The Best PC Indie Games
Indie games are the best thing to happen to video games. As technology improves, and gaming becomes a bigger business, there’s more pressure on companies to make AAA games as safe and bland as possible. They’re just too expensive to take risks. But indie games, driven by small teams with huge passion, can take all the wild, experimental, artistic risks they want. Considering how often these modest games see great success, people want games that take more chances.
You’ll always find the freshest indie games on PC. Developers don’t need to buy expensive licenses to publish their games on PC, unlike with consoles. Without that barrier, rising talent delivers fun and innovative ideas directly to curious consumers on PC gaming marketplaces. Indie hits that build fervent fan bases typically jump to consoles, but they got their start as excellent PC games.
Without massive marketing budgets, indie games rely on word of mouth to attract new players. You may immediately recognize every top indie game on this list, but others may be oblivious to this awesome underground world of independent gaming just a download away. Here are the best PC indie games to up your cool cred.
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Axiom Verge
3.5
$9.99
at Humble Bundle
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You’re going to see a lot of games on this list that are throwbacks to beloved retro titles. Indie developers love to put modern twists on classic games. Axiom Verge is a sprawling, nonlinear, sci-fi side-scroller directly inspired by the Metroid franchise. The game’s brilliant level design matches Nintendo in terms of quality, and its truly alien weapons and abilities make an already isolating formula feel even more unnerving.
Axiom Verge (for PC) Review
Blazing Chrome
4.5
$16.99
at Steam
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Konami’s not making any new, good Contra games anytime soon. Fortunately, now we can blast robot aliens like it was 1992 with Blazing Chrome. Pixel-perfect, 16-bit art and razor-sharp gameplay capture the chunky pleasures of vintage running and gunning. Multiple playable characters give you an excuse to dive back into the fray again and again.
Blazing Chrome (for PC) Review
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
$39.99
at Steam
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Koji Igarashi didn’t create Castlevania, but he did elevate it to new heights with his groundbreaking work on Symphony of the Night and other games that followed that formula. As a Kickstarter project, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night promised even more gothic castles to explore and dastardly vampires to whip. The finished project delivers, and then some. You won’t even miss the Belmont name.
Bugsnax
4.0
$24.99
at Epic Games
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As the latest project from the minds between Octodad, Bugsnax presents you with a new, silly scenario. In Bugsnax, you use wacky traps to capture monsters made of food. What other games let you shoot ketchup guns to trick walking hamburgers? Beneath the absurd exterior is a surprisingly touching story that will keep you invested long after the initial novelty wears off. A new expansion adds even bigger Bugsnax to find and feast on.
Bugsnax (for PC) Review
Carrion
4.0
$19.99
at Steam
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Video games are power fantasies, and what has more power than a deadly monster? Carrion is a horror game where you play as an unstoppable killer blob, not one of the poor doomed souls trying to stop the blob. The awesome, icky animations really sell the feeling of being this tentacled terror. A smart difficulty curve means you must work just hard enough for your slaughter to feel earned.
Carrion (for PC) Review
Cuphead
4.0
$14.99
at Humble Bundle
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Cuphead spent years in development, and you can see every second of that hard work on screen. Cuphead’s stunning animation perfectly captures the look and feel of classic 1930s cartoons and applies it to a retro-style, side-scrolling shooter. The bombastic boss fights are a visual feast you’ll never get tired of looking at again. That’s great, as the challenging difficulty forces you to replay sections again and again.
Cuphead (for PC) Review
Disco Elysium – The Final Cut
4.5
$39.99
at Steam
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Disco Elysium puts you in the shoes of an amnesic cop trying to solve a murder mystery in a realistic, RPG world that’s styled after genre classics, such as Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment. You can customize your character by listening to the right voices in your head while ignoring the others, but the true, grungy beauty lies in the powerful, political, working-class story and themes.
Disco Elysium – The Final Cut (for PC) Review
Divekick
3.5
$4.99
at Humble Bundle
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Divekick demonstrates how fighting games don’t need complicated combos to have strategic depth. In this two-button game, you can dive and you can kick. If you get hit once, you die. By stripping out mechanical complexity, Divekick hones in on the tense competitive mind games that fighting games are truly all about. Plus, it’s just hilarious.
