It’s perhaps true that the indie scene gets less attention than AAA gaming. After all, they have less money, fewer resources, and a quieter megaphone to shout to the masses.
So, when one of them breaks through the noise and grabs your attention, you can rest assured it’s something special.
10 Criminally Underrated Indie Games You Need To Play
These indie gems deserve your time and respect!
We scoured through several of the most amazing indies of the past several years, and present them to you today. Though these are all indisputably indies, they’re transcendent adventures that remind us why size certainly isn’t everything.
10Among Us
Deadly Hide & Seek
Everybody loves a good whodunnit, right? A murder mystery that keeps us on our toes. This is probably the reason thatAmong Usstruck such a chord with gamers. Innersloth gave us tense suspicion in a deftly-created, sneaky multiplayer package.
On the surface, the gameplay is about simple minigames, but meanwhile, the paranoia will eat away at you.
Which of your friends is really a horrifying monster in disguise? Combined with cutesy art, it will throw us all off every time, at least until we get mercilessly gobbled up by the aliens in our ranks.
9The Plucky Squire
Pretty As A Picture Book
The Plucky Squire
Sometimes, you can judge a book by its cover. Especially when it’s a book with a cover as gorgeous asThe Plucky Squire. Published by Devolver, this is a game that is constantly playful and utterly unique.
In this one, you’re the titular hero cruelly tossed out of the picture book he resides in and thrust into a vast new world.
As you explore, you’ll gain new abilities to help hack your foes to bits, and find yourself faced with many brain-teasing puzzles.
The Plucky Squirealso regularly hits you with new mini-games, such as a Punch-Out!! inspired battle or a Resogun-esque bullet-hell sequence on the side of a coffee mug.
No matter what you find yourself doing, you can rest assured it will look amazing. A beautiful tribute to creativity unbound.
8Cassette Beasts
The Pokémon Killer
Cassette Beasts
It’s probably fair to say everybody reading this is familiar with Pokémon. It quickly went from a Japanese curiosity to a veritable empire, and it’s been pushing out games every few years.
This is why it’s painful to admit that the series hasn’t done much successful innovation over the last decade. But one game that successfully usurped the mantle of the monster-catching behemoth is calledCassette Beasts.
Cassette Beastsis wonderfully retro and appears like a super stylish SNES game. You find yourself trapped on a mysterious island, and quickly get handed the ability to transform into monsters in your tape deck.
This creature tamer also featured the novel ability to merge two beasts, something we’ve only seen in series like Persona or SMT, along with dating mechanics, and plentiful sub-quests. It even has a pretty extensive post-game. So, if you love Pokémon, you really need this game in your library.
A Girl And Her Wolf
Nomada Studio impressed many with the stunning artistry of a game called GRIS. Several years later, they introduced us toNeva. It’s no less beautiful but less abstract and more focused on Alba’s relationship with her wolf cub, Neva.
Neva Review - They Grow Up So Fast
Leave the world better than you found it.
Whereas GRIS focused on platforming and touted itself as a puzzle platformer,Nevais more action-packed.
Alba and Neva will come face to face with monstrous creatures, and only successful teamwork will help put them down. Even if you’re a cat person, you’ll find something to love in this canine adventure.
Heroic Goo
Dead Cells
It takes something special for a rogue-like to break through the noise. The genre is incredibly challenging and requires patience and the development of skills.
It might be surprising thatDead Cellsmanaged such a broad profile. But it definitely did, as evidenced by the constant stream of DLC it’s releasedsince release.
As for the game itself, Dead Cells is incredibly challenging but surprisingly fun. The Prisoner will gradually learn more about the apocalyptic world it resides in.
The more you play, the stronger you get, unlocking new gear, abilities, and more. But perhaps the best proof that Dead Cells made it was when it teamed up withCastlevaniain a dark and Gothic DLC adventure.
5Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove
A Treasure Chest of Fun
Shovel Knight
WhenShovel Knightwas first crowdfunded, it was hard to imagine the scope of it. Perhaps we would have been fine with just the one adventure.
But Yacht Club Games proved its skills so masterfully that it expanded that first game into several utterly distinct DLC adventures.
Whether you’re playing the bombastic Plague Knight, the brooding Specter Knight, or the gaudy King Knight, you’ll find a complete adventure with fun mechanics.
Not to be outdone, Yacht Club extended the success further in completely distinct side adventures like Shovel Knight DIG and Pocket Dungeon. This is truly a success story we can all dig.
4Sea of Stars
Chrono Trigger’s True Successor
Sea of Stars
Even if you weren’t born in the 90s, you’ve probably heard ofChrono Trigger.It made a hell of an impression on the RPG landscape.
Even though the official follow-up, Chrono Cross, didn’t have the same impact, Chrono Trigger did inspire the folks at Sabotage Studio to give us a glorious love letter to the adventure. That game is calledSea of Stars.
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For those who somehow haven’t heard of the game yet, it’s a truly incredible adventure. It mixes turn-based combat with stunning visual style, memorable vistas, and a dark and twisty story.
For those familiar with Sabotage, the game also references their previous release, The Messenger.Sea of Starsis a must-play journey for anybody who loves RPGs.
3Undertale
Weirdly Wonderful
Most journeys don’t start by getting dropped into a dark world full of monsters. But that’s exactly howUndertalerolls, and it never stops innovating.
This is a game that understands gamers, and constantly uses that understanding to amaze and confuse us.
Whether you go for the pacifist or violent route,Undertalewill provide an immersive experience.
Most importantly, this strange little RPG with dodging mechanics will make you care about the characters. Just don’t expect a simple or traditional experience, because this absolutely isn’t that.
2Ori and the Will of the Wisps
An Emotional Journey
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
After beating Ori and the Blind Forest, the developers could have played it safe and given us another traditional (albeit gorgeous and evocative) Metroidvania adventure.
Instead, they take a child from the first game’s big bad, the owlet Ku, and have you work together with the cute little guy inOri and the Will of the Wisps.
Together, Ori and Ku will work to heal a shattered and broken land, overcoming intense challenges along the way.
Unlike the first game, Ori and the Will of the Wisps features many more boss battles, and these proved tremendously challenging and fun.
Combined with a heartfelt soundtrack and a vast world to explore, this is the success story that most platformer-styled games strive to be.
God-like Adventure
Being a kid is hard, especially when your dad is a Greek god. That’s the basic hook ofHades.
Your dad is the god that rules over the dead, and you’re his upstart child, Zagreus. Like most young children, your goal is to fight against your father’s authority. You just have to do that by escaping the underworld. No big deal.
The one thing Zagreus has on his side is his extended family of Olympian gods. They’ll bestow you with their favor, empowering you in numerous ways. Just stay on their good side, otherwise they might turn on you.
The adventure itself is an impeccably well-made rogue-like, with a top-down style. Every time you fail and get sent back to the underworld, the motivation to succeed ramps up a bit more. Because one way or another, you’re getting out, even if it’s through your overbearing father.
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