I don’t game much anymore, but Canadian devs shouldn’t be ignored.
On mobile, Rebuild 3 is developed in Canada. Of course, Death Road to Canada was dreamed up by abguy from Kitchener Ontario and it kicks ass!
On all major platforms Ubisoft has some awesome games from their Canadian studios like the Farcry series (Ubisoft Montreal & Ubisoft Toronto), Rainbow Six Seige, For Honor, and Watch Dogs.
Dead by Daylight is also developed by a Canadian game studio.
Share your favourite Canadian developers and game studios!
No mentions of Sea of Stars? Made in Quebec city and they even released a Québécois localization.
On top of the games already mentioned, here are my recommendations.
First, I must mention:
- Crosscountry Canada (1991)
Quebec City
- Just Shapes & Beats — rhythm bullet hell with lots of EDM
Montreal
- Ultimate Chicken Horse — build your own platformer level and race your friends
- N++ — platformer focused on momentum and agility
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided — cyberpunk stealth and action
Ottawa
- Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes — defuse a bomb while your friends read the defusal manual
Toronto
- Super Time Force Ultra — side-scrolling shooter with time manipulation
- A Short Hike — a short, open-world hike
Vancouver
- Beastieball (in early access) — creature collecting with turn-based volleyball
- Crypt of the NecroDancer — rhythm roguelike
- Rift of the NecroDancer — “guitar-like” rhythm
- Inscryption — spooky card game… at first
I absolutely want UCH and the new bike version they’re working on so badly but none of my friends or my immediate family would play it.
My disdain for Ubisoft is chafing against my Canadian patriotism!
I might sit this one out until they stop requiring an account for every game.
Ubisoft is not really a “Canadian company” as far as I am concerned, they have Canadian employees, which is nice I suppose, but they’re a French company. At least it’s not American, but I prefer when the owners at least nominally live here so as much of my dollars go back into my own country as possible. Lots of great indie games out there, I guess if you can’t live without AAA games then maybe Ubisoft is one of the better choices, but I think it’s preferable when we can support our locally-owned indie studios instead. I’m tired of being pillaged for profit by foreign companies.
stop requiring an account for every game.
Yeah, this is annoying, and so many companies do this. I don’t mind if they want me to log in to save progress, especially in cross-platform games, but we know damn well they use “the account” as another way to track, data-harvest, and invade someone’s privacy.
Also to stop game resales, which seems to have completely died off.
I had no idea this was Canadian! Seems like Canadian game devs are really making top notch games.
This games Canadian? Last month I sunk so much time into it. Great game.
Balatro is Canadian?! Well shit, I already bought it like 4 times for various platforms.
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Rimworld is created by Tynan Sylvester, who lives in Ottawa. Fantastic colony sim game that still gets consistent and major updates alongside the DLC releases.
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Torn Banner Studios, creators of Chivalry and Chivalry 2, the Medieval multiplayer combat games are also Based in Toronto. They recently declared Chiv 2 to be a completed game, ceasing anynew content updates but still supporting the servers and community. They seem to be cooking up something new, but no info yet.
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Hinterland Studios, creators of The Long Dark, a survival game, are based in Vancouver. The game is slower paced with realistic survival mechanics in rural north BC I believe. It’s not abandoned, but updates very slowly. Cool devs though.
All of these games have active dev and fan communities. Rimworld has a SUPER talented & stable modding community.
I’ve been playing Rimworld for years and I’m just now finding out that it’s a Canadian dev. I’m ashamed of myself.
Same! I’ve got 3,250 hours on it. Tynan really keeps it on the down low that he is based in Canada!
It’s strange, somehow nearly all of my favourite games are Canadian made. Despite being disconnected from Canada by living in the US for over a decade, so many of my favourite musicians, games, movies and even youtubers are Canadian. Stuff Canadians make just appeals to me more often than not, and it makes me feel fuzzy and like I’m still Canadian despite being gone for so long. So excited to move back this year.
Once a Canadian, always a Canadian*. It’s in our DNA.
* Offer void if last name is Musk.
RimWorld is one of my favorite games ever
Oh man, how did I forget The Long Dark?? I was a very early access player of the game! One of the coolest survival games around. TLD 2 is also coming.
I think I’ve played TLD twice as much as any other game ever, and it’s not close. We’re talking maybe upwards of a thousand hours at this point; it’s my factorio.
Highly recommend it if you like survival games! Or just like Survivorman lmao (who is also Canadian, coincidentally. He’s got a great YouTube channel for those unaware)
Dude Sam, I I actually just installed it again the other day but I haven’t played it yet. It was such a fun game though.
Digital Extremes, the company behind Warframe, is based in London Ontario and has a yearly convention there every July.
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https://canadiangamedevs.com/ has a huge list!
Drinkbox Studio (Guacamelee 1 & 2, Nobody Saves the World), Capybara Games (Sword & Sworcery, Super Time Force Ultra, Below, Grindstone), and Thunder Lotus (Spiritfarer) are Canadian as well, to name a few.
I was so about to name drop Drinkbox too, I always found it weird Guacamelee is Canadian.
