There are great Indie Games every year, but it's not every year that games from independent developers dominate the conversation around what could be game of the year, and then actually go on to win Game of the Year at multiple awards shows.
2025 was a massive year for independent studios and their games, so dwindling our top choices down to five was no easy task. That said, the following five games should be on your must-play list.
Other Best Games of 2025 per Category: Fighting Games, Sports & Racing Games, Role-Playing Games, Horror Games, Platformers, Action, DLC/Expansion, Shooter Games, Adventure Games, Multiplayer Games, Strategy & Simulation Games, Best Games
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (9.5/10)
We might as well start with the big one. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was the game that caught everyone by surprise this year, and for good reason. It's perhaps not doing anything incredibly new or innovative when it comes to the wider RPG and JRPG genres, but it undeniably does what it does extremely well.
The cast, writing, storytelling, animation, art design, score, gameplay - everything about Clair Obscur is polished to an incredible shine, and if you could only play one video game from 2025, it's the easy pick for what you should play.
As Wccftech's Francesco De Meo wrote in his review, "Before launch, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 looked like a solid yet safe role-playing game, but Sandfall Interactive’s debut shattered expectations in the best possible way. With a gripping story, a beautifully written cast of characters, and engaging gameplay that breathes new life into familiar mechanics, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a journey that leaves a lasting mark on both the mind and the heart."
Hades II (10/10)
Now on to the other 'big one' of the year. In a year that doesn't have Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in it, Hades II would be the other 'easy choice' for what to play if you could only play one game this year. The action and soundtrack push everything to new heights, which I would've told you was an impossible feat before playing it, based on how incredible the first game is.
And that's what ultimately makes Hades II so incredible. It's able to evolve on what was already one of the best games to release in the last decade, with deeper mechanics that drive its build-crafting and give you more to do in-between runs.
It also wonderfully plays into its new protagonist, Melinoë, and her magical sensibilities. Like its predecessor, it's a stunning example of how to weave narrative and gameplay together, and it goes beyond what it means to be a great game to being a truly excellent game.
As I wrote in my review, "Hades 2 is a stunning follow-up to an already incredible game. It does everything its predecessor did right, and then expands on it in meaningful ways that add depth to the gameplay, narrative, and visual experience (which was already deep in the original Hades). It's a shining example of how a sequel can take everything right about what came before, turn it all up to 11, and even go a bit further."
Eternal Strands (8.5/10)
Yellow Brick Games was founded in 2020 by BioWare's former franchise director for Dragon Age, Mike Laidlaw. Laidlaw gathered a whole host of Canadian talent and based the studio in Quebec City, with the studio's goal being to create "wondrous journeys" for players to experience. Five years later, Eternal Strands is the first journey the studio is asking players to join them on, and you'd be hard-pressed to say the team did not hit its goal of creating a "wondrous journey."
From early previews months ahead of its release, and from speaking with the studio, it was clear Yellow Brick Games had something on their hands with an extremely colourful and engaging mixture of game mechanics that sometimes made the game feel like a greatest hits of mechanics players loved from games within the last decade.
Thankfully, that wasn't to its detriment, and while it's not a perfect package, it's an impressive feat for a debut project from a new team, and easily one of the more impressive indie titles this year. As Wccftech's Francesco De Meo wrote in his review, "Despite pulling features and mechanics from a variety of different series, Eternal Strands manages to feel like a cohesive experience that really shines once players get the hang of its advanced physics and combat system. However, the average story and the game's repetitive latter half hold it back from being truly fantastic, making it a solid action-adventure that's just a few steps away from greatness."
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Just like how it would be impossible to talk about 2025's indie games and not mention Clair Obscur, it's also nearly impossible not to talk about Hollow Knight: Silksong. The long-awaited DLC-turned-full-sequel over the course of its seven-year development, when Team Cherry was finally ready for the spotlight, the rest of the industry cleared the stage.
Literally and figuratively, as indie games were getting out of Silksong's way, delaying their own release so as not to be swallowed up by the fact that Silksong would go on to break concurrent player records for its predecessor and freeze up every digital storefront you could play it on. It passed 5 million players as fast as Team Cherry could snap its fingers, and all because it really does live up to the expectations.
Silksong is yet another wonderfully crafted action-platformer that will continue to find ways to excite and surprise you for as long as you play it. Whether you're 10 hours in or 60 hours in, there's a good chance there's something around a corner that you've not seen yet. It's a stunning achievement in practically every facet of its game design, and is undoubtedly one of the year's best indies, and even one of the year's best games hands-down.
ROUTINE (8.5/10)
The second game on this list that returned after years away from the limelight, ROUTINE's story is a bit different from Silksong's. Instead of being able to coast on the financial success of their debut release and take as much time as they wanted, Lunar Software was busy trying to get its debut release out the door while keeping a roof over its head. ROUTINE's gap between announcement and release spanned over a decade, as the small team at Lunar Software had to pause development for several years before returning to the project after finding a publisher in Raw Fury.
I can't tell you if it was worth the wait. Not only is that something you'll have to decide for yourself, but I was not one of the die-hard fans who had been waiting for ROUTINE since 2012. What I can tell you, however, is that ROUTINE is easily one of the year's best indie accomplishments, and one of 2025's top horror experiences. It's dripping with atmosphere and a tension that never really lets you breathe, and is probably one of the best sci-fi horror games since Alien: Isolation.
As I wrote in my review, "ROUTINE is an excellent puzzle-focused first-person horror game that, despite its slow pacing, is able to keep you at the edge of your seat for 10 hours straight, with a tense, rich atmosphere created by wonderful execution of its retro futuristic aesthetic and stunning soundscape that immerses you in its world and gets you listening for the sound of a pin drop to avoid getting caught. Its narrative may be unable to shine through, but at the end of the day it is altogether an interesting game, a game worth playing again, and the game that Alien: Isolation fans should play while we all wait for Alien: Isolation 2."
Honorable Mentions
There were so many incredible indie games in 2025, and we can only choose five to make the cut for our main highlights. That said, this list of honorable mentions is as long as it is because we wanted to ensure you walked away knowing that the following indies are more than worth your time, should you check them out.
One small note, the list begins with Sunset Visitor's debut title, 1000xResist, which came out last year and appeared in our honorable mentions for indie games in 2024. But with its ports to PS5/Xbox Series and our review of it coming this year, it felt appropriate to include it again, even if it technically didn't qualify for the main five.
- 1000xResist
- Baby Steps
- Blue Prince
- Despelote
- Skin Deep
- The Seance of Blake Manor
- Skate Story
- Morsels
- The Midnight Walk
- PEAK
- Dispatch
- Shotgun Cop Man
- Wanderstop
- Deltarune
- Sword of the Sea
- Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
- Keep Driving
- Ball x Pit
- Revenge of the Savage Planet
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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