We are a couple of weeks into 2026 now, and the new year has us reflecting on what a great year 2025 was for gaming. Though many AAA games—and some outstanding indies like Clair Obscur—have received critical acclaim, so many amazing indie games came across CGMagazine’s desk this year. We wanted to round up some of our Indie Watch team’s favourites, in case you missed some of the best indies in 2025!
Below you will find games like Lushfoil Photography Simulator, which brought cozy to a new level in 2025, and PEAK, which brought a competitive edge when playing with friends. Consume Me told a deep, personal story, and GIGASWORD was described as a “must-play adventure” by CGM. Whatever your video game taste, you are sure to find something on our Best Overlooked Indies of 2025 list!
Dominoid
Developer: WAN! WAN!
Release Date: July 10th, 2025
Platforms: PC
Played by: Jordan Biordi
When I first saw Dominoid, I was immediately intrigued by its inventive new take on the falling-block style puzzle game. When I first played Dominoid, I was absolutely hooked. It would be easy to say it’s a game like Dr. Mario or Puyo Puyo, but in all honesty, there’s really NOTHING else like it—at least nothing I’ve ever played. It’s a game that takes the fundamentals of the games that inspired it and evolves them into an experience that is incredibly challenging and unbelievably captivating.
At its simplest, Dominoid can be enjoyed by matching 2X2 squares of Dominoids and trying to play as long as you can. However, the game is quite cleverly designed around the idea of creating Rings—in fact, the game’s creator DingDongVG said in a livestream how even the 2X2 squares are programmed to be recognized as small rings. If players strategize effectively, they can create massive Rings while still scoring points off normal clears and combos and then go for huge points in a screen-clearing Ring.
As the levels increase and the game’s speed ramps up, it becomes even more chaotic and tense, while never losing what makes the game so fun. There is a bit of a learning curve, but like the arcade games it’s inspired by, it’s designed in such a way that players get a little better every time they play. Not only that, but Dominoid’s badge system incentivizes players to focus on their weakspots and improve. Great ideas, impeccable design and a pay-what-you-want price model are just a few of the reasons why Dominoid is one of the best indies of 2025.
Consume Me
Developer: Hexecutable
Release Date: September 24, 2025
Platforms: PC
Played By: Jordan Biordi
When I featured Consume Me for our August & September Spotlight, I said, “It’s one of the most beautiful and deeply upsetting indie games I’ve played in a while.” It’s a game that, for the majority of the time I was playing it, I wanted to cry, and I meant that as the highest compliment. While its gameplay is effectively a collection of WarioWare-esque microgames, it uses them in an unbelievably effective way to create an experience that is stressful, resonant and deeply impactful.
Consume Me deserved higher honours than it got from either me or a token nomination at The Game Awards 2025, because it is such an extremely personal and moving experience as a video game. Its a sterling example of how this medium can be used to tell stories across a broad spectrum. To quote myself once more, it’s “an outstretched hand to those who need it, and it’s brave enough to try and pull those people in rather than sand the edges for wider appeal.”
Pipistrello and the Cursed YoYo
Developer: Pocket Trap
Release Date: May 28th, 2025
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation, Xbox
Played by: Jordan Biordi
It’s not often that a game comes around and grips me so tightly that I complete it in almost one sitting, but Pipistrello and the Cursed YoYo did exactly that. It was a perfect mixture of style, substance and unbelievable charm that transported me to the halcyon days of my youth while still feeling so fresh and modern. As I said in my review, it really feels like the kind of game that would’ve come out during the Game Boy Advance era.
It borrows gameplay elements from The Legend of Zelda and combines them with a visual style that evokes Wario Land 4, all while utilizing unique mechanics for its main character’s YoYo that add a lot of depth to its combat, exploration and puzzle-solving. Throw in a Fallout-style Trait system, a cast of unique characters and a truly rocking soundtrack, and you’ve got one of the best Indies to come out in 2025. While some games are content to use nostalgia as a safe place to tread familiar ground, Pocket Trap captured the essence of why those exciting games that took chances and became nostalgic.
GIGASWORD
Developer: Studio Hybrid
Release Date: November 13, 2025
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation, Xbox
Played by: Philip Watson
I think 2025 will be remembered as “the year of the action platformer” for me. Out of all genres (outside of FromSoftware’s catalogue), I’ve spent most of my time with action-adventure titles with a puzzle-heavy design, and none have left as big an impact as GIGASWORD. Why I loved the Ori series so much is precisely why I love GIGASWORD so much. This adventure has heart, brains and the weight of a dark, enthralling narrative fastened to the player’s back, just as the GIGASWORD itself is fastened to the protagonists. Studio Hybrid does a deft balancing act of crafting thought-provoking puzzles, while never losing sight of the adventure, akin to The Legend of Zelda series before it.
While GIGASWORD touts a larger-than-life weapon, it brings character development, well-paced storytelling, and a bigger-than-the-player picture that confronts loss, despair, and purpose in a world that has seemingly lost its humanity. GIGASWORD is a must-play adventure for those looking for their heart to be broken and reassembled, or for someone who just wants to get to the next screen to see what’s next. An adventure that gives the player what it tries to get in return, landing it on our best indies list this year.