Divekick (for PC) Review
Freedom Planet
4.5
$7.49
at Humble Bundle
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With Freedom Planet, indie fans made the dream Sonic the Hedgehog game Sega never could. It was Sonic Mania before Sonic Mania. Fast-paced platforming, colorful visuals, and looping level designs show how with the right execution, any game formula could be great, no matter how washed-up the original mascot is.
Freedom Planet (for PC) Review
Hades
4.5
$24.99
at Steam
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Supergiant Games already had a stellar record with Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre. But Hades launched the indie team to an entire new galaxy of acclaim. The genius combat system combines diverse godly powers with evolving weapons, so you always have new methods to mow down foes. Meanwhile, the intricate unfolding storyline and well-realized characters turn the polarizing, repetitive roguelike structure into one of the game’s greatest strengths.
Hades (for PC) Review
Inside
5.0
$6.79
at Humble Bundle
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Indie games can get away with radical art styles you’ll never see in big-budget affairs. Inside, the follow-up to Limbo, is another game about controlling a child as they escape puzzling, terrifying, abstract setpieces with a haunting, foggy, monochrome atmosphere. No other games evoke feelings of dread and desperation like Inside.
Inside (for PC) Review
Into the Breach
$14.99
at Steam
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Into the Breach’s tiny, turn-based tactics battles make you feel like a master strategist. As monsters randomly emerge from the ground, you must come up with new strategies on the fly to save humanity. Fortunately, your mech squads come equipped with the nifty powers you expect from giant robots. You can play and replay this roguelike until the end of time and still discover new ways to approach each skirmish.
Nobody Saves the World
$24.99
at Steam
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Nobody Saves the World’s take on action role-playing has you transforming into different characters, complete with their own strengths and weaknesses. Gallop into monsters as a horse, summon demons as a necromancer, and pump iron as a bodybuilder. Mix and match powers to create wacky loadouts as you explore a nonlinear world full of challenging dungeons to conquer alone or with a friend.
Rogue Legacy 2
$24.99
at Steam
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The original Rogue Legacy was a standout title in the crowded indie roguelike space. After spending years in early access, the full release of Rogue Legacy 2 already surpasses the original. You still fight your way through dangerous castles, respawning as a randomly empowered descendent each time you die. But the increased variety of classes, diverse combat mechanics, improved visuals, and extra locations make this a bigger and better endless adventure overall.
Rogue Legacy 2 (for PC) Review
Shovel Knight
4.5
$14.99
at Steam
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Shovel Knight combines the best bits of retro gaming’s golden age, from Mario’s map screen to Castlevania’s items to DuckTales’ pogo stick attack, to create the best platformer that never released on the NES. This treasure trove has only grown more enticing over time, thanks to the substantial expansion campaigns. Plus, Shovel Knight himself stands tall as arguably the most prolific, modern, indie mascot.
Shovel Knight (for PC) Review
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
$14.99
at Steam
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Saying anything about The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, aside from “it’s amazing,” feels irresponsible. The original was a fiendishly clever comedy game satirizing the role choices play in video games and in our own lives. If that game was The Matrix, then this reimagined and expanded version is The Matrix: Resurrections, or the second coming of Frog Fractions. If any of that makes sense to you, you’re in for a treat. If you’re totally confused, just dive in and enjoy the ride.
The Witness
$39.99
at Steam
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Jonathan Blow helped lead this wave of acclaimed indie games with the time-bending platformer Braid back in 2008. His next game, The Witness, is what happens when one of gaming’s most peculiar indie developers gets a blank check to do whatever he wants. The Witness asks you to solve a series of genuinely clever puzzles, typically about drawing lines inside mazes. Each puzzle is presented as terminals on a mysterious explorable island that’s a philosophical puzzle in and of itself.
Treachery in Beatdown City
3.5
$19.99
at Steam
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First off, Treachery in Beatdown City is one of the greatest video game names of all time. Fortunately, it’s a great game, too. In this deconstructed beat ‘em up, you use a unique blend of turn-based and real-time combat to fight your way through cops, punks, and gentrifiers. Hilarious, scathing writing gives the game a radical, political edge that makes other games look cowardly in comparison.
Treachery in Beatdown City (for PC) Review
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