Tired of dabbling into long, drawn out and bloated AAA gaming experiences that feature gargantuan open worlds with tons of collectables and repetitive forms of gameplay? Or do you need a break from achieving long killstreaks in your multiplayer shooters? Try indie games.
Indie titles are the heart and soul of the industry, coming to us from small studios with only a handful of developers working on their passion projects. Indie games are short and concise experiences packed with tons of charm and personality while pushing the envelope further when it comes to innovation. Listed below are 15 indie games from 2023 that you should look out for.
Season: A Letter to the Future
Ever wanted to go on a road trip with just you, your camera, and your bike, documenting all of your findings and journaling them while following the road wherever it takes you? If that’s the case, Season: A Letter to the Future might just be the game for you.
You play as Estelle, navigating, photographing, recording and journaling your way across the land during the changing season. You meet folk and learn about them while exploring this gorgeous land to uncover its mysteries and secrets. The game tells a well-written and often times emotional narrative, and the art style on display is nothing short of breathtaking.
There’s a sense of calmness that comes packed with this game. If a short experience full of serenity and zen is your thing, Season: A Letter to the Future by Scavenger Studios is a game you should definitely check out.
Season: A Letter to the Future is available now for PlayStation consoles and PC.
Bounty Star: The Morose Tale of Graveyard Clem
Developed by DINOGOD and published by none other than Annapurna Interactive, Bounty Star: The Morose Tale of Graveyard Clem is a third-person action game that combines elements like base building, farming, and mech combat into one explosive package.
You play as Clem and pilot a highly customizable mech, Desert Raptor MKII, that comes packed with a ton of weapons and other tools like thrusters, boosters, shields and more. The goal of the game is for you to become the ultimate bounty hunter, and by the looks of it, it’ll be one hell of an action-packed journey.
Bounty Star: The Morose Tale of Graveyard Clem will arrive sometime in 2023 for Xbox and PlayStation consoles alongside PC. The game will also be available as a day-one addition to Xbox Game Pass.
Flock
Another Annapurna Interactive title, Flock truly is a never-seen-before kind of game. Coming to us from a studio called Hollow Ponds, this is a third-person co-op game where you and your friends play as shepherds, looking after and taking care of their own flocks of weird yet extremely adorable flying creatures.
Not much is known about the game at this point, but good lord it’s one of the most adorable and charming looking games I have ever seen. It’s unique, it’s weird, and it’s just plain gorgeous; hopefully, we’ll learn more about it soon.
Flock will arrive sometime in 2023 for Xbox and PlayStation consoles alongside PC, and the game will also be available as a day-one addition to Xbox Game Pass.
Dredge
Fishing season is relaxing, is it not? Just you near a body of water with your fishing rod and lots of waiting. The boredom of waiting for a bite is quickly alleviated when you get a nibble and, in the end, the long periods of waiting become worth it all. Dredge gives you that experience, but it doesn’t stop there.
You play as a fisherman and pilot your boat across an archipelago, looking for and catching hundreds of different kinds of fish. You need to be efficiently managing your inventory and taking care of your ship while selling your catch to maximize profits. The catch here is that the depths of the ocean have mysteries and horror buried within.
Dredge may look like a relaxing fishing game on the surface, but as you plunge deeper, you’ll find a Lovecraft-inspired horror flick here with mysteries to uncover and threats to run away from.
Dredge is available now for Xbox and PlayStation alongside PC.
Hollow Knight: Silksong
You know it, I know it, and everybody else knows how incredible and immaculate 2017’s Hollow Knight was. Team Cherry really developed something truly special with this gorgeous Metroidvania by combining Soulslike elements, taking an already incredible genre and elevating it to new heights. Hollow Knight: Silksong is aiming to continue from where the original left off and lets us play as Hornet, the mysterious princess-protector we encountered in the first game.
The combat looks deadlier here, and the environments are nothing short of breathtaking. With what the developers were able to accomplish with the first game, there’s no doubt in our minds that this next entry will be anything short of a banger.
Hollow Knight: Silksong will arrive sometime in 2023 for Xbox and PlayStation consoles alongside PC. The game will also be available as a day-one addition to Xbox Game Pass.
Cassette Beasts
Who doesn’t know about Pokemon? I mean, it was one of the most popular shows back in the 90s and kids from all over the world eagerly waited to learn more about the next evolution of their favorite Pokemon. Cassette Beasts will help you satiate your Pokemon hunger, as the game takes heavy inspiration from those adorable pocket monsters and delivers a whole new world for us to explore.
Developed by Bytten Studios and published by Raw Fury, Cassette Beasts is a role-playing adventure set across an open world where you run around collecting creatures and then taking them to battle. As mentioned, this game takes heavy inspiration from Pokemon and Pokemon games and gives us a memorable, fresh, and adorable experience full of adventures and tons of creatures to collect.
Cassette Beasts is available now for Xbox consoles and PC and is also included with Xbox Game Pass.
Ravenlok
Developer Cococucumber is known for making voxel-styled games, with titles like Riverbond and the incredible Echo Generation under their belt. With the success of their previous titles, they return once again with Ravenlok, which they are calling the epic finale of their voxel trilogy.
Ravenlok is your classic fairytale about a kingdom with a stranger/outsider arriving to fulfil an age-old prophecy. The game lets you explore a gorgeous kingdom and features real-time combat all the while maintaining the incredible 3D voxel artstyle Cococumber is known. The game delivers incredible lighting effects with a beautiful soundtrack to boot. Ravenlok is charming and quirky and is a relatively short and memorable experience that you should check out if you are into fantasy games.
