Nintendo is hosting the first Indie World showcase of 2023 later today, and promises announcements and updates on indie games for Nintendo Switch.
Nintendo Indie World showcases are a type of Nintendo Direct dedicated to smaller independent titles that usually wouldn't get as much of a spotlight in a typical showcase. Nintendo took to its Twitter account to announce that the first Indie World showcase of 2023 will be happening today. Nintendo hasn't announced any specifics about the event other than it will have "20 minutes of reveals, announcements, and updates on indie games for Nintendo Switch".
Of course the question on everyone's mind is: will the highly anticipated Hollow Knight sequel Hollow Knight: Silksong make an appearance at todays event? The last time we saw the game was at Microsoft's Xbox and Bethesda Showcase in June 2022, which only showed titles releasing within a year of the presentation according to the Xbox Twitter account. This means Hollow Knight: Silksong should release before June 15, 2023 – barring any delays.
Now every single time there's an Indie World, Silksong is expected to show up and then we're left disappointed, just like at the last Indie World in November 2022. What makes this time different? Well an eagle eyed user on Reddit noticed that Microsoft Rewards said "The story continues… Dive into new adventures with this Metroidvania game" while linking to an empty search page for Hollow Knight: Silksong, which has lead users to believe we'll be hearing news about the game very soon, which all fell into place when Nintendo announced the Indie World Showcase for today.
How to watch Nintendo Indie World April 2023
The Nintendo Indie World April 2023 showcase begins at 5pm BST/ 12pm EDT / 9am PDT today Wednesday, April 19. The presentation is set to be around 20 minutes long, and is available to watch on the Nintendo YouTube channel. To make things easier for you we've embedded the stream below so you don't even need to leave the page to watch along.
You can also watch our esteemed colleagues Aaron Potter, Shabana Arif, and Jasmine Mannan reacting to the stream live on our podcast the Mirror Gaming Walkthrough, which begins a bit earlier at 4pm BST/ 11am EDT / 8am PDT
Nintendo Indie World April 2023 – what to expect
Other than Hollow Knight: Silksong, we don't have any clues to what we'll be seeing today. Personally I'm hoping to hear about a Nintendo Switch version of the Wario Land-inspired indie breakout Pizza Tower, which released back in January this year. In Pizza Tower you play as aging pizza chef Peppino Spaghetti as you blast your way through the titular Pizza Tower to battle the giant sentient pizza who threatened to blow up his beloved business Peppino's Pizzeria. It's my personal favourite game of the year so far and the chance to play it on the go – and for more people to discover this absolute banger – is too appealing to pass up. Plus it makes perfect sense for a game so heavily inspired by Wario to appear on a Nintendo system.
There's a few more titles that have been MIA that I would love to hear more about today. Fellow Wario Land-like title Antonblast, Metal Slug Tactics and the Jet Set Radio-inspired Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Of course, this could also be our first time hearing about Hades 2 since its announcement back at The Game Awards in December 2022. We'll know for sure if any of these come to pass later today.
