Best Indie Games of the Decade

Hades

Supergiant fused roguelike combat with a fully voiced Greek mythology soap opera, and the result won a Hugo Award for Best Game — a first for any video game. Its narrative-driven death loop, where every failed escape from the Underworld deepens the story, redefined what a rogueli

Release Year: 2020Critic Score: 9.3/10Launch Price: $25Copies Sold: 10 million

added by IJRin 6 rankings

Undertale

Toby Fox built an entire genre-subverting RPG solo, letting players 'win' by refusing to fight anyone — a mechanic that turned a $50k Kickstarter into a cultural phenomenon. Its pacifist-run twist and Sans boss fight became internet legend almost overnight. Nearly a decade later,

Release Year: 2015Critic Score: 9.2/10Launch Price: $10Copies Sold: 5 million

added by IJRin 8 rankingsUndertale

Stardew Valley

ConcernedApe's solo-developed farming sim proved one person could out-Harvest-Moon Harvest Moon, selling over 20 million copies while still shipping major free updates years after launch. Its slow-burn charm turned it into comfort-food gaming for a generation stuck indoors. Still

Release Year: 2016Critic Score: 8.9/10Launch Price: $15Copies Sold: 20 million

added by IJRin 6 rankingsStardew Valley

Celeste

Matt Thorson's pixel-perfect platformer turned brutal precision-jumping into a metaphor for anxiety and self-acceptance, without a single microtransaction or gimmick. The murderously hard B-Side levels and Farewell DLC pushed platforming difficulty to legendary extremes. It swept

Release Year: 2018Critic Score: 9.2/10Launch Price: $20Copies Sold: 1 million

added by IJRin 10 rankings

Hollow Knight

Team Cherry's Kickstarter-funded Metroidvania delivered a sprawling, hand-drawn insect kingdom so dense that players are still finding secrets years later. Its unforgiving boss fights and haunting atmosphere set a bar the genre has chased ever since. The endlessly delayed sequel,

Release Year: 2017Critic Score: 9/10Launch Price: $15Copies Sold: 5 million

added by IJRin 10 rankingsHollow Knight

Disco Elysium

ZA/UM's dialogue-only detective RPG threw out combat entirely and still became one of the most decorated games of 2019, sweeping RPG categories at the Game Awards. Its million-word script and drunk, disgraced-cop protagonist made 'skill checks as internal monologue' a genre unto

Release Year: 2019Critic Score: 9.1/10Launch Price: $40Copies Sold: —

added by IJRin 5 rankings

Outer Wilds

Mobius Digital's time-loop space exploration game hands you no weapons and no map — just curiosity and a 22-minute countdown to a supernova. Its Echoes of the Eye DLC and haunting eclipse ending became the definitive 'I can't spoil this' recommendation of the decade. It stunned b

Release Year: 2019Critic Score: 8.5/10Launch Price: $25Copies Sold: —

added by IJRin 5 rankingsOuter Wilds

Return of the Obra Dinn

Lucas Pope followed Papers, Please with a 1-bit murder mystery where you freeze time at sixty crime scenes to deduce the fate of an entire ship's crew. Its unique monochrome dithered art style and pure-logic puzzle structure made it an instant design-school case study. It's the t

Release Year: 2018Critic Score: 8.5/10Launch Price: $20Copies Sold: —

added by IJRin 2 rankingsReturn of the Obra Dinn

Cuphead

StudioMDHR's brothers-run passion project recreated 1930s rubber-hose animation frame-by-frame while delivering some of the hardest boss rushes in gaming. Its hand-inked visuals and Delicious Last Course DLC turned a niche art experiment into a Netflix series. Twelve million-plus

Release Year: 2017Critic Score: 8.6/10Launch Price: $20Copies Sold: 12 million

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Dead Cells

Motion Twin's roguevania blended Metroidvania exploration with permadeath combat so tight it's still receiving content updates years after its 1.0 launch. Its early-access model, refined through years of community feedback, became a template other studios now copy. Ten million-pl

Release Year: 2018Critic Score: 8.9/10Launch Price: $25Copies Sold: 10 million

added by IJRin 4 rankingsDead Cells

Terraria

Re-Logic's 2D sandbox launched in 2011 and just kept growing, with the team promising 'no more updates' four separate times before delivering yet another massive free patch. It's sold more copies than most AAA franchises combined, becoming the decade's ultimate 'still not done' s

Release Year: 2011Critic Score: 8.3/10Launch Price: $10Copies Sold: 44 million

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Papers, Please

Lucas Pope's border-checkpoint bureaucracy simulator turned stamping passports into a gut-wrenching morality engine, forcing players to choose between quota and conscience. Its stark, Soviet-bloc aesthetic and multiple endings made political commentary feel like actual gameplay.

Release Year: 2013Critic Score: 8.5/10Launch Price: $10Copies Sold: 4 million

added by IJRin 3 rankingsPapers, Please

Inside

Playdead's follow-up to Limbo traded silhouettes for eerie, fully-rendered dystopia, culminating in one of gaming's most disturbing final-act twists. Its wordless storytelling proved atmosphere alone could carry a three-hour game to Game of the Year shortlists. The infamous blob

Release Year: 2016Critic Score: 8.7/10Launch Price: $20Copies Sold: —

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Journey

Thatgamecompany's wordless multiplayer pilgrimage across a desert let strangers cooperate without chat, voice, or even names — just a chime and a shared destination. Its Grammy-nominated score and tearful stranger-becomes-friend endings made it the decade's most emotionally influ

Release Year: 2012Critic Score: 9.2/10Launch Price: $15Copies Sold: 5 million

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Slay the Spire

MegaCrit's card-based roguelike didn't just popularize deckbuilding, it basically invented the modern deckbuilder-roguelike hybrid that spawned dozens of imitators. Years in early access let the community balance-test thousands of card combos before the 1.0 launch. It remains the

Release Year: 2019Critic Score: 8.9/10Launch Price: $25Copies Sold: 8 million

added by IJRin 5 rankingsSlay the Spire

Among Us

InnerSloth's 2018 release sat nearly forgotten until a 2020 pandemic-fueled Twitch explosion turned it into the most-played game on the planet overnight. Its simple 'find the impostor' loop became a cultural shorthand, referenced everywhere from classrooms to the U.S. Congress. F

Release Year: 2018Critic Score: 8.5/10Launch Price: $5Copies Sold: 500 million

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The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Edmund McMillen's remake of his own cult roguelike refined the item-synergy chaos that basically defined the modern roguelike boom. Its absurd, grotesque biblical-horror aesthetic and near-infinite run variety made 'just one more run' addictive for years. Multiple DLC expansions

Release Year: 2014Critic Score: 8.7/10Launch Price: $15Copies Sold: 5 million

added by IJRin 2 rankingsThe Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Spelunky 2

Derek Yu's decade-later sequel to a genre-defining roguelike somehow made procedural generation even more devious, with secrets so deep the community needed years to fully crack them. Its unforgiving physics-based traps and hidden final boss became a masterclass in emergent diffi

Release Year: 2020Critic Score: 8.5/10Launch Price: $20Copies Sold: —

added by IJRSpelunky 2