Indie Gems: The 15 Best Indie Games You’ve Got To Play
I’ll admit that looking for the best indie games based solely on their being indie is a colossal task. After all, the only thing that makes a game indie is its funding – a game is indie if it’s either self-published (by small teams of developers) or funded by a small publisher. And it’s this financial freedom that allows indie games to blossom.
The focus on artistic expression or innovation challenges indies to truly stand out – whether that be via creativity or pushing game mechanics to the next level. Indie games can’t just use their brand name or previous hits to sell copies: they have to shine on their own merits. Because of this, you know that when an indie game is good, it’s good.
Top Picks: Best Indie Games
While there are a ton of great indie games, there are also going to be a few that shine brighter than the rest. Here are my picks for the best of the best on this list:
- Hades (2020) – a fast-paced mythological action roguelike.
- Spelunky 2 (2020) – a dynamic action-adventure platformer in ancient ruins.
- Disco Elysium (2019) – a literal novel of a CRPG that shook the genre up.
- Stray (2022) – tackle a cyberpunk dystopia as a cat.
- Factorio (2020) – build, innovate, optimize. The factory must grow.
- Project Zomboid (2013) – the definitive zombie apocalypse experience.
- Balatro (2024) – a simple yet devilishly addictive poker roguelike.
These titles are just scratching the surface, though. Read on to discover my list of indie gems. Who knows, your new favorite might be a scroll away!
Best 15 Indie Games of All Time
What makes indie games especially appealing is their need to stand out from their AAA peers. No matter their genre – action roguelike, CRPG, platformer, monster tamer, racing, or eldritch horror – indie games must excel (either artistically, thematically, or mechanically) for them to see any success. This need to be outstanding pushes indie games forward to be better than both their fellow indies and anything a big studio can produce.
With that said, these fifteen have definitely excelled. Here’s my list of the 15 indies you’ve got to try:
1. Hades
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 10/10 | PC, macOS, Switch, PS4/5, Xbox 1, Xbox Series X/S, iOS | 2020 |
Supergiant Games’ Hades isn’t just a great indie game, it’s one of the best roguelike games too.
As Zagreus, son of Hades, you’ll attempt to escape the confines of your home/prison and reach the surface. While this might sound like an RPG plot, Hades instead opts for pulse-pounding, mechanically tight action roguelike gameplay. With short, intense runs punctuated by spectacular boss fights, it’s very hard to put Hades down.
While escaping the underworld is a daunting task, you’ll get many tools to help you along the way. Players can unlock a myriad of weapons and passive upgrades, as well as partake of divine boons that allow you to tailor your build.
The cherry on top of all this is Hades’ rich storytelling that’s expertly woven into the action gameplay. And if you’re worried that the game is too hard for you to enjoy the story, there are accessibility options too.
2. Spelunky 2
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 8/10 | PC, Switch, PS4, Xbox 1, Xbox Series X/S | 2020 |
For those who prefer an indie mix of puzzles and action, Spelunky 2 should hit the spot. This surprisingly fast and snappy action platformer roguelike places you in the well-worn boots of Ana, the daughter of the first game’s protagonists, as she searches the moon for her parents.
Sounds simple? It’s anything but. Spelunky 2’s dungeons are rife not just with treasure, but also fiendish foes and devious traps that will quickly put an end to your spelunking. But with each failure comes knowledge, and while Spelunky 2 punishes haste and recklessness, it also rewards mastery and knowledge. Just remember to look before you leap!
3. Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 10/10 | PC, macOS, Switch, PS4/5, Xbox 1, Xbox Series X/S | 2019 |
Disco Elysium is lauded as one of the best RPG games of all time. This game totally upended the CRPG genre because of its unique take.
While the game is (on the surface level) about an amnesiac detective investigating a homicide, it’s more of a commentary on the concept of the “self”. The detective is a blank canvas – he has no memories, and with that loss of memories comes the loss of faculties and ideologies. Each of your mental and physical capabilities is a fully fleshed out character, while every political ideology is made fun of. But whether you decide to rebuild your life around certain skills or philosophies, your journey will eventually end and you’ll have to answer one question: will you stay, or will you turn and move forward?
