Curated playlist

Indie games

Hades IIHades II arrived without warning on the 5th of May 2024, and a rival studio rearranged its calendar because of it. Evil Empire had planned to release The Rogue Prince of Persia on the 14th of May. It pushed the launch to later that month…
Five Nights at Freddy'sFive Nights at Freddy's, known to fans as FNaF, asks its players for one thing: stay alive from midnight until 6 a.m. in a pizza restaurant after closing time. Scott Cawthon created the series, and it has grown from video games into…
Stardew ValleyStardew Valley had sold more than 50 million copies by February 2026, and one person made it. That person is Eric Barone, who works under the name ConcernedApe. After college he could not find a job in the games industry and ended up…
Hollow KnightHollow Knight has sold more than 15 million copies as of August 2025, and it was built by Team Cherry, a small independent studio based in Adelaide, Australia. The player controls a nameless insectoid warrior, commonly called the Knight,…
UndertaleUndertale began as a request for US$5,000. When the crowdfunding campaign for the role-playing game closed on the 25th of July 2013, 2,398 backers had pledged US$51,124, more than ten times the goal. Behind the page stood Toby Fox, an…
DeltaruneDeltarune began as a fever dream. In 2011, while Toby Fox was in college, he saw the ending of a video game in his sleep and resolved to build it. The result is an episodic role-playing game from the American indie developer, set in a…
It Takes Two (video game)It Takes Two, a 2021 adventure from Hazelight Studios, is a video game that nobody can finish alone. It has no single-player option. Every player needs a partner, either sitting nearby or connected online, and the story simply will not…
MinecraftMinecraft, the 2011 sandbox game from the Swedish company Mojang Studios, tells its only story through a poem of roughly 1,500 words. The End Poem was written by the Irish novelist Julian Gough. It scrolls past in about nine minutes when a…
Among UsAmong Us, an online deduction game from the American studio Innersloth, arrived in June 2018 to an audience of roughly 30 to 50 players online at any one time. In late September 2020, the same game peaked at 3.8 million concurrent players.…
Hades (video game)Hades is a 2020 action game from Supergiant Games in which the hero dies again and again, and that failure is the point. Its hero, Zagreus, is the son of the ruler of the Underworld, and he badly wants to leave home. Every attempt turns…
Hollow Knight: SilksongHollow Knight: Silksong, a 2025 Metroidvania from the Australian independent studio Team Cherry, spent years as a game people talked about more than played. On the 16th of January 2021, a YouTube fan channel called Daily Silksong News…
Kingdom Come: DeliveranceKingdom Come: Deliverance launched on the 13th of February 2018, and at release it drew 95,863 players at once on Steam. That peak topped the 90,780 recorded by The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The game, from Warhorse Studios, is an action…
Dead by DaylightIn Dead by Daylight, four Survivors fix generators to escape one Killer who tries to hook them all.
Dispatch (video game)Robert Robertson III has no superpowers, a heap of debt, and a hero's suit that no longer works. That is where Dispatch begins. Dispatch is a 2025 episodic adventure game from the American developer AdHoc Studio, and it calls itself a…
The Exit 8The Exit 8 is a 2023 indie game that asks the player to do almost nothing but walk down one passageway in a Japanese metro station. Its creator works under the name Kotake Create, and is also known as Kotakenotokeke. By August 2025 the…
Outer WildsOuter Wilds, a 2019 action-adventure game from Mobius Digital, gives its player exactly 22 minutes to live. At the end of that time the sun goes supernova and the whole planetary system is destroyed. Then everything begins again. The…
BalatroBalatro is a poker-themed card game made by a man who says he does not play poker. The developer goes by LocalThunk, an anonymous solo creator based in Saskatchewan, Canada. He has also said he does not want casinos or gamblers to use his…
Disco ElysiumA man wakes in a trashed hostel room in the district of Martinaise, with a savage hangover and no memory of who he is. He does not know his name, his profession, or anything about the world beyond the door. This is how Disco Elysium…
Touhou ProjectOn the 15th of August 1997, at a large dōjin fan convention called Comiket 52, a university student released the first Touhou Project game. According to its creator, who goes by ZUN, only 30 copies were sold. Touhou Project is a bullet…
Star CitizenOn the 10th of October 2012, the website built to launch Star Citizen crashed in the middle of the game's announcement at GDC. By May 2026, combined crowdfunding and early access sales for the project had passed US$1 billion. That sum…