Best New Indie Games Released in 2025

Patrick.Yu

From stunning debuts to long-awaited follow-ups, the indie game scene in 2025 has delivered some of the most creative and memorable experiences in gaming. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 brought turn-based combat to life with painterly visuals and emotional depth. Team Cherry finally released Hollow Knight: Silksong after nearly seven years in development. These are just a few examples of 2025 indie games that aren't just fan favorites. Some of them could even be contenders for Game of the Year. But what exactly makes a game “indie”? Before diving into the best indie games of 2025, let’s define what qualifies a title as indie.

What is an indie game?

An indie game is a video game developed by individuals or small teams without the creative or financial control of a major publisher. While the label is somewhat subjective, most indie games share the following characteristics:

• Financial independence: The game is self-funded, crowdfunded, or backed by boutique publishers who do not interfere with creative decisions.
• Creative control: Developers make all design, narrative, and gameplay choices without outside pressure or oversight.
• Small development team: Typically built by individuals or small studios formed specifically for a single project or creative vision.
• Experimental design: Indie games often explore unique mechanics, storytelling, or presentation styles not found in mainstream titles.
• Distinct artistic style: Many use stylized, minimalistic, or retro visuals to reflect the creators’ vision or work within budget limits.
• Digital-first distribution: Released primarily through online storefronts like Steam, Itch.io, or console marketplaces rather than physical retail.
• No publisher control: Even when publishing support exists, the studio maintains independence if there’s no creative oversight from the publisher.

With those traits in mind, let’s take a look at the best indie games of 2025, each one bringing its own fresh take on gameplay, storytelling, or style.

10 best indie games to play in 2025

10. Keep Driving

Developer: YCJY Games
Release date: February 6, 2025

Keep Driving is a turn-based road trip RPG that captures the bittersweet freedom of being young, broke, and slightly lost. Set in the early 2000s, you play as a teenager with a beat-up car, a loose summer plan, and just enough cash for gas and snacks. The goal? Make it across the map to a music festival while picking up oddball hitchhikers, avoiding breakdowns, and surviving a series of clever resource-management events along the way.

Each drive becomes a mini story. You’ll juggle fuel, energy, car repairs, and your passengers’ baggage, both literal and emotional. The game’s turn-based challenges involve playing skill cards and using items from your glove box to avoid setbacks like potholes, biker gangs, and “vague lanes.” But it’s the people you meet that really make the trip. From runaway brides to prison escapees, every hitchhiker adds personality, utility, and the occasional bit of chaos.

With great writing, multiple endings, and a killer soundtrack from Swedish indie bands, Keep Driving captures the spirit of a summer road trip where anything can happen and every decision leaves a mark. It’s heartfelt, weird, and unforgettable.

9. Schedule 1

Developer: TVGS (solo developer: Tyler)
Early Access release date: March 24, 2025

Schedule 1 is a management sim wrapped in satire, chaos, and surprising calm. You start as a down‑on‑your‑luck newcomer in a gritty city, building a small-scale narcotics operation from your hotel room. Over time, this modest setup becomes a sprawling, automated business with dozens of employees and city-wide distribution. Despite the dark theme, the game feels more cozy than criminal. You grow, craft, mix, and sell products, with a pace and tone that’s oddly relaxing.

What sets this game apart is its unusual mix of crime, comedy, and calm. Customers have specific preferences, encouraging you to experiment with blends and discover new product combos. As you grow your business, you'll automate everything from production to distribution and shift from street hustler to logistics mastermind.

Schedule 1 is also a surprisingly fun multiplayer game. You can invite a friend into your world to help with deliveries, production, and expansion. Co-op feels like a chaotic slice-of-life simulator where both players hustle side-by-side, managing deals and skating around town. Whether you're refining recipes together or laughing at the absurd item names, it's a memorable shared experience.

The latest Cartel Update added rival dealers, new quests, ambush events, graffiti mechanics, and property upgrades, expanding the game's scope and challenge. While the endgame is still under development and a few bugs remain, the consistent updates from its solo developer suggest a strong future ahead.

With its weird charm, creative systems, and hilarious co-op mode, Schedule 1 is one of 2025’s most unexpected indie hits.

8. Escape from Duckov

Developer: Team Soda
Release date: October 16, 2025

Escape from Duckov is a clever parody of Escape from Tarkov that swaps gritty online PvP combat for a quirky, offline single-player experience filled with ducks, loot, and danger. You play as a prisoner-turned-mercenary, taking on missions in a world falling apart. Don’t let the cartoonish style fool you. This game is tough, smart, and surprisingly tense.