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4. Stray
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 8/10 | PC, macOS, Switch, PS4/5, Xbox 1, Xbox Series X/S | 2022 |
A cyberpunk city, escape, hidden truths, memories. All of these are concepts that could make a pretty dang good story game. But a simple yet amazing addition to this blend gives Stray a good case for being one of the best story games: you’re forced to play as a cat. And yes, you can do cat stuff, like meow to find your cat gang, type nonsense on keyboards, ask robots for pets, cuddle up to things, and purr. Cat people rejoice!
Stray, however, isn’t a one-hit wonder. Beneath the adorable cat exterior lies a wonderfully fresh perspective on the cyberpunk hellscape setting. Thanks to your small size and inability to communicate, you’ll interact with the setting through different eyes – all of which creates a unique experience.
5. Factorio
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 10/10 | PC, Linux, macOS, Switch | 2020 |
Factorio is an absolute masterpiece of an indie game where you play as an engineer who crash-landed on a wild, uncivilized planet. To get back home, you’ll need to harvest Nauvis’ vast mineral sources – coal, iron, copper, uranium, and oil – to create an infrastructure capable of bringing you back home. No biggie.
Where Factorio shines is in its sheer scale. While the first hour will be spent on survival, everything else will be spent on upgrades, iteration, optimization, discovery, and conquest. Each new technology unlocks bigger, better, faster, or more optimal ways to do things, so you’ll never run out of things to do. It’s also satisfying to watch your humble outpost turn into an industrial behemoth that will persist long after you leave the planet – if you want to.
6. Project Zomboid
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 10/10 | PC, OS X, Linux | 2013 (Early Access) |
Ever wanted to direct your own zombie apocalypse movie? Project Zomboid will scratch that itch.
This sandbox has it all: survival mechanics, crafting, building, weapons, and a merciless horde of zombies. As the sole (or not, if you play multiplayer) of the Knox Infection, it’s your task to eke out an existence in a post-zombie Kentucky. No help is coming, no one’s here to judge you, and the only goals you need to accomplish are those you set for yourself. This is the story of how you died.
Once you’re done adjusting the game’s many options to fine-tune your end-of-the-world experience (including immunity, if you want to play Left 4 Dead style), you can turn to the game’s vast library of mods to enhance or even overhaul your next trek through the land of the living dead.
Get the best deal on Project Zomboid >
7. Balatro
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 10/10 | PC, macOS, Switch, PS4/5, Xbox 1, Xbox Series X/S, iOS, Android | 2024 |
Despite being a small indie game, Balatro quickly distinguished itself via its simple yet deep gameplay and garnered commercial success and critical acclaim.
Balatro recontextualizes the familiar concept of poker by transforming the entire game into a roguelike. Each time you sit at the Balatro table, you’ll need to overcome increasingly challenging enemies by playing poker hands. The odds will be stacked against you, so you’ll need to pull in different types of cards – tarot, planet, and maybe even an actual credit card – to push things back in your favor and pull one over the house. This may sound simplistic, but in practice, Balatro is huge as there are so many combos and synergies that you can cook up (or stumble upon) – making this indie both fun and addicting.
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8. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 10/10 | PC, Linux, macOS, New 3DS, Wii U, Switch, PS Vita, PS4/5, Xbox 1, Xbox Series X/S | 2014 |
The Binding of Isaac is infamous for its raw audacity. No sane publisher would ever dare to back a game where a young boy uses his tears, pee, poop, and farts to navigate deadly dungeons and kill Satan. No, I am not kidding.
Despite its outrageous premise, TBOI absolutely does not get by on its sheer shock value. What we have here is a roguelike par excellence. With expertly-crafted floors, a myriad of tricky enemies, lots of unlockable characters and items, and synergies you wouldn’t even think to expect, The Binding of Isaac is a hell of a lot of fun, and one of the best roguelikes and indie games.
