‘Cool and quirky is part of our brand’: how New Zealand turned a hothouse for indie video games | Games

Those not immersed on the earth of gaming won’t be acquainted with Pax Australia: the large gaming convention and exhibition that takes over the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre each October. My favorite part is at all times Pax Rising, a showcase of indie video video games and tabletop, the bulk Australian – however there was a latest shift that was notably notable this 12 months: most of the standout titles had crossed the Tasman, arriving from New Zealand.

At the sales space run by Code – New Zealand’s government-funded Centre of Digital Excellence – 18 Kiwi builders demoed their forthcoming video games in a showcase of the colourful native scene that was buzzing with crowds. In the comedic Headlice, I managed a parasitic headcrab monster which might latch on to folks’s brains and puppet them. How Was Your Day?, a comfortable time-loop recreation set in New Zealand, warmed my coronary heart with its story a few younger lady trying to find her lacking canine. And Killing Things With Your Friends, a co-operative multiplayer motion recreation about surviving weird medical trials, had me pulling off my very own arm to make use of as a weapon in opposition to enemy hordes.

Two years since the blockbuster success of Dredge, unbiased New Zealand video games are having a second. According to a survey from the New Zealand Game Developers Association (NZGDA), whole income for native recreation developer studios has risen steadily annually since 2018, and between 2024 and 2025 it shot up 38% to NZ$759m (A$657m). That’s virtually double the A$339.1m generated in Australia in 2024.

It’s a determine buoyed up by just a few standout successes: Grinding Gear Games’ hit Path of Exile sequence reported revenue of NZ$105m between October 2024 and September 2025; PikPok, the studio behind the favored Into the Dead sequence and cell hit Clusterduck, has achieved more than 500m worldwide downloads throughout all titles; and Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, Cryptmaster and Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers have all seen massive numbers. Some of those tasks benefited from the 20% rebate supplied by funding physique NZ On Air, which paid out $22.4m to 40 corporations in 2024/25. But for smaller studios and recent groups with no incoming funding, Code has grow to be an important pathway.

Code was established in late 2019 in Dunedin by New Zealand Labour, to service studios on the South Island. In 2022, the government invested in its expansion right into a nationwide program that administers funding to builders throughout the nation but additionally educates them on finest follow throughout the world trade. In their most recent funding round, near NZ$960,000 was awarded throughout 13 studios and, in September, minister Shane Reti of the New Zealand National occasion pledged to greater than double Code’s funding, providing an additional NZ$2.75m per year.

Many nations provide authorities funding for recreation growth. What makes Code distinctive is its give attention to coaching builders to compete internationally, with a program that encompasses not simply grants however mentorships and specialised talent workshops – how one can discuss to journalists and influencers, as an example; or how one can funds, or port to consoles. Code additionally provides multiple streams of funding, from journey and preliminary kickstart funds via to large-scale grants – as much as $250,000 – for groups which are able to broaden. The purpose is to wean builders off Code, to make them self-reliant. “In this day and age, publishers and investors only want to engage with you when you have already got some degree of validation,” says Vee Pendergrast, growth supervisor of Code. “We have that baked into the model.”

The world trade leaders introduced for mentorships provide “a cheap solution to an expensive problem”, Pendergrast says. “Even if you’re paying them at consultancy rates, their skills go back into the ecosystem.”

According to Code’s personal calculations, each greenback spent by them generates NZ$2.67 of funding again. And that was earlier than the console launch of Abiotic Factor, a Code-supported title from Deep Field Games that has sold more than 1.4m copies on PC alone.

On the ground on the Code sales space at Pax, the builders had a number of issues in frequent: their video games regarded good, they demoed nicely and their builders knew how one can discuss to the media. A private favorite was Canvas City, a turn-based tactical fight rollerblading recreation. The studio behind it, Disc 2 Games, spun off from Black Salt Games, which created the Code-supported smash hit Dredge. Having Disc 2 individually funded by Dredge’s success permits them to attempt new issues with no need to develop the unique firm.

“Code is a massive supporter of first-time developers,” the Black Salt chief government and producer, Nadia Thorne, says; since Dredge was launched, she has grow to be a Code mentor. “A lot of indie studios wouldn’t be able to afford [coming to Pax for] this kind of exposure. Pooling together all those resources means that we’re able to come to a lot of shows that just would be out of reach otherwise.”

Jevon Wright has been engaged on their first recreation, Adaptory, for 4 years; the 2D survival recreation – the place gamers take care of a crew who’ve crash-landed in house and have to construct a base to outlive – is ready to be launched on Steam by the top of the 12 months. They found Code halfway via growth and thru it have been in a position to faucet into the broader New Zealand scene. “We all know each other,” they are saying. “And we’re all here to support each other.”

Will Adamson, who was demoing his recreation Apothecurse at Pax, additionally praised the collaborative nature of the scene: “We share ideas and experiences and contacts but also developers … there’s a real sense of community here.”

On Steam, NZGDA lists 61 upcoming New Zealand games coming to PC. It’s a excessive quantity for a small nation however a drop within the ocean contemplating the 19,000 video games that have been launched on Steam in 2024 alone. To stand out in a crowded market, the video games showcased at Pax all supplied one thing distinctive. “We get a lot of cool, quirky, Kiwi-oriented stuff,” Pendergrast says “That’s part of our whole brand.” Take Middle Management, as an example: an irreverent satire about workplace tradition that entails a brain-draining octopus creature; or Dream Team Supreme, the place two gamers combat monsters by piloting a two-headed robotic utilizing two decks of playing cards.

Not each Code-funded recreation will probably be a industrial hit, however that’s a part of it too. “We’re really open to sharing our successes and failures, and what led to them,” Thorne says. “We’re just trying to make it easier for the next generation of developers coming through.”