Each run into the city is a top-down extraction mission. You search for loot, complete objectives, fight armed enemies, and try to make it back to your bunker alive. The AI is smart, the gunplay feels great, and nighttime or storm events introduce real risks. You can also choose from different difficulty settings that affect what happens when you die. Some settings let you recover lost gear, while others wipe your inventory completely.

Outside of combat, you can upgrade your hideout and build out services from NPCs who offer gear and stat upgrades. Each item you bring back can be used, traded, or saved for crafting. The progression is steady and satisfying. There is even mod support built into the main menu for players who want to customize the game further.

Escape from Duckov may look like a joke at first glance, but it delivers smart systems, intense firefights, and a strong sense of atmosphere. It is more than a parody. It is one of 2025’s most original single-player indie experiences.

7. Megabonk

Developer: vedinad
Release date: September 19, 2025

Megabonk is a 3D Survivors-like that combines the endless chaos of Vampire Survivors with the buildcrafting depth of Risk of Rain 2. You play as a goofy character called Monke, facing off against swarms of enemies with auto-firing weapons and stat-boosting tomes. At first glance, it might look like another meme game, but spend five minutes with it and you’ll realize there is real design magic underneath the chaos.

Each run has you racing against a ticking clock as you explore the map, defeat enemies, activate shrines, open chests, and prepare for a stage-ending boss fight. The longer you last, the harder the game pushes back with swarms, mini-bosses, and unpredictable item synergies. Over time, you unlock dozens of weapons, tomes, and characters, many of which let you create wild and overpowered builds.

Unlike other games in the genre, Megabonk puts heavy focus on exploration. You don’t just stand still and stack kills. You move, loot, and adapt. Meta progression systems allow you to reroll upgrades, toggle off specific items, and fine-tune your strategy from run to run. Success often depends on understanding how different systems interact and taking risks with random elements.

The game has some bugs and balance issues, but its core loop is so engaging that it’s easy to overlook the rough spots. It also plays extremely well on handhelds like the Steam Deck, where the performance stays smooth even during heavy swarms of enemies and projectiles.

Megabonk isn’t flashy or polished, but it’s deeply fun. It captures the joy of experimentation, power scaling, and leaderboard chasing better than most of its peers. For fans of Survivors-likes or anyone looking for a “just one more run” kind of game, this is a must-play.

6. Look Outside

Developer: Francis Coulombe
Release date: March 21, 2025

Look Outside is a surreal 2D survival horror RPG that blends SNES-era visuals with cosmic dread. Set inside a warped apartment complex under the influence of a mysterious object in the sky, this debut from solo developer Francis Coulombe delivers something bold and unforgettable. The game runs flawlessly on both PC and Steam Deck and features some of the most unsettling worldbuilding of the year.

You have 15 in-game days to survive and uncover one of multiple endings. Each day gives you limited hours to explore, fight, and scavenge before returning to your apartment to rest. Time only advances when visiting new areas, and save points are tied to how long you’ve been active. This mechanic creates long stretches of tension, where a bad decision can mean losing an hour of progress or more.

Combat is turn-based, but party members bring unique twists. One livestreamer gains powers by building viewer count. A punk duo kicks you out of your bedroom but helps you win fights. Their mechanics overlap and evolve in creative ways, turning even the simplest fights into tactical challenges. Who you invite into your apartment changes how the game plays, both mechanically and narratively.

The horror is deeply psychological. The story dives into madness, body horror, and paranoia, with disturbing NPC encounters and branching dialogue that changes your fate. You might meet a painter haunted by his multiplying self-portraits, or a voice in a pipe that drags you into a grotesque romance subplot. Every decision matters, and most of them have unsettling consequences.

The art style echoes classic 16-bit RPGs, but the imagery is far more nightmarish. Enemies mutate mid-battle, crawling with extra limbs or revealing horrifying secrets. The music and sound effects are equally strong, building a sense of dread that never quite fades. With great performance, no major bugs, and frequent developer updates streamed live on Twitch, this is a polished and personal work.

Look Outside is haunting, funny, and full of strange beauty. It rewards exploration and replaying, with multiple endings and hidden content tucked into every floor of the building. For fans of survival horror or retro RPGs, this is one of the most memorable indie games of the year.