Celeste.
I’ll throw in a mention for Tunic.
warframe is made in london.
Absolutely! To add to this… Buy Stalker 2.
cuphead is canadian too
Outward - Nine Dots Studio - Quebec. As a big Morrowind fan, I love Outward
I don’t really care too much about Ubisoft’s games, but everything Ubisoft Montreal, specifically, has made that I’ve played at least was polished really well. They even have some pretty neat ideas occasionally. It’s just that most of the games Ubisoft makes under any of their development studios tend to also be samey and not innovative outside of, like, multiplayer options that nobody even plays (despite having some bangers out there like Watch Dogs’ MP).
When I did game more, I gravitated towards Ubisoft games like Wildlands, the Division, Farcry, etc. Not sure if it was the aesthetic or gameplay, but I’ve got a lot of ubisoft games. Lol
Granted, these games are developed by either the Canadian Studios or NotAmerican™ studios (Ubisoft Paris, etc.).
Games in general have lost their innovation and have just become too enshittified to enjoy these days. I’m glad I was a gamer before all that.
Games in general have lost their innovation and have just become too enshittified to enjoy these days. I’m glad I was a gamer before all that.
If they’re too shitty to enjoy, why are you playing them?
If you’re not playing them, how do you know they’re shitty?
And regardless, how would you know that it’s not you who changed?
If they’re too shitty to enjoy, why are you playing them?
Well, I don’t. And if I do, it’s like 98% less time spent playing them because it’s a frustratingly annoying experience.
If you’re not playing them, how do you know they’re shitty?
I’ve played them enough to know that I’m not a fan of the dark patterns they are based on.
And regardless, how would you know that it’s not you who changed?
Because I still enjoy games that predate enshittification.
It may seem strange, but there was a time when you could load a game, not see ads, pop ups, loot drop screens, “seasons”, various coin and other casino-style minigames, and within a click or two, you’d be in multiplayer match or a single player (offline) experience.
When a match was done, you could click “play again” and not have to go through anything else.
Weapons or items were either given to you without endless grinding, or they were there to discover through natural, organic gameplay… Not programmed “carrot on a stick” gimmicks.
I’m serious when I say I feel lucky to have experienced gaming before the industry turned to crap.
That’s not to say that 100% of current games are awful, but they genuinely feel more like a waste of time and not something you can enjoy finishing at your leisure.
Man, honestly, you sound like you should disconnect and spend less time on the internet.
You’re writing off literally thousands of games and painting them all with the same brush, because of broad complaints about general trends in AAA gaming.
Let me go through my recently played games, and just find a small sampling of games that fit your bill that have come out post enshittification:
- Avowed
- Indiana Jones & The Great Circle
- Alan Wake 2
- Control
- Grounded
- Subnautica
- Vampire Survivors
- Balatro
- Elden Ring
- Tunic
- Cyberpunk
- Plate Up
- Robo Quest
- Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order & Star Wars Jedi Survivor
- Wizard With A Gun
- Ship Of Fools
- No Man’s Sky
- Hitman
- Remnant II
- Baldur’s Gate
- Sifu
- The Outer Wilds …
Do I need to go on?
Nice list! While I don’t play those genres, I’ll re-confirm that this problem doesn’t affect all games.
That said, find me an FPS on mobile that isn’t enshittified, or compare any modern FPS to something like Modern Combat 3 or old school Call of Duty, then you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
Look at the top 25 games on any mobile platform, and they are nearly all using dark patterns and have been enshittified.
Nice list! While I don’t play those genres, I’ll re-confirm that this problem doesn’t affect all games.
You don’t play first person shooters, first person melee games, third person shooters, third person action games, survival games, factory games, beat em up games, puzzle games, stealth games, or story driven adventures?
It sounds like your issue is that console calibre mobiles games are shitty, to which I’ll point out, they always have been. There was never a golden era of Modern Warfare 2 on mobile.
Maybe if your issue is with mobile games, the problem might be with trying to game on mobile?
I don’t want this to become about me, since I’m no longer a dedicated gamer.
But if you look at the gaming industry as a whole, mobile gaming overshadows both console and PC, and collectively, free-to-play games make up the bulk of all games played across any platform.
Those “free-to-play” games rely on dark patterns as a business model, and that’s pretty toxic.
Much of what I played on PC were from indie developers, early access, etc. Those games weren’t enshittified (at least, no while I was playing them), but other games became enshittified, so I no longer play them. Rocket League is one example. Once it went free-to-play, it went downhill in the experience.
Then you get a game franchise like GTA, where it was totally cool. You start it up, you play. Now, it’s pretty much only about keeping you grinding, data collection, “prizes”, microtransactions, and other garbage to manipulate gamers into staying in the game as if it was a social media platform. And that’s a PAID game. The free-to-play games are much worse, because the incentive to make money in these “free” games becomes over the top.
Again, this isn’t all games, and I’m glad that there are devs out there who still play by old-school rules. I became tired of where the industry was going, so I moved on.
1000XResist is by Canadian devs if weird not-quite-visual-novel-but-close games are your jam (eg paradise killer, mouthwashing).
