As mentioned before MIGS is more of a B2B focused gaming summit, it is light on game demos and strong with resources to investigate and talks from accomplished Industry Veterans. I was able to check out a good number of discussions across the two day Summit and these were the highlights for my time there.

The Combat of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – Michel Nohra, Lead Game Designer at Sandfall Interactive

There is no denying the thunderous impact Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has had on the gaming world. This outstanding experience blends stunning visuals, excellent design and most importantly to this talk innovative turn based combat mixed with real time elements.

Michael Nohra is one of the early members of Sandfall, but when he joined the basics of the game were in place. His task was to work with the teams and take the combat, which was deemed ‘to hard’, ‘too complex’ and ‘cumbersome’ in early testing.

Nohra and his teams focus as described in this overview was to look at the actions, the attack sequences, the systems and streamline them to not only be fun, but to be satisfying. This meant reducing the amounts of hits from enemies to allow parries to occur, removing magic attacks, many items and just making the systems function better together.

This was a great discussion on how a game that already looks great and is feature full can be refined and iterated and sometimes MORE is not always better. I have played the game and after seeing the talk I can appreciate the nuances and combat even more.

Friendly Fire: Surviving Success as a Studio – Linda Tiger, Chief Operating Officer at Arrowhead Game Studios

Arrowhead Game Studios was a moderately successful group that was working on a game called Helldivers II for 8 years, they expected a mild splash and then would move on. Instead the game has sold close to 20 million copies and had one of the strongest, and most fraught, launches in PlayStation history.

Linda Tiger held a talk about what it takes to keep a game studio running, adapting and succeeding when the unexpected happens. The game sold exponentially better than they planned for and the players were hungry for more and not patient for mistakes or server issues.

To add complications to an already untenable situation Tiger joined Arrowhead just 2 weeks after Helldivers II launched. Her role was planned to be one of risk management, planning how to adapt after 8 years of development and likely make some hard choices, instead as she described, it was all hands on deck to get the game smoothed out, augmented and growing with the players.

She broke down many aspects of the last 18 months of her journey focusing on maintaining culture, separating business priorities from nice to haves and pivoting from content first to stability first. It was refreshing to hear her talk candidly about how they had too many managers, how they kept trying to jam content in but sometimes less is more.

It was an amazing and frankly inspiring talk to experience and brough to light the many challenges that being successful can also bring, especially if the success is unexpected. I had a chance to Interview Linda Tiger as well, so keep an eye on this space for that one on one conversation.

Monument Valley 3 – Tonality, Playfulness and Meaningful Sonic Interaction – Todd Baker, Music & Audio Artist / Director, freelancer

Parallel to MIGS25 was the MIGS Audio Summit presented by Audiokinetic held in a seperate area in the same facility. This was home to a number of discussions focused on the audio side of the gaming experience.

I had a chance to sit in on Todd Baker’s talk on how they created the amazing, nuanced and adaptable audio for Monument Valley 3. While it is a mobile experience at heart, great care has been put into crafting the sounds and music to compel players as they go on their journey.

One of his key discussion points was that they chose to build a massive catalog of sounds, tones, songs and soundbites that they can incorporate into their engine and manipulate in many ways. He started by showing a simple bridge removal section that featured ambient music, water sounds, creaks of a wheel and moving blocks. Every sound could get distorted, moved, enhanced and changed.

They also have distinct world types, one of which his do-lead worked on that was paper themed so sounds like crinkling paper, tearing and scribbling were incorporated. The audio journey they went through for the game was compelling to experience and made me appreciate the game even more once I saw how much care was leveraged to make it sound so good.

The Pulse of Canadian Gaming: A Look Ahead with the Canadian Game Awards – Carl-Edwin Michel, Founder at Canadian Game Awards

This was a last minute talk I wandered into, I had heard tangentially that there was a Canadian Game Awards, but was thrilled to Carl-Edwin Michel talk about what is next. He mentioned that they existed in a simpler form, then remotely held, but in 2024 they returned to a proper presentation partnership with TIFF Lightbox.

The awards are critical, Michel said, as there are so many talented Canadian developers that deserve a spotlight. With that he launched into the Eh! Games Expo that ran in parallel to the Canadian Game Awards and how it will be growing.

Akin to taking the band on the road, Michel and his team want to set up a platform for Canadian games big and small to be featured throughout the country so Eh! Game expo will assist with that. So not only has he promised that the Canadian Game awards will be back bigger and better next year, the expanded Expo presence will continue to shine a light on Canadian developers.

It was frankly inspiring to see Michel’s enthusiasm for this industry, Canadian studios and the gaming world in general. I am hoping to head to Toronto in 2026 and cover the Canadian Game Awards, so keep an out for that next year.