5. Monster Train 2

Developer: Shiny Shoe
Release date: May 21, 2025

Monster Train 2 is a brilliant follow-up to the 2020 roguelike deckbuilder that adds more content without breaking what already worked. You still manage units across a three-floor train and fend off waves of enemies using card-based spells and upgrades. But this time, you're climbing up from Hell to storm a corrupted Heaven, and the game's new clans, room modifiers, and gear systems offer deeper strategy than ever before.

The five new factions are creative and fun to experiment with. You can stack damage-over-time effects, spawn mushrooms, use gear that transfers when a unit dies, or cast moon-phase spells that flip each turn. Equipment and room cards can dramatically change the tide of battle, allowing for wild combinations. There's also a new way to modify your Pyre Heart at the start of each run, giving you bonuses that shape your overall strategy.

Every run is filled with important decisions. Choosing your primary and secondary clan, your champion’s skill tree, your Pyre Heart, artifacts, spells, and upgrade paths gives each playthrough a unique feel. The game also makes it easier to learn by letting you reset turns and retry battles if you make a mistake, a welcome addition for casual and hardcore players alike.

For those looking for a challenge, Monster Train 2 offers Endless Mode, customizable challenge tiers, and 21 hand-built Dimensional Challenges that unlock new Pyre Hearts and cosmetics. These modes push your builds to the limit.

On top of its deep systems and excellent performance on Steam Deck and PC, Monster Train 2 now supports multiplayer runs. You can compete with others through daily challenges, community-built rule sets, and leaderboard scoring. That social layer adds extra replay value, especially if you want to see how your strategies stack up against others.

With smart improvements, strong faction design, and a mountain of replayability, Monster Train 2 stands as one of 2025's most polished and addictive indie games. Whether you're in it for high scores, crazy builds, or just an hour of satisfying deckbuilding, this game delivers.

4. Blue Prince

Developer: Dogubomb
Release date: April 10, 2025

Blue Prince is a standout first-person puzzle game that blends roguelite room drafting with tile-based map building, narrative exploration, and clever logic challenges. You play as Simon, a teenage boy who must solve the secrets of his great uncle’s ever-shifting mansion to claim his inheritance. To do so, you must discover the hidden 46th room by building a new floorplan with each run.

Each day begins with a limited number of steps. Every time you open a door, you draft one of three new rooms to connect next, building a custom 9×5 floor grid. Every room has its own category: purple rooms grant extra steps, yellow rooms offer items, and red rooms introduce risk. There are also hidden rooms that only appear under special conditions, encouraging experimentation and long-term planning.

The real puzzle lies in how you interact with this world. Clues are scattered across the house and often span multiple rooms or runs. Some puzzles involve math or levers, but the most satisfying ones require critical thinking, note-taking, and pattern recognition. Over time, you unlock permanent upgrades and special tools that help mitigate randomness and give you better control over your layout.

Despite its randomized structure, the game never feels unfair. Even a failed run usually reveals new secrets, story beats, or mechanics that deepen your understanding of the house. The lore is rich but optional, gradually uncovering the truth behind your uncle’s legacy and the nation he once influenced. Every discovery feels earned, and the sense of progression is steady and rewarding.

If you enjoy games like Myst, Return of the Obra Dinn, or Outer Wilds, Blue Prince belongs in that conversation. It is one of the smartest and most satisfying puzzle games of the year.

3. Hades 2

Developer: Supergiant Games
Release date: September 26, 2025

Hades 2 expands on one of the best roguelites ever made without losing what made the original special. You now play as Melinoë, daughter of Hades and Persephone, who must defeat her grandfather Chronos. It sounds straightforward, but what follows is one of the deepest and most replayable action games of the year.

Each run branches into two paths: Tartarus or Mount Olympus. Both contain distinct enemies, environments, and bosses. This branching structure adds twice the variety and helps keep each session fresh. Whether you're clearing Olympus or diving deeper into the Underworld, the structure always supports discovery.

Combat is faster and more flexible than before. Mel is a spellcaster by nature, with a magic circle Cast, elemental synergy boons, and powerful Hex ultimates. You can equip different weapons like twin torches, a massive axe, or a broom-style staff. Each one has multiple variations that radically change how you approach fights.

Progression is just as satisfying. From Hecate's cauldron upgrades to animal familiars and farming systems, new mechanics are unlocked slowly but never feel like clutter. The returning gods like Hermes and Poseidon have been reworked, and the new moon goddess Selene adds a build-defining mechanic in the form of a customizable Hex tree.

Voice acting is excellent, the character arcs are layered and mature, and the art is once again among the best in the genre. On top of that, Darren Korb’s music may be his strongest soundtrack to date. Boss fights like the Scylla and Sirens encounter even weave their own musical themes into gameplay. It is elegant, creative, and often hilarious.

