G-STAR's Indie Galaxy: 106 Studios, 250 Booths and Your Next Favourite Game
The biggest indie hall in G-STAR's history is the best reason to go to Busan this year. How it's organised, who's backing it, and how to find a gem before the rest of the world does.
Every year, somewhere in a corner of a big game show, a two-person team shows a demo that people will be talking about a year later. At G-STAR 2026 that corner has turned into a galaxy. Indie Showcase 2.0: GALAXY fills Hall 2's first floor with 250 booths from 106 developers from Korea and around the world, according to Issue On, Gamemeca and DigitalToday.
How the hall works
The showcase is split into four zones, which makes it much easier to explore:
- G-STAR Selected Indie demo zone: 37 studios picked by the organisers.
- Devolver Digital publisher zone: 23 studios shown by the publisher behind Hotline Miami and Cult of the Lamb.
- European and Polish studio zone: 16 studios, with the European Games Developer Federation (EGDF) and the Embassy of Poland in Seoul.
- Unity indie demo zone: 30 studios making games with the Unity engine.
Steam Deck and Discord are official sponsors, so expect to try plenty of demos on handhelds.
Not just demos
- Unity AI Game Jam: teams build a game against the clock on site.
- Indie Relay Talks: developers take turns sharing how they made their games.
- G-STAR Investment Connect: a new pitch stage in the business hall where indie developers and start-ups present to venture capital firms and publishers. For a small studio, a good pitch here can fund the next two years.
Why Poland?
Poland has become one of Europe's game-making powerhouses, home to CD Projekt Red (also at G-STAR this year: read our spotlight) and a thriving indie scene. Its embassy co-hosting a zone in Busan shows how countries now treat games as an export industry worth promoting.
Korea's own indie wave
Korean indies are having a moment. Dave the Diver (2023), from Nexon's small Mintrocket team, sold millions worldwide, and Sanabi, a Korean pixel-art action game, became a word-of-mouth favourite in 2023. Busan also hosts BIC, the Busan Indie Connect festival, so the city has deep indie roots.
How to explore it
Go early, pick one zone per hour, and play the demos with the shortest queues. The best games often have no queue at all on day one. WGC will feature the standouts in our new Indie section.
See where the indie hall ranks in our exhibitor guide.