Get a great deal on the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth >
9. Palworld
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 8/10 | PC, macOS, PS5, Xbox Series 1, Xbox Series X/S | 2024 (Early Access) |
Palworld is a creature game that’s grown up with us Pokemon and Digimon kids from 20 years ago. With its irreverent, hilarious fusion of the monster tamer genre with the open-world survival craft formula, Palworld hits a lot of the right spots.
Palworld shines in its dark humor. Capturing monsters? Beat them half to death with a wooden stick, then capture them before they bite the dust. Need food? Butcher some wild Pals. Need automation? Condemn your Pals to an eternity of indentured labor. The kid gloves are fully off in Palworld, and it’s this jaded approach that makes the game distinct and most importantly, fun.
10. Cassette Beasts
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 8/10 | PC, Linux, Switch, Xbox 1, Xbox Series X/S, iOS (upcoming), Android (upcoming) | 2023 |
Cassette Beasts is a more straight-laced take on the monster-tamer game that instead refines the genre’s mechanics to make a fun standout game.
The star of Cassette Beasts is its combat system. Cassette Beasts takes a more strategic approach to battle via 2v2 turn-based combat fueled by action points. Combat is simple yet satisfying: pick a tape, transform into that beast, try not to get hit in your human form, and exploit the complex elemental reaction system (no simple weakness/resistance here). Best of all, you can fuse with a partner to create a single, powerful beast that’s more than the sum of its parts.
We can’t talk about cassette tapes without touching on music, and Cassette Beasts has a phenomenal soundtrack. The best part? The lyrics only kick in while you’re fused. Makes it that much more special.
Get a great deal on Cassette Beasts >
11. Astlibra: Revision
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 9/10 | PC, Switch | 2022 |
Nothing screams “solo developer” more than using different sprite styles and free-to-use indie music. Thanks to that, Astlibra is perhaps the most indie game on this list. Whether it’s through its honest, earnest storytelling, an unforgettable cast of characters, expansive progression systems, or frenetic combat a la the old Tales Of games, Astlibra is a fine and very welcome addition to the 2D RPG genre.
In this game, you play as a young man who’s searching far and wide for a missing girl he met in his childhood. Oh, and you’ll also stumble upon the legendary Scales of Astraea, which lets their bearer mess with time. Admittedly, it’s very tropey, and yet it does nothing to detract from the game’s charm. Astlibra knows that you’re here for a good time, and it has that in spades.
12. Valheim
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 9/10 | PC, Linux, macOS, Xbox 1, Xbox Series X/S | 2021 |
Few open-world survival craft games release with as high a degree of polish as Valheim did. With its carefully cultivated blend of exploration, base building, character progression, fully functional multiplayer, and retro graphics, Valheim ticked all the right boxes for gamers.
Personally, the best part of Valheim is in how much it pushes you to explore. See, Valheim is divided into biomes of increasing difficulty, and each biome presents not just new dangers but new resources. Whether you’re looking for iron to forge new arms and armor, new types of materials to build your great halls with, or new vistas to admire the sea and stars from, Valheim continually urges you to leave your comfort zone and rewards you for doing so.
Lastly, the game does have mod support, allowing you to tailor your Viking fantasy however you so wish!
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13. Circuit Superstars
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 8/10 | PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox 1 | 2021 |
Don’t be fooled by Circuit Superstars’ cartoon exterior. This is a tight, precise racer that rewards player experience and skill, making it one of the best racing games I’ve played in a while.
The game is backed by a robust physics engine, making every bump, crash, and drift very real. Courses tend to be short, tricky, and fun, with lots of tight turns and huge curves that require players to master the physics system, lest they fall behind.
Resource management is the other half of Circuit Superstars. As you drive around the course, your fuel will run out, and careless driving and drifting damage both your health and tires. This presents a tactical choice on whether you duck into a pit stop for a full repair and give up your lead or try to finish the race with your damaged, underperforming vehicle.