Hades 2 builds on the original with more story, more builds, and more meaningful decisions. It is not just a sequel. It is the new benchmark for roguelite design.

2. Hollow Knight: Silksong

Developer: Team Cherry
Release Date: September 4, 2025

After seven long years and more than a few fake Reddit posts, Hollow Knight: Silksong finally launched in 2025. The wait was agonizing. Originally announced as a DLC that evolved into a full sequel, Silksong became the poster child for "where is it?" threads, meme countdowns, and endless speculation. Now that it’s here, the game not only lives up to the hype, it cements Team Cherry’s reputation for crafting hauntingly beautiful, brutally precise action platformers.

You play as Hornet, a fast and agile warrior navigating the vertical kingdom of Pharloom. Every inch of the game feels hand-built. From the labyrinthine level design to the melancholic soundtrack, Silksong pulls you into its eerie world and doesn’t let go. It’s harder than Hollow Knight in almost every way. Most enemy attacks deal two masks of damage. Save benches are rare. And the game punishes recklessness, forcing you to approach each encounter with intention.

But the difficulty never feels unfair. Bosses are tough but well-telegraphed. Tools can be swapped through Crests to change your playstyle. Some favor heavy defense, others reward speed and aggression. And Hornet’s healing system, which requires a pause to bind and restore three masks at once, creates a constant push-pull between risk and reward. Exploring feels tense, methodical, and satisfying.

One of the game’s strongest traits is its sense of discovery. The world is dense with secrets, shortcuts, and hidden bosses. The moment you think you've seen it all, a new path opens. Every region has its own personality, from the windswept wastes to industrial ruins. Lore is scattered through sidequests and subtle details, inviting deep dives and debate.

This is not a game that holds your hand. It expects you to get lost, to struggle, to figure things out on your own or through trial and error. And that’s exactly what makes it unforgettable.

1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Developer: Sandfall Interactive
Release Date: April 24, 2025

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is my personal Game of the Year for 2025. It blends the artistic style of French theatre and painting with modern JRPG systems in a way that feels both familiar and brand new. You lead a group of warriors on a desperate quest to destroy a godlike figure called The Paintress, who each year marks a number that determines the age at which people will vanish from existence. It’s a dark premise, but the execution is thoughtful, emotional, and at times even hopeful.

The combat system is one of the best turn-based systems ever made. You don’t just select attacks. You also time button presses during spells, dodges, and parries. This keeps you fully engaged every turn, especially during boss fights that play out like rhythm games. Parrying at the perfect moment rewards you with slow-motion counterattacks. Each character plays differently, with their own unique mechanics and combo systems. The card-wielding Sciel manages light and dark phases. Gustave builds power with hits. Maelle switches between stances based on status effects and weapons. Lune stacks elemental affinities to cast devastating spells.

Outside of battle, the Picto system lets you customize builds with perks and bonuses. It starts simple but expands into complex synergies that reward experimentation. While the menus can get cluttered, the game encourages you to break its systems in clever ways. You can feel overpowered, but only if you earn it.

The game also shines in its storytelling. Its world is melancholic but full of personality. There are goofy wooden creatures called Gestrals, party campfire scenes that reveal character backstories, and dialogue that feels grounded and natural. The themes of grief, mortality, and legacy are handled with care, and the voice acting is top-tier throughout.

Its pacing is another strength. The 35-hour runtime leaves little filler. Dungeons are tight, the overworld is packed with secrets, and side content adds meaningful depth. Even without a quest log, exploration feels organic. The soundtrack deserves its own praise. From symphonic rock to opera to ambient strings, it elevates every moment.

While some later plot twists come fast and a few dungeons could use a minimap, these are small issues in an otherwise outstanding experience. Clair Obscur doesn't just pay tribute to the classics. It understands what made them great and builds something meaningful on top of that. If you love turn-based RPGs, this is not one to miss.

Final thoughts

2025 has been an incredible year for indie games. We’ve seen stunning world-building, bold art direction, and some of the most engaging combat systems in recent memory. These titles prove that you don’t need blockbuster budgets to create unforgettable experiences.

Whether it’s the emotional storytelling of Clair Obscur, the finely tuned difficulty of Silksong, or the endless replayability of Hades 2, indie developers continue to raise the bar. Any one of those three could walk away with Game of the Year, and I wouldn’t be surprised. They’ve earned their place at the top.

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