This newsletter shares the good news of the Finnish game industry once a month. The content is intended to be a comprehensive news overview for both individual newsletter subscribers and international journalists interested in games.
July 2025 saw a wave of exciting game announcements, including Rovio’s Angry Birds Bounce and Vaki Games’ VR shooter Quantum Threshold. Highlights also included the upcoming Riftbusters mobile looter shooter, nostalgic platformer Longtail!!, and rhythm roguelike KILLBEAT. In broader industry news, the European Space Agency and Finnish Game Jam announced the first-ever Spaceship Game Jam, while iconic virtual world Habbo celebrates its 25th anniversary. Solo developer Kluk Digital is trying to offer new empathy-driven gameplay with a solarpunk survival game Windpunk.
1. New game launches and updates in July 2025
- Rovio launched Angry Birds Bounce on Apple Arcade. The game is bringing a fresh, brick-breaking twist to the beloved Angry Birds game world.
- Vaki Games has launched a VR game Quantum Threshold on Steam and Meta Quest. The game is a single-player VR shooter with roguelike elements featuring wheelchair locomotion.
- Riftbusters by Phantom Gamelabs is now available for pre-registration and will become available globally on September 3, 2025. The game is a co-op looter shooter ARPG crafted for mobile.
- Hologram Monster has released a Steam page and a new trailer for Longtail!!, a platformer inspired by PS2 and GameCube-era classics. In the game, the player takes on the role of a lizard character named Longtail, who solves puzzles, discovers lost powers, and meets a bunch of new friends.
- Kalma Games has come out with a rhythm shooter KILLBEAT. Shoot, reload, and kill to the beat in this fast-paced roguelike.
- Null Vector Studios has released a Steam page and a game demo for Astro Protocol, a space game set to launch later this year. Astro Protocol is a turn-based 4X strategy game where each game lasts 1–2 hours.
- MiTale has released its role-playing game Willow Guard on Humble Bundle. The story-driven RPG, originally released on Steam in the spring, is at the same time a challenging and rewarding hack-and-slash action game.
- Black Smoke Studios has announced a public demo for Desert Race Adventures. It is a strategic rally adventure game with a roguelike twist.
2. European Space Agency and Finnish Game Jam launch creativity into orbit at Spaceship Game Jam
Finnish Game Jam (FGJ) and The European Space Agency (ESA) are joining forces to host the first ever Spaceship Game Jam, an innovative, collaborative game development event. It is designed to propel creativity and inspire new ideas for some of the key space exploration challenges as humanity reaches out second time towards the Moon and beyond.
Spaceship Game Jam is a single, coordinated event taking place on August 29th to 31st simultaneously across multiple locations in Finland, as well as online. The event is open to all, dedicated to fostering equal and safe space opportunity to participate, and requires no previous experience with game jams or hackathons. There is no participation fee for the event.
3. Habbo celebrates 25th birthday
One of the original virtual communities, Habbo is celebrating its silver anniversary with a month-long event designed to delight both old-school fans and curious newcomers. Throughout August, Habbo’s #Habbo25 event will deliver a mix of nostalgic throwbacks, community celebrations, and all-new features from classic room-building and collectibles to wearable tech and giveaways hosted on TikTok, Instagram, and X.
”Habbo turning 25 is a huge moment for us,” said Mika Timonen, Product Director at Habbo. ”Very few online communities make it this far, and even fewer stay this active. What’s kept Habbo going all these years is the passion and creativity of our players. This anniversary is as much a celebration of them as it is of the game itself.”
4. Windpunk envisions a future where environmental restoration is problematic but achievable
Kluk Digital is a Finnish solo developer creating indie games with creative freedom and dedication to thought-provoking games. Upcoming game Windpunk is a cozy survival-craft game about reviving the remains of a shattered small open-world with a changing ecosystem. Originally titled Wasteland Waste Disposal, Windpunk was born out of frustration with the slow response to ecological issues. Developer and founder Harri Kukka comments his thoughts on how he came up with the game idea:
”In addition to my own long-standing climate anxiety, the eco-catastrophic apocalypse in the film Nausicaä has been a major source of inspiration. I think the dynamic of fear and survival versus empathy and cooperation is a rather underused premise in post-apocalyptic survival games. I wanted to experiment with what would happen if a game didn’t revolve solely around dodging threats and hoarding resources, but also approached survival through empathy, repair, and community building. The game doesn’t explicitly forbid violent survival, but pacifism is still the optimal strategy.”
”The starting point was to create something that comments on the ecological state of the world and the factors influencing it. Many of the mechanics are based on a solarpunk aesthetic, especially the realistic imagination of what could be sustainable and achievable. One of the major design challenges has been to create a reactive, virtual ecosystem within an open world. Changes in the ecosystem occur at an accelerated pace so that the player receives immediate feedback on their actions. Of course, this is nowhere near a true model of nature, but from a game design perspective, it makes the player’s impact more understandable and meaningful, while still addressing the core themes. In addition to repairing the ecosystem, renewable energy and particularly wind power is also part of the longer-term Powermeta gameplay.”