PEAK
Developer: Team PEAK
Release Date: June 16, 2025
Platforms: PC
Played By: Philip Watson
With PEAK and Baby Steps, it’s safe to say the ‘clumsy’ controls genre has hit its… well, peak this year. Team PEAK brought a camaraderie aspect to clumsy controls, and instead of pitting players against each other like Fall Guys, PEAK is incredibly enjoyable, whether competing in a race up the side of an obstacle or working with friends to lift each other to new heights.
PEAK hit differently for me this year. With 2025 being one of the hardest years I’ve had to get through, Team PEAK’s design choices and imposed frustration on the player were cathartic, showing that no matter how hard it gets, you can dust yourself off and throw yourself up the mountain again. Hey, if you try hard enough, you can even hit the top! While my lived-in experience with PEAK relates to a T (another excellent indie this year) to real-life struggles, it hacked its way into my life and showed me how failing can help you approach the mountain in a new way (figuratively and literally).
It also helps that PEAK is just an incredibly fun experience. Where other indie titles break through with breathtaking graphics (like Clair Obscur), or unnerving atmospheres (like ROUTINE and CENTUM), PEAK breaks through with what feels like effortless fun gameplay, that’s addictive to fail and try again. It also helps to laugh at your friends because their fail was way more epic. If you have a PC and some friends who are nagging you to try PEAK, you should listen, because it was one of the best overlooked indies this year.
Halls of Torment
Developer: Chasing Carrots
Release Date: October 28 (on Xbox)
Platforms: PC, Xbox
Played by: Philip Watson
My most welcome comfort food this year—since its arrival on Xbox Game Pass—is Halls of Torment, and it falls as my best indie of the year. I’ve had an eventful year, and while the events of Clair Obscur helped me confront loss and despair, and Silksong helped me destroy my controller pile, Halls of Torment gave me a place to find reprieve away from the noise. With a familiar graphic style to Diablo II, and a familiar gameplay loop to Vampire Survivors, I’ve dragged myself back to the Halls of Torment over and over again for a simplistic easy to pickup hard to master title, that just demands the player to “go.”
While everything outside can feel like your own personal Halls of Torment, Chasing Carrots offers a literal one, one the player can bury themselves in for taking down waves of enemies, and one players can lose hours to. If you like Vampire Survivors or Diablo II’s art style, or, more importantly, if you want to just lose a couple of hours to end a long day with fun enemy slaughter, Halls of Torment has vacancy.
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
Developer: Jump Over the Age
Release Date: January 31, 2025
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation, Xbox
Played By: Lane Martin
Sometimes, it feels like you can’t throw a rock without hitting another sci-fi game that uses ideas like robotic workers and addiction to comment about class struggles and capitalism, or maybe my advertising algorithm is just weird. That said, Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector examines these sorts of ideas elegantly, making what could be ham-fisted moral appeals into organic story beats woven into a fun system.
If you played the previous Citizen Sleeper, then Starward Vector will have a lot of familiar trappings. Players take on the role of a literal corporate automaton who has broken free from their overlords and is trying to find their place in the galaxy without having to go back to the life they escaped. The sequel adds new dice mechanics, based around the popular Forged in the Dark tabletop ruleset, a new missions mechanic where players will take a crew out on a dangerous job for a big payout, and a whole new story deepening the universe and (hopefully) paving the way for more. All of this and more lands it on our Best Overlooked Indies list.
Lushfoil Photography Simulator
Developer: Matt Newell
Release Date: April 15, 2025
Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox
Played By: Lane Martin
Cozy games tend to evoke a particular aesthetic. Say a game has cozy vibes, and people will immediately conjure images of pixelated farms or animal-filled islands. As a longtime Story of Seasons enjoyer, I’m here to tell you that nothing has the immaculate vibes of Lushfoil Photography Simulator, stuffy names aside, making it one of the best indies this year. This is an experience that plops players down in beautiful environments with a decent camera and very little direction.
Whether you’re a photography enthusiast or not, Lushfoil Photography Simulator is an excellent way to get lost in a world outside your own frustrations for a while. Objectives are presented organically and unlockable gear, such as lenses, drones, or old, low-quality digital cameras, encourage players to find the delight in the quiet, almost alien landscapes. Since its release, a new VR mode has been released, and I can’t think of a better way to explore a mountaintop from the comfort of my own living room.
BALL x PIT
Developer: Kenny Sun and Friends
Release Date: October 15, 2025
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PS5, Xbox
Played By: Lane Martin
The pitch for BALL x PIT is alarmingly simple. Basically, it’s a game like Arkanoid or Breakout with rogue-like elements and Vampire Survivors-esque progression mechanics. If none of that made any sense to you, it’s a game where you bounce balls to destroy an army of bricks descending from the top of the screen. Destroyed bricks drop experience gems that can be used to unlock new, better balls, and upgraded balls can be combined with others to make wild and broken combinations. It’s pretty rad.
So rad, in fact, that you may have actually heard of it. BALL x PIT suffered from a late release, and yet people have been rabid in making sure it’s on everyone’s radar. Frankly, I almost completely ignored it, and that would have been a huge mistake. The combination of systems and the myriad of power-ups, both strange and powerful, has had me coming back again and again. It is certainly something worth checking out, and one of the best indies of 2025.
That is it for our 2025 Best Overlooked Indies wrap-up. Stay tuned to our first Indie Watch of 2026, coming in March, where we kick off checking out great indie games to recommend to you!
