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Daggerless Indie Dev Dispatch — Week of November 9, 2026
A small studio’s first-person fishing game opened Early Access today with more than 400,000 wishlists already on the page. The Ocarina of Time remake launched last week on Switch 2 to a 96 Metascore and the highest user score Metacritic has ever recorded. GTA 6 is still ten days out. A free VR mod that runs both Fallout 3 and New Vegas in a headset has been circulating among people who already own the games, and a Sensor Tower report put indie games at 43 percent of the year’s first-month hits, up from 24 percent a year earlier.
DREADMOOR
Dream Dock’s first game dropped into Early Access today and put you behind the wheel of a beat-up trawler in a drowned world full of mutated fish you can cut up for bait, gear, or parts to keep the boat running. The $19.99 build has the full core loop and one major region right now, with the studio saying they plan to stay in Early Access for six to twelve months while they add more water and more ways to die in it. A free demo is still up if you want to check the water first.
Four hundred thousand people had the page wishlisted before the boat left the dock. That kind of interest usually shows up for a sequel or a studio people already know, and Dream Dock is neither.
Larger industry news
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake launched November 5 on Switch 2 and currently holds a 96 Metascore along with a 9.7 user score, the highest Metacritic has recorded. The remake adds sharper visuals, a jump button, voiced cutscenes, and orchestral music while keeping the original dungeons and story intact, and it remains exclusive to Switch 2.
The rest
A free VR mod based on Tale of Two Wastelands has been circulating that puts both Fallout 3 and New Vegas into a headset with true 6DOF motion controls, custom-animated weapons, and no VorpX required. The project, shown in a public demo last month and available for testing, lets you walk the Capital Wasteland and the Mojave in the same install if you already own both games. It is still early, but the videos of people racking a lever-action or throwing a grenade with their actual hands have been moving through the usual VR channels all week.
A Sensor Tower analysis of games that sold more than 500,000 copies in their first thirty days found indie titles rising from 13 hits a year ago to 33 this year, so indies accounted for 43 percent of those launches and 38 percent of the first-month units while new series made up 53 percent of the hits. Friendslop co-op games produced the largest individual numbers, but most of the new indie breakouts were single-player or smaller multiplayer titles.
Reuters reported that Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund have held talks about acquiring Unity, though no deal has been confirmed and Unity’s last earnings call remains the public context for the discussion.
Grand Theft Auto VI remains November 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series, with pre-loading for people who pre-ordered expected to begin around November 12.
Out this week
- DREADMOOR entered Early Access today on Steam.
- Night Cart: The Immortal Plague launches today.
- One Fenix Down launches today.
- Annihilated launches tomorrow.
Industry Notes
- Borderlands has passed 100 million copies sold across the series.
- id Software co-head said the studio is “doing great” after losing about half its staff in recent Xbox cuts.
- Bloodborne reportedly sold a quarter of a million copies this year alone.
Free Tools & Assets
- Kenney.nl — Tiny City and the Shape 2D to 3D application are current. All-in-1 is coming to Steam.
- itch.io free assets and OpenGameArt.
- Epic Fab limited-time free through November 17: Underground Tunnel by MacKenzie Shirk, SciFi Beast06 Bull by Shumniy, and the 3D Platformer Game Bundle by Raul Jaramillo. Claim at fab.com/limited-time-free.
Daggerless Verdict
A first-person fishing game from a small studio opened Early Access with 400,000 wishlists already on the page the same week the Ocarina of Time remake landed on Switch 2 with the highest user score Metacritic has recorded. A free mod put both Fallout 3 and New Vegas into a headset for people who already own the games. Sensor Tower’s numbers show indie launches taking a larger share of the first-month hits than they did a year ago. The boat left the dock before GTA 6 arrived.
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