Tokyo Game Show's Selected Indie 80: 1,500 Entries, 80 Booths, One Big Stage
Tokyo Game Show's free indie showcase drew a record 1,500-plus submissions for 2026, with Shuhei Yoshida leading the judges and a new excellence award. How it works, who got in, and why a Korean game took Gold.
At most big game shows, indie developers pay for a table at the back. At Tokyo Game Show, 80 of them get a booth for free, in one of the busiest halls in Asia.
That is the deal behind Selected Indie 80, and for 2026 it was harder to get into than ever. The programme received more than 1,500 submissions, the most in its history, for just 80 places. The chosen games were shown in Hall 9 at Makuhari Messe during TGS 2026, which ran from 17 to 21 September, with the first two days reserved for business visitors.
How Selected Indie 80 works
The idea is simple. TGS's organisers and a panel of industry experts pick 80 indie games from around the world. Those developers get exhibition space at no cost, a real saving for a small studio, and every selected game is automatically entered into Sense of Wonder Night 2026, TGS's famous pitch contest for unusual, surprising game ideas.
For 2026, the judging panel was led by Shuhei Yoshida, the former PlayStation executive who has become one of indie games' most visible supporters. Sponsors also introduced a new honour, the SI80 Excellence Awards, to recognise the best of the 80.
Who got in
The final list stretched well beyond Japan, with games from the UK, Spain, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Argentina among others. Titles named in early coverage included:
- INTERSCAPE by ROOMTONE Games (South Korea)
- Nientum - Op.ZERO by QueseraGames
- Teaching My Sister to Drive by EasyFox
- Proyecto EXO (Argentina)
- JNR Ueno Station 1979
- ANRI
Taiwan was especially well represented. Three Taiwanese games made the Selected Indie 80 list, and a total of six Taiwanese indie titles were shown at TGS 2026. One of them was YARETA by Mariana Games, a combat-free open-world game that opened a free playtest on Steam ahead of the show.
A Korean Gold
The most notable result for Korean readers was INTERSCAPE by ROOMTONE Games, which received a Gold Award. Only seven titles were given Gold, so a Korean studio finishing among the very top of more than 1,500 entries is a significant result for Korea's indie scene.
Training grounds and pitch nights
Selected Indie 80 is also a showcase for Japan's indie education. Developers from the sixth cohort of the indie incubator iGi exhibited at TGS 2026, and four games from its graduates were picked for Selected Indie 80.
Meanwhile Sense of Wonder Night 2026 narrowed its pitch contest to eight finalists, who presented their ideas live on stage at the show. Sense of Wonder Night has a long tradition of showing games that make the audience gasp, which is exactly what the name promises.
Why it matters
Tokyo Game Show is still dominated by the giants, and its big halls belong to Japan's largest publishers. Selected Indie 80 is the counterweight: a guaranteed space where a solo developer from Uzbekistan or a small team from Taipei can be seen by the same crowds who queue for the biggest names.
The record number of entries shows how much that matters to developers. And Korea's Gold for INTERSCAPE is a reminder that the show's indie stage has become one of the most useful places in Asia for Korean teams to be noticed.
What to watch: TGS 2027 is the next chance. If the 2026 numbers are any guide, competition for those 80 free booths will be fiercer still. In the meantime, YARETA's Steam page is the easiest way to try one of this year's picks.