XP Game Summit returns to Toronto’s Hyatt Regency Hotel on June 12-13, 2025, spotlighting Canada’s dynamic $5.1 billion gaming sector as part of the city’s inaugural official Video Game Month. Produced by XP Gaming Inc., this major two-day B2B conference is designed to empower developers, publishers, investors, and platforms with the connections and insights needed to thrive in the competitive global gaming market.
The event marks significant growth from previous years, featuring participation from over 300 companies and 17 publishers, almost tripling last year’s numbers. With gaming contributing significantly to Canada’s GDP, 88% of locally-made games being exported internationally, this summit highlights the critical economic and cultural role games play.
Industry Leaders and Innovative Discussions
This year’s program offers over 44 interactive sessions, panels, and workshops featuring top industry leaders. Renowned speakers include Celia Hodent, a freelance UX strategist, Sheldon Carter, President of Digital Extremes, and Jason Della Rocca, co-founder of Execution Labs. Key discussions include:
- Crafting Emotions In Games: The 5 Pillars That Make Players Feel
- Mastering AI for Game Development
- Owning the Player Relationship: How Direct-to-Consumer is Reshaping Game Growth
- Indie to AA: A Tale of Bold Ambition and Harsh Reality
These sessions will cover essential themes such as game IP development, AI integration, ethical UX design, and financial strategies for game studios.
Toronto Games Week: A Celebration of Gaming Culture
XP Game Summit anchors Toronto Games Week, a citywide celebration attracting over 40,000 gaming enthusiasts. Events throughout June showcase the rich interplay between gaming and other tech sectors like film, AI, and immersive technologies, affirming Toronto’s status as a global innovation hub.
Canada’s Global Gaming Influence
Canada, particularly Ontario, is recognized globally for its robust gaming ecosystem, housing key industry players such as Ubisoft, Digital Extremes, and indie powerhouses like Finji and Serenity Forge. Ontario alone hosts over 200 active game studios, employing thousands and driving significant tech innovation and cultural exports.
The XP Game Summit reinforces Canada’s strategic commitment to nurturing gaming talent, innovation, and global competitiveness, providing pivotal networking opportunities and international exposure.
Enhanced Networking and Matchmaking Opportunities
The event also introduces enhanced business matchmaking through MeetToMatch, facilitating strategic connections between developers, publishers, and investors. Community-driven events, including a VIP Welcome Mixer and Indie Pitch Competition, further bolster the event’s role in fostering industry growth and collaboration.
Spotlight on Indie Games: The Indie Showcase
One of the standout attractions of XP Game Summit is the expansive Indie Showcase. Featuring over 40 indie games, the showcase provides a vibrant platform for emerging talent and innovation. Indie games hold a special place in the Canadian gaming ecosystem, known for their creativity, storytelling prowess, and innovative gameplay mechanics.
Meet Your 2025 Indie Showcase Winners
Akiiwan: Survival (Little Buffalo Studios)
A thrilling survival-adventure set in the wilds of the Canadian North, with an emphasis on cultural storytelling and environmental interaction. Players forage, craft, and build shelters as they learn Indigenous survival techniques.
Angels of Battle (BV Taisei)
A fast-paced, squad-based aerial combat game where you pilot angelic mech suits. Combines high-stakes shoot‑’em‑up action with divine powers across floating landscapes.
Brave New Wonders (City From Naught)
A narrative-driven platformer focused on rebuilding a fractured world. Solve puzzles, forge alliances, and uncover lost technologies to reshape a post‑apocalyptic society.
Button Man (Styrax Studios)
A quirky action-puzzler built entirely around button-mashing combos with comedic flair. Think “one-button chaos” meets intense timing challenges.
Capy Castaway (Kitten Cup Studio)
An adorable capybara marooned on a tropical island must survive by farming, foraging, and befriending animal neighbors. Casual, cozy gameplay with charming pixel art.
