The 10 Best Indie Games of 2025

At 2 a.m. on a Tuesday in April, I texted my friend Dan a single sentence: “I think I just cried at a turn-based RPG.” He wrote back “Expedition 33?” before I’d even said the name. That’s how I knew 2025 was going to be a strange year for indie games, when a friend can guess the title off nothing but the description “cried at a turn-based RPG.” There was apparently only one answer.

I’ve been keeping a note on my phone all year, just game titles and a sentence about why they stuck with me. This list is that note, cleaned up. I’m not a critic and I don’t get review codes early, I bought most of these with my own money on release week like everyone else. So take this less as an authoritative ranking and more as one very tired, very happy person’s report from a genuinely great year for small studios.

1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Developer/Publisher: Sandfall Interactive

This is the one that made my friend guess correctly at 2 a.m. It’s a turn-based RPG with real-time dodge and parry mechanics layered on top, made by a small French studio, and it swept most of the major categories at The Game Awards this year. I went in expecting a competent throwback. I did not expect to still be thinking about one specific character’s ending three months later. The combat system alone would have carried a lesser game, but it’s the writing that stayed with me.

The takeaway: sometimes the “small studio, huge ambition” story isn’t marketing spin, it’s just what happened.

2. Hollow Knight: Silksong

Developer/Publisher: Team Cherry

Silksong spent so many years as a running joke that its actual release felt almost disorienting, like waiting for a bus so long you forget where you were trying to go. It was worth the wait. Playing as Hornet instead of the silent Knight changes the whole feel of combat, faster, more aggressive, less forgiving. The map design frustrated me more than once, I’ll admit I looked up a wiki more than I wanted to. But the boss fights are some of the best I’ve played in any genre this year, not just indie games.

The takeaway: a sequel doesn’t have to reinvent the original, it just has to earn the wait, and this one did.

3. Hades II

Developer/Publisher: Supergiant Games

I want to be upfront about something here: Hades II is technically a sequel to one of the most beloved roguelikes ever made, so it had every advantage going in. It earned its spot anyway. Playing as Melinoë instead of Zagreus, casting spells instead of just swinging weapons, gives the whole run-based loop a different rhythm. I’ve put more hours into this than I’d like to admit on a Tuesday night when I told myself I’d play “just one more run.”

The takeaway: a proven formula still has to be executed well, and Supergiant executed.

4. Blue Prince

Developer/Publisher: Dogubomb; Raw Fury

Blue Prince is the game I’ve recommended to the most people who don’t normally play games, mostly because it’s hard to explain without sounding like I’m making it up. It’s part puzzle game, part house-generation mystery, and every run through the mansion rearranges itself. My mom, who plays approximately zero video games a year, watched me play this for twenty minutes and then asked to try it herself. That’s the whole review, honestly.

The takeaway: the best puzzle games make non-gamers want to pick up the controller, and this one did that in my own living room.

5. Peak

A four-person co-op climbing game that led the year’s wave of indie co-op releases.

Peak is deceptively simple: you and up to three friends climb a mountain together, and the mountain does not care about your feelings. I played this with the same three friends I’ve had game nights with since college, and we spent more time laughing at each other falling to our deaths than actually making progress. It’s not a long game. It doesn’t need to be. It did more for one Friday night than most twenty-hour campaigns manage.

The takeaway: not every great game needs a story, sometimes a mountain and three friends is the whole plot.

6. Monster Train 2

Developer/Publisher: Good Shepherd Entertainment

I was skeptical going in, the first Monster Train already felt complete to me, and sequels to “complete” games make me nervous. This one reworked every clan from the original and added new ones, and somehow the deckbuilding roguelike genre still had room to grow. I’ve lost entire evenings to “one more run” here too, which seems to be a theme on this list, and I’m not going to pretend that’s an accident.

The takeaway: a good sequel doesn’t ask “what’s new,” it asks “what wasn’t finished yet.”

7. Despelote

A short, autobiographical game about childhood and football in Ecuador.

This is the shortest game on this list, and the one I think about the most when I’m not playing anything at all. It’s built around one developer’s own childhood, kicking a ball around outside while adult conversations happen just out of frame. There’s no combat, no boss fight, no skill tree. There’s just a kid, a ball, and a country, rendered with more honesty than most games manage with ten times the budget.

The takeaway: you don’t need a big budget to make a big impression, you need something true to say.

8. Dispatch

A narrative game about a burnt-out superhero reassigned to dispatch duty.

I went into Dispatch expecting a joke and got something closer to a workplace drama with capes. The premise, a washed-up hero managing a team of misfit vigilantes from behind a desk, sounds like a one-liner, but the writing takes it seriously without losing the humor. It’s the game on this list I laughed out loud at most, and also the one that got me a little in the chest during the last act.

The takeaway: a funny premise and a sincere ending aren’t opposites, they’re a combination almost nobody pulls off, and this did.

9. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

Developer/Publisher: Jump Over the Age

The first Citizen Sleeper was a quiet, dice-driven story about being a synthetic worker trying to buy your own freedom. The sequel opens the world up, literally, you’re now navigating a ship and a wider map instead of one station. I missed some of the claustrophobic intimacy of the original, and I’ll say that plainly instead of pretending the sequel is flawless. But the writing is still some of the best in games right now, and the dice-based skill checks make every decision feel like it costs something.

The takeaway: expanding a story’s scope can cost you some of its intimacy, and it’s worth naming that tradeoff instead of hiding it.

10. Ball x Pit

Developer: Kenny Sun; Publisher: Devolver Digital

I’ll be honest, this one is not for me personally, and I said as much to my husband while he played it every night for a week straight. It’s a breakout-style game where you build a city out of the bricks you break, which sounds like it shouldn’t work and somehow does. I don’t fully get the appeal, but “a great game to obsess over for ten hours when you don’t want to think too hard,” which is roughly what he told me, is a real compliment, and I’m including it because a top ten list that only reflects my personal taste isn’t actually a top ten list.

The takeaway: the best “best of” lists leave room for games that aren’t for you but are clearly for somebody.

What I Left Off, and Why That’s Fine

There were more good indie games in 2025 than any one list can hold, that’s not false modesty, it’s just true. Tiny Bookshop, Abiotic Factor, and Absolum all had strong years and didn’t make my personal ten, not because they’re worse, but because a top ten is a snapshot of one person’s year, not a leaderboard. I also want to be honest that I didn’t finish everything on this list. I’m about eighty percent through Citizen Sleeper 2 as I write this. I don’t think that disqualifies it from the list, but I think pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

The takeaway: a “best of” list is a diary with opinions, not a scoreboard, and it’s more useful when it admits that.

Why 2025 Actually Mattered

The thing that struck me most, looking back over my notes app from the year, isn’t any single game. It’s how many of these came from teams you could count on two hands, going up against studios with budgets a hundred times the size, and not just competing but winning Game of the Year outright. That’s not a nostalgia story about scrappy underdogs. It’s just what happened in 2025, repeatedly, across genres that have nothing else in common.

Nobody expects a garage band to headline a stadium tour. In 2025, the indie studios did, more than once, and nobody in the crowd seemed surprised.