Usual June<\/em> is anything but usual. Talking ghosts? Walking crabs? An interdimensional vortex beneath a 100-year-old cemetery? And all June wanted was a normal summer break.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n <\/p>\n If this sounds like the sort of indie gem that flies under the radar and then blows up your social feeds, you\u2019re not off base. Usual June<\/em> is developed by Finji, the Michigan-based company that\u2019s sneakily become a modern kingmaker of indie gaming tastes. Finji has published some of the biggest breakout hits of the decade \u2014 including the Zeldalike Tunic<\/em>, the adventure game Chicory: A Colorful Tale<\/em>, and the narrative platformer Night in the Woods<\/em> \u2014 but the company also develops its own games. Usual June<\/em> is its next one, and Polygon is able to offer an exclusive look at the game for our annual Fall Preview.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were R&Ding and deciding what to make next back in 2020, 2021, and we did not<\/em> make a fishing game based on Animal Crossing,\u201d Finji cofounder and CEO Rebekah Saltsman said during a recent group interview attended by Polygon.<\/p>\n \t\t Instead, the Finji team took stock of what they wanted to make and how they wanted to spend the next few years. They ultimately landed on a genre-bending adventure game that mixes coming-of-age narrative exploration with Devil May Cry-style combat. Usual June<\/em> follows the titular June, a young woman who lives in the fictional midwest college town of Fen Harbor, which looks like what would happen if you ran a Hallmark movie set through an indie game aesthetic filter. Finji is using the setting to inject some very real IRL commentary, too.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen things come to an end in the Midwest, historically, it’s because billionaires are done harvesting stuff there, and move on,\u201d Adam Saltsman, Finji cofounder and Usual June\u2019s game director, told Polygon in an email. (Adam and Rebekah are married, hence the shared last name.) \u201cThat’s a pattern all over the world but it’s writ very large and clear and recent all over the Midwest \u2014 this relationship with billionaire patrons, and wondering whether or not they’ll allow your city to continue along its present track, or if they are going to put their fingers on the scale again, and what it might look like if they do that. When they do that.\u201d<\/p>\n On June\u2019s birthday (June 17, according to an in-game smartphone that serves as your menu), she and her friends end up exploring the local cemetery. A recent hands-on demo I played picked up shortly afterward, about 25 minutes into the game, according to Rebekah Saltsman. By this point, June and her friends had met a ghost, fought some spectral crabs, and found themselves trapped in an ancient mausoleum. While there, they discover an astral plane that could erase Fen Harbor from existence. Metaphors abound.<\/p>\n The first part of the demo involved walking around the crypt, trying to find a way out, but mostly chatting with June\u2019s friends. It captures the light hijinks vibe of a late-semester evening with friends, strolling away from the dorms so your RA doesn\u2019t yell at you for smoking weed by the entrance.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you’re that age, especially if you’re in college or at university or whatever, the vibe is kind of different and new from maybe how summer break would feel when you’re growing up,\u201d Adam Saltsman said. \u201cMaybe you have to make rent, maybe you are taking summer classes, maybe you are, like, crashing at your friends place and doing nothing still, and then it’s weird because the whole town empties out. \u2026 But there’s still a looming feeling, right?\u201d<\/p>\n Usual June<\/em>\u2019s dialogue is snappy and flows the way a real conversation between twentysomethings would. (Cara Ellison, who\u2019s worked in the narrative department on everything from God of War Ragnar\u00f6k<\/em> to The Seance of Blake Manor<\/em>, consulted on narrative direction for Usual June<\/em>.) Lead writer David Pinckney said these \u201cquieter scenes\u201d are more than just filler: They help round out the gameplay as well, so Usual June<\/em> isn\u2019t all just \u201ccombat and sleuthing.\u201d<\/p>\n Notably, while the game features voice actors, it does not feature voiced dialogue. Instead, voices are rendered as \u2014 there\u2019s really only one way to put this \u2014 twee art house gibberish. Finji worked with a team of Detroit-based actors to come up with various vocal tones and accents for each character, then applied a custom-built Vocaloid system to transform that in Usual June<\/em>\u2019s unique not-dialogue. (According to Rebekah Saltsman, it took audio designer Adam Hays \u201csomething like three years\u201d to create this system.)<\/p>\n Usual June<\/em> never surprises you with its combat: You can always tell when you\u2019re about to get into a fight. Right before every encounter, you\u2019ll come across a green screen blocking you from entering the combat arena, which allows you to see what enemies you\u2019re about to face and map out a plan of attack. Pinckney described the game as having a \u201clow skill floor and high skill ceiling,\u201d a description that is, in my limited experience, right on the money. At Gamescom 2026, I saw Pinckney play through this exact combat sequence flawlessly. When I went hands-on with it myself, I\u2026 Look, I didn\u2019t get my ass handed to me exactly, but let\u2019s just say I lost a lot more health than Pinckney did.<\/p>\n Combat is fast and fluid, and while there are parries in the game, there\u2019s more of an emphasis on dodging. June\u2019s dodge is a short-distance dash; time it right and you fill up her super meter, which allows you to perform more powerful attacks. There\u2019s also a stylized frame rate effect, giving everything a comic-book look reminiscent of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse<\/em>. (For transparency, I played the demo on a Steam Deck, and had it crash before I turned down the settings to low. Usual June<\/em> has not officially been verified for Steam Deck.) June\u2019s health restores after fights, too, so you\u2019re encouraged to go all out.<\/p>\n Typically, games with tight combat go all in on said combat; you never have to wait long before getting to the next fight. But Finji is happy to let Usual June<\/em> go long stretches between battles, with lots of meaty dialogue sequences punctuating the action. The bonds June exhibits with her friends are just as engaging as the battles against giant spectral crabs. Over the course of my 30-minute demo, I found myself trying to fight my way through so I could experience more of her story. Then, during narrative sequences, I found myself pining to return to the fight.<\/p>\n This balance is an intentional choice: \u201cWe left room in the levels and between combat for how our four main characters might experience the discoveries they make, and what they mean,\u201d Ellison said in an email interview.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s that balance that has me most intrigued by Usual June<\/em>: It\u2019s more mechanically engaging than your typical indie-aesthetic narrative game, and is more reflective of real-world woes than your typical fast-paced action game. Finji has struck gold before, both with its own games and with those it\u2019s curated through publishing. If the balance of Usual June<\/em> pans out for the whole game, the company might just have the most unusual hit of the fall.<\/p>\n Usual June<\/em> will be released Oct. 28 for Windows PC.<\/p>\n![\"Polygon](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/polygon-2026-fall-preview-website-element-v2.png\")
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\n <\/picture>Image: Finji<\/small><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n