Criss Cross Castle (Simply Sweet Games)
A top-down puzzle adventure within an ever-shifting castle. Players must realign rooms by rotating tiles and solving labyrinthine layout puzzles.
Fresh Tracks (Buffalo Buffalo)
Skateboarding meets narrative road trip: glide through scenic Ontario-inspired locales while unraveling a heartfelt story about friendship and artistic identity.
GlitchSPANKR (TheClassifiedX)
An explosive, glitch‑heavy action platformer. Weaponize bugs and system errors to turn chaos into weaponry across digital battlegrounds.
Isles of Krom (Floppy Goat Inc.)
A roguelite action-adventure where each procedurally generated island offers new biome and loot combinations. Emphasizes quick combat loops and exploration.
Paw Pirates (Team Paw)
Play as adorable animal buccaneers navigating a vibrant, cel-shaded open sea. Capture booty, barter with coastal towns, and customize your crew of furry pirates.
Retroronto (Starspray Studios Ltd.)
A love letter to ‘80s Toronto: top-down arcade racing through neon-lit city streets, complete with synthwave soundtrack and retro-future design.
Sock Dating Simulator (Hannagie Productions)
A humorous, pixel-art parody dating sim… featuring anthropomorphic socks. Navigate quirky conversations and comedic scenarios to find “the one.”
The Calling (BuriedCandy)
A moody horror‑mystery in 3D: explore eerie environments, uncover secrets, and survive supernatural threats—perfect for fans of narrative horror.
THE SIGNAL (Goose Byte)
A signal‑based puzzle-exploration game: manipulate sound and radio frequencies to solve environmental puzzles and progress in a surreal world.
Twins of Olus (Team Verdant)
An atmospheric platformer starring twin siblings with unique powers. Split-screen, co-op puzzles encourage teamwork on a magical floating island.
Ultimate Sheep Raccoon (Clever Endeavour Games)
A competitive party game pitting sheep against raccoons in farmyard havoc. Pull pranks, outsmart opponents, and cause comedic chaos.
Ontario Creates Showcase
Deep Dish Dungeon (Behold Studios)
A roguelike set in a pizza-themed dungeon. Slice ingredients, battle cheesed monsters, and build the ultimate “deep dish” power-bake.
Elsewhere Electric (Stitch Media)
A VR narrative experience steeped in magical realism. Navigate a neon-lit metropolis in search of lost memories and hidden meaning.
LongStory2 (Bloom Digital)
A life-simulation dating story geared toward teens, centered on inclusivity, friendship, and social identity—perfect for fans of narrative-rich slice-of-life games.
Raze Vol. 1 (Cream Productions)
A top-down JRPG-inspired dungeon-crawler featuring real-time combat and bold anime-style storytelling. Enlist companions and fight through monster-filled catacombs.
Robots At Midnight (Finish Line Games)
A silent robot explores a moonlit metropolis to solve puzzles and uncover its purpose. Atmospheric, wordless storytelling via environmental cues and clockwork mechanics.
Scaravan 66 (Lithic Entertainment)
A survival road-trip simulator: travel across a bizarre highway in a sentient caravan, manage supplies, interact with wacky characters, and overcome supernatural hazards.
Sky of Tides (Lofty Sky Entertainment)
A narrative adventure with airship travel, skyborne islands, and a deep narrative. Players manage ship resources while discovering a hidden world.
The Light Within (Pomsky Games)
A meditative 3D exploration of inner light and darkness, traversing dreamlike worlds filled with puzzles that reflect self-discovery themes.
🛠 XP25 Indie Showcase Exhibitors
- Aeon Wars Tactics (Soliton Interactive): A turn‑based tactical strategy game with sleek sci‑fi aesthetics and dynamic battlefield mechanics.
- A Game About Nothing (Team Thing): Experimental, minimalist puzzler exploring existential themes via nontraditional gameplay.
- Ambrosia Sky (Soft Rains): Celestial farming meets divine magic—grow sky gardens and harness light in a serene, herb-powered world.
