought observed.

“It’s one thing to make a game,” Chad says. “It’s another to have people on the other side of the world laughing and reacting to it in real time.”

A hellishly good time

If Silksong was all precision and polish, Bad Plan Studios’ End of Ember is the chaotic cousin who exhibits as much as the household barbecue coated in faux blood and stickers.

“Cute but gory” is how Chad describes it. You are Ember, a candy lady who finds herself despatched to Hell on her birthday. With nothing however a chainsaw for a companion, you discover grotesque dungeons and face off towards the vile denizens of the Underworld. 

And whereas it’s nonetheless in improvement, gamers can already soar in – the free playtest version is stay on Steam, giving followers an early style of its high-action, highly-addictive cartoon chaos.

It’s a challenge constructed on pure indie grit, developed between jobs, households and deadlines. “We all have kids, day jobs, and a lot of coffee,” Chad says. “But that’s the beauty of it. The game exists because we love making it.”

The studio behind End of Ember is as unconventional as the sport itself – comedian artist Daniel McGuiness, educator Chad, who heads graduate applications on the Academy of Interactive Entertainment, and Eliah Smith, a programmer who codes, drives and performs utilizing solely his ft. “He’s incredible,” Chad says. “He’s proof that creativity always finds a way.”

Rewriting the foundations of the sport

If Chad and his group symbolize the DIY, art-meets-chaos vitality of SA’s indie scene, Onnie Chan is making certain the subsequent wave of builders has much more views, tales, and kinds to convey to the desk.

A artistic technologist and founding father of Women in Creative Technologies (WiCT) and Power Her Up, Onnie is on a mission to stage up ladies’s participation and management in tech and gaming. 

She’s already been recognised by the Women in Innovation Awards 2024, and this yr received the Individual Community Impact Award on the SA Game Industry Awards.

“When I studied my Masters in Immersive Media Technologies at the University of Adelaide, all my lecturers were men,” she says. “So I started a club where women could teach each other the software and coding we weren’t being taught.”

That scholar membership turned WiCT – a not-for-profit that now runs workshops, mentoring and occasions for girls in tech. Its newest initiative, Power Her Up, helps ladies flip concepts into motion by way of mentoring, skill-building and a rising on-line group.

And true to her phrase, Onnie isn’t simply speaking about change – she’s coding it. Her newest challenge is a VR recreation for adults with ADHD, designed to help focus, time administration and emotional regulation by way of play.

“I’m building something that can help people like me,” she says. “There are so many talented women who just need the chance to show what they can do. Diversity doesn’t just make the industry fairer – it makes it more creative.”

An area to play

Despite extra ladies finding out and dealing in tech, Onnie says there’s nonetheless a protracted method to go earlier than true fairness is achieved.

“There are more women in the industry now, but not enough in leadership positions,” she says. “That’s why we’re saying: don’t just fit in – build your own space.”

“Real innovation comes from different perspectives,” she says. “If men keep making the same kinds of games, they end up in an echo chamber. We need women’s voices, non-binary voices, neurodivergent voices – everyone.”

She laughs when she remembers reminding builders that the primary laptop programmer in historical past was Ada Lovelace – a lady. “Coding was literally invented by a woman! So if she could do it 200 years ago, we can definitely do it now.”

Both Onnie and Chad agree that Adelaide’s close-knit artistic tradition is what makes it such a great place to construct video games.

“When I came here, I was blown away by how friendly and supportive the community is,” Onnie says. “It’s like a family – when the parents are busy, the siblings look after each other.”

That household now spans everybody from indie startups to internationally acclaimed studios – all a part of a sector that’s rising quick and discovering its place on the worldwide map.

With breakout hits, new studios and an increasing community of builders and advocates, South Australia’s gaming business is ready to continue to grow – and innovating.

The SAFC’s support of the online game sector spans all the pieces from the SA Video Game Development (VGD) Rebate to the annual SAGE: SA Game Exhibition to journey help to attend conferences like Gamescom, serving to native expertise thrive at each stage.

That help simply expanded once more, with the launch of the SAFC’s new Digital Games Fund – a $100,000 pilot program providing grants of as much as $100,000 to assist native studios develop authentic, revolutionary initiatives and develop their companies. It’s designed to bridge the hole between early-stage concepts and global-ready video games, strengthening South Australia’s popularity as a artistic powerhouse.

It’s all a part of a much bigger image that features the vitality of South Australia’s grassroots creators and group leaders – the individuals whose ardour is popping the state into one among Australia’s most fun, and most inclusive, artistic tech hubs.

“Games are art,” Chad says. “They can be funny, scary, emotional or weird. The more voices we have making them, the better they get.”

Or, as Onnie places it: “We’re not just making games. We’re building worlds – and everyone deserves a place in them.”

Find out extra about South Australia’s online game creatives here.