Get a great deal on Circuit Superstars >
14. Terraria
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 9/10 | PC, Linux, macOS, 3DS, Wii U, Switch, PS Vita, PS3/4, Xbox 1, iOS, Android | 2011 |
Terraria is often incorrectly written off as “a 2D Minecraft clone”, but it’s closer to a Metroidvania with some survival craft elements.
The meat of the Terraria experience is in adventure, discovery, and combat. Exploration yields new materials that you can use to become stronger – ores and monster drops can become powerful weapons and armor, while powerups give a much-needed maximum HP and mana boost – all of which make you stronger. This isn’t blind generosity; Terraria’s brutal bosses show up when you least expect it!
While Terraria is focused on combat, it’s got something for builders, too. There are a ton of blocks and decorations that can be used to create a home, and eventually, a town for your NPCs.
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15. Sunless Sea
| Our Score | Platforms | Release Year |
| 8/10 | PC, Linux, OS X, PS4, Switch, Xbox 1, iOS | 2015 |
“The oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” This adage encapsulates the adventure-horror experience that Sunless Sea offers. Set in an alternate universe where London fell into the Neath – a massive underground world – you will set sail as a fledgling captain in the lightless Unterzee.
Sunless Sea is a master class in weaving both fear of the awful and fascination with the mysterious in its writing; I’d rate it as one of the best horror games on PC in terms of building dread. But to the brave go the spoils, and you’ll need to learn to carefully temper your hesitation and caution with bravery and perhaps some foolishness.
Lucrative opportunities and profitable adventures await zee captains who dare venture beyond London’s relative safety, and even brushes with madness and death have valuable lessons to teach…provided you can survive.
Best Indie Games on PC
We’ve barely scratched the surface of the library of indie games. PC players, however, have a massive library available to them – so much so that choice paralysis is a thing! To help you narrow down that list, here’s my top 3 picks of must-play indie games:
- The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. If you’re already a roguelike fan, this game will get you hooked; if you aren’t, this is how it starts. This isn’t just one of the best indie games, it’s also one of the best PC games.
- Project Zomboid. Starring in your very own zombie apocalypse is tense, impactful, and always fun. I’ve sunk almost a thousand hours into this game alone – an achievement, given my tendency to jump from game to game.
- Disco Elysium. While not everyone has the patience to read through this epic saga, those who enjoy witty, absurd stories are sure to enjoy this masterpiece.
- Balatro. It offers a fresh take on deck-building roguelikes, combining strategic gameplay with a unique card system. Its quirky humor and replayability make it a standout for fans of the genre and indie games in general.
Best Indie Games on Xbox
And now for the Xbox market. There’s a lot of overlap between the PC and the Xbox One indie games market, so for these recommendations, I focused on the use of controllers as well as the ease of requirements that the Xbox offers.
Here are my recommendations for some of not just for the best Xbox indie games:
- Hades. This fantastic romp is best enjoyed on a controller, and is readily available on the Xbox store. One of the best indie and best Xbox games.
- Stray. Story-rich, very cute, and works great on a console!
- Hollow Knight. This Metroidvania offers dynamic combat, lots of exploration, and a rich story in a lovely bug-sized package.
FAQs
Are indie games better than AAA?
That depends on what you’re looking for. Indies tend to have more creative freedom, but less budget than a triple-A game. But if you’re tired of the formulaic, too-safe approach that big studios have towards publishing games, you’ll likely agree with me that indie is better!
What are the upcoming indie games?
There are a ton of indie games coming out next year, far too many to list them all. Personally, I’m excited for Slay the Spire 2, Hades 2, and any new DLC for Vampire Survivors. I’m also hoping that N1RV Ann-A and Hollow Knight: Silksong will finally get a release date!
Can indie games win Game of the Year?
Yes, but an indie game hasn’t won yet. 2024’s Balatro came really close, though, and Stray was also nominated in 2022.
What is the biggest indie game?
Minecraft was the biggest indie game prior to its acquisition by Microsoft in 2014. Today, there’s no clear winner, but I’d say that Vampire Survivors or Hollow Knight could make a strong case!