- Bushcraft Survival (Michael Jared Software): Wilderness survival sim focusing on fire-making, shelter-building, and tracking wildlife.
- Clean Getaway (Hidden Duck Digital): A top-speed kart racer designed for couch co-op mayhem, with customizable vehicles and wacky tracks.
- Endless Night: The Darkness Within (Little Guy Games): A psychological thriller survival game in perpetual darkness; manage sanity as well as resources.
- Elemental Shifter (BYG Bang Games): Platformer where characters shift between elemental forms to solve environmental puzzles.
- Frankenpets (Frankenpets): Monster-breeding creature collector game with charmingly weird pets.
- Green Thing from Planet Jupiter (Slugworks): Comedy platformer starring an alien plant exploring Earth.
- West of Jupiter (Dog Street Studios): Sci-fi shooter with resource scavenging and alien creatures on a desert planet.
Toronto Games Week 2025: Where Culture, Code, and Community Collide
As the XP Game Summit anchors the city with two days of industry networking, Toronto Games Week 2025 (June 12–18) transforms the surrounding week into a vibrant celebration of video game culture, creativity, and community. With more than 50 public and professional events spread across galleries, parks, campuses, and cultural spaces, Toronto Games Week positions the city as a global nexus for experimental game design, interactive storytelling, and serious play.
Now in its third year, Toronto Games Week is more than a satellite festival—it is a city-wide platform spotlighting the intersection of video games with art, social impact, and public space. This year’s edition arrives during the City of Toronto’s newly proclaimed Video Game Month, amplifying the significance of gaming not just as entertainment, but as a cultural and economic engine.
Key Events and Activations
Giant Video Games & TGW Kickoff – June 12, 8:00–11:00 p.m.
The official launch event transforms the waterfront into a playable canvas. Attendees can interact with large-scale projections of Toronto-made games on the historic Canada Malting Silos. This free outdoor celebration, presented by the City of Toronto in collaboration with Interactive Ontario and OCAD University, marks the beginning of a week where creativity spills into public space.
XP Game Summit – June 12–13, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Held at the Hyatt Regency Toronto, XP Game Summit is the business-focused heart of Toronto Games Week. With over 300 companies, 100 speakers, and more than 40 panels and workshops, XP connects developers with publishers, investors, and platform leaders. The summit includes Canada’s largest Indie Showcase, featuring titles like the upcoming VR release HexWind from Charm Games, launching June 12 on Steam and Meta Quest 3.
Behaviour Interactive Meet & Greet – June 12, 5:00–7:30 p.m.
Hosted at Behaviour Interactive’s new Toronto office, this in-person gathering offers a more intimate setting for developers and industry professionals to network post-XP Summit. Though sold out, it reflects strong interest in meaningful, in-person dialogue across the game dev ecosystem.
xXx_FANTASYLAND_xXx – June 12–13, 12:00–6:00 p.m.
Presented at InterAccess, this transgressive media installation fuses surreal horror, music, and live performance into a game-infused dreamscape. Designed to critique the objectification of trans and racialized bodies, it invites players to participate in a living narrative experience.
The GRID – June 13, 6:00–9:00 p.m.
A structured indie playtesting event where developers showcase early builds to the public and industry peers. Hosted at George Brown College, this environment fosters candid feedback, iteration, and discovery of breakout indie talent.
DEI or DIE: Variety Showcase & Queer Social – June 13, 6:00–9:00 p.m.
Hosted by Gav Sarafian and Hannah Beatty, this showcase explores diversity, equity, and inclusion through micro talks and game performances. Held at Toronto Metropolitan University, it builds critical dialogue around the future of inclusive design in games.
Indie Energy and Experimental Play
Game Jam Day – June 14, 10:30 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
MicroJam participants build board and PICO-8 games from scratch in one day, culminating in a live showcase. Hosted at the Lillian H. Smith Library, the event is led by Adam Saltsman (Finji) and Andrew Tran, emphasizing rapid prototyping and cross-medium experimentation.