Ravenlok is available now for Xbox consoles and PC and is also included with Xbox Game Pass.
Planet Of Lana
Other than innovation, if indie games deserve credit for one thing, then it has to be the stylistic choices the developers make. If gorgeous visuals and a memorable atmosphere is your cup of tea, feel free to check out Planet Of Lana.
Developed by Wishfully, Planet Of Lana aims to tell the story of a planet where humans, nature, and beasts lived in harmony together until a day comes when a faceless army shows up and throws the planet into chaos. Despite such a concept, the game is aiming to tell the tale of the planet itself and not necessarily the conflict that ensues. The presentation looks solid with gorgeous visuals that look like they were ripped straight out of a painting and a beautiful soundtrack.
Planet Of Lana is available now for Xbox consoles and PC and is also included with Xbox Game Pass.
After Us
From one gorgeous and impactful game to the next, After Us is all about second chances. Developed by Piccolo Studios and published by Private Division, the game tells the tale of Gaia, a spirit who arrives on Earth to return it back to the way it was after all life has died on the planet. At its core, the game is about exploration and weaving through a narrative by interacting with the environment and understanding the deeper meanings and mysteries of what happened to our planet.
Gaia can glide, surf and leap across the environment, giving you options to go off the beaten path and explore your surroundings thoroughly to piece together the puzzle and decide if the planet deserves a second chance. Aside from its gorgeous visuals, the game tells a thought-provoking and rather topical tale of humans and their lack of care for the environment.
After Us is available now for Xbox and PlayStation consoles alongside PC.
Way to the Woods
Way to the Woods is a game by Anthony Tan, a single developer aiming to tell the story of a deer and a fawn traversing through an unknown world to find their way back home.
By the looks of it, the game seems to be flooding with environmental storytelling and tons of puzzles to solve, all the while uncovering this mysterious and unique world. This looks to be one of the most adorable and captivating indie titles that I personally have ever seen, and it sure seems like an emotional journey that we’ll soon get to go through.
Way to the Woods will arrive sometime in 2023 for Xbox consoles alongside PC. The game will also be available as a day-one addition to Xbox Game Pass.
Cocoon
Cocoon is a weird one. Why? Well, because we know absolutely nothing about the game other than what the reveal trailer showed us, and what it did show us didn’t tell us a whole lot. If that’s the case, then why are we talking about it? The answer is that it’s being made by Jeppe Carlson, the lead developer behind Limbo and Inside, both of which were fantastic games.
Cocoon is a lot different from Carlson’s previous works though, as the game lets you explore worlds and solve puzzles while also letting you carry those worlds on your back to teleport into. As I said, it’s unclear how this game works, but conceptually and aesthetically it looks very interesting and unique. Just as the name would suggest, the game has layers upon layers to itself, it seems.
Cocoon will arrive sometime in 2023 for Xbox and PC, and the game will also be available as a day-one addition to Xbox Game Pass.
Ereban: Shadow Legacy
Our next entry is Ereban: Shadow Legacy, a fast-paced, third-person stealth platformer. You play as Ayana, the last surviving member of a long-forgotten race with weird magical powers that let you become one with the shadows.
The game seems to be taking heavy inspiration from the immersive-sim genre as it’ll let you tackle missions and objectives your own way. This means you can be as stealthy or chaotic as you like. You’ll also be discovering and learn more about the world this game takes place in, which is overrun by robots you need to take down.
Ereban: Shadow Legacy will arrive sometime in 2023 for Xbox and PC, and the game will also be available as a day-one addition to Xbox Game Pass.
Thirsty Suitors
Another game being published by Annapurna Interactive (they are on fire), Thirsty Suitors is, once again, truly a one-of-a-kind game.
In this turn-based game, you play as Jala, who has to balance her life by keeping up with her parents, battling it out with her exes, and finding out who and what she is. Sounds interesting and a tad relatable maybe? The three pillars that make up the gameplay involve skating with style while exploring the surroundings, cooking to impress your parents, and taking part in turn based battles against your exes. The word ‘unique’ truly isn’t enough to define what Thirsty Suitors is aiming to be when it comes out soon.
Thirsty Suitors will arrive sometime in 2023 for Xbox and PC, and the game will also be available as a day-one addition to Xbox Game Pass.
REPLACED
This is personally my most anticipated game, indie or otherwise, for the year 2023. REPLACED comes to us from Ukrain-based Sad Cat Studios and is a 2.5D action-platformer.
The game takes places in an alternative retro-future, and it seems that the developers have taken heavy inspiration from Blade Runner. You play as REACH, an AI trapped in a human body. The game is set in Phoenix City in the 1980s and marries pixel art with realistic lighting when it comes to its visual presentation. And it looks phenomenal! Tons of action and story await us when REPLACED finally arrives.
REPLACED will arrive sometime in 2023 for Xbox and PC, and the game will also be available as a day-one addition to Xbox Game Pass.
Pacific Drive
Pacific Drive is a first-person driving game which is also a survival game and a roguelike. Now that’s one hell of a combination!
How this works is you have to scavenge and build your car and run and survive long enough to make it to the Olympic Exclusion Zone and find out what’s going on around you. Navigating the world full of anomalies and deadly hazards while learning more and more about it with each run and pushing forward to learn just a bit more is certainly edge-of-the-seat stuff.
Pacific Drive will arrive sometime in 2023 for PlayStation consoles alongside PC.
Which of these indie games are you excited for? Let us know in the comments below.