Kitten Cup Tea Party – June 14, 1:00–3:00 p.m.
A charming outdoor gathering at Grange Park celebrating local indie studio Kitten Cup with a preview of their upcoming game Capy Castaway. Includes tea tasting, giveaways, and community activities—underscoring the rising popularity of cozy games.
Night Bike Parkcade – June 14, 8:30–11:00 p.m.
A pop-up arcade under the stars, this year’s edition features bike-themed games like Street Uni X and Loser Lane. The secret location is revealed only to newsletter subscribers, reinforcing TGW’s underground, grassroots energy.
Pixel Power Play – June 14, 12:00–8:00 p.m.
Presented by Twitch and Overactive Media, this live and virtual event showcases global game announcements and demos, providing a major platform for Canadian developers to reach international audiences.
Art, Education, and Community
Journaling for Game Makers – June 12, 5:00–6:30 p.m.
Tanya Kan of Vivid Foundry leads a creative roundtable on the role of journaling in game development. Attendees explore how reflective practices can enhance production and innovation workflows.
Making + Playing a Little Free Library RPG – June 12, 6:30–8:00 p.m.
An imaginative event at Fort York Library where books become spell ingredients in the game Spellbinder. Participants engage in urban exploration while blending literary play with tabletop roleplaying.
Games Made Open – June 15, 11:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Held at TTL Makerspace, this event promotes open-source tools like Godot and Blender, encouraging attendees to flash their own Gameboy cartridges and build with laser-cut arcade hardware.
NextGen Showcase – June 15, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
Curated and supported by Unreal and AMD, this showcase highlights emerging student talent from Toronto’s postsecondary institutions. Hosted at CSI Spadina, it is a vital look at the future of the local game dev scene.
Dream Game Incorporated – June 15, 1:00–8:00 p.m.
A collaborative event where participants doodle assets for a game-in-progress while engaging in live, improvised design. A playful, drop-in style activity with a community-first vibe.
Closing the Week with Play and Purpose
Seriously Fun Showcase – June 17, 8:00–11:00 p.m.
Hosted by Wero, this event spotlights games with educational, instructive, or political themes. It’s a hub for serious game creators to exchange ideas in a casual, social format at Danu Social House.
SUNCHASER – June 17, 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
A one-of-a-kind ambient game installation that invites players to fly MS Flight Simulator in pursuit of the sun’s horizon line, with live projections and closing gatherings to reflect on the meditative experience.
Toronto Games Week Closing Party – June 18, 7:00–11:00 p.m.
The week concludes at 401 Richmond with live music, celebration, and a showcase of OMNIVOX, an LED-powered cube that merges art and interactive storytelling. Co-presented by Trinity Square Video, the party is a fitting finale to a week that merged innovation with imagination.
A New Cultural Frontier for Games
Toronto Games Week 2025 is more than a festival—it’s an evolving cultural infrastructure that connects games with urban life, social change, and creative expression. Through this week of workshops, performances, jams, showcases, and celebrations, Toronto continues to assert its role as a global leader in games not just as commerce, but as culture.
Whether you’re an indie dev, industry veteran, hobbyist, or game curious, Toronto Games Week invites you to play, reflect, and imagine what games can become.
HexWind Takes Flight: A Bold New VR Adventure Launches During XP Game Summit 2025
Among this year’s exciting indie games in Ontario is HexWind, a highly anticipated virtual reality (VR) action game developed by Charm Games with assistance by Ottawa based Neptune Agency. Set for launch on June 12th, coinciding with the XP Game Summit, HexWind will be available on Steam and Meta Quest 3.
This VR roguelike adventure promises to immerse players in an atmospheric world where lightning-fast combat, intricate spell mechanics, and captivating visuals converge to redefine VR gaming experiences. The game has garnered attention for its blend of strategy, immersive environments, and the studio’s renowned storytelling capabilities.
For detailed information, visit XP Game Summit and follow XP Gaming on social media for real-time updates. LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram.
