Top 40 Indie Games of the Late 2010s

Some of these sold millions on Steam; others found their crowd by word of mouth in a single weekend. Every pick here came out of a small studio between 2016 and 2019, and plenty of them still get named as the best thing that decade produced.

1. 1
   Celeste

   A 2018 precision platformer about climbing a mountain and facing anxiety, from Maddy Makes Games.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Hollow Knight

   Team Cherry's 2017 hand-drawn Metroidvania set in the ruined insect kingdom of Hallownest.
   874pts
3. 3
   RimWorld

   Ludeon's colony sim, fully released in 2018, driven by an AI storyteller and emergent chaos.
   702pts
4. 4
   Gris

   Nomada Studio's 2018 watercolor platformer about a young woman moving through grief.
   615pts
5. 5
   Frostpunk

   11 bit studios' 2018 city builder about keeping a steam-powered city alive in endless winter.
   615pts
6. 6
   Enter the Gungeon

   Dodge Roll's 2016 bullet-hell dungeon crawler packed with absurd guns.
   598pts
7. 7
   Untitled Goose Game

   House House's 2019 comedy stealth game about a horrible goose terrorizing an English village.
   598pts
8. 8
   Slay the Spire

   Mega Crit's 2019 deckbuilding roguelike that kicked off a wave of card-battler imitators.
   555pts
9. 9
   Night in the Woods

   Infinite Fall's 2017 adventure about a college dropout cat returning to her fading hometown.
   555pts
10. 10
    Oxenfree

    Night School Studio's 2016 supernatural thriller about teens opening a ghostly rift on an island.
    555pts
11. 11
    Doki Doki Literature Club

    Team Salvato's free 2017 visual novel that turns from cute dating sim into psychological horror.
    508pts
12. 12
    A Short Hike

    Adam Robinson-Yu's cozy 2019 exploration game about climbing to a mountain peak for phone signal.
    508pts
13. 13
    Superhot

    A 2016 first-person shooter where time moves only when you move.
    508pts
14. 14
    Abzû

    Giant Squid's 2016 wordless underwater journey through vivid ocean ecosystems.
    454pts
15. 15
    A Hat in Time

    Gears for Breakfast's Kickstarter-funded 2017 3D platformer inspired by the N64 classics.
    454pts
16. 16
    Cuphead

    StudioMDHR's brutally hard 2017 run-and-gun shooter drawn in 1930s rubber-hose cartoon style.
    454pts
17. 17
    Hypnospace Outlaw

    Tendershoot's 2019 simulation of policing a fake late-90s internet as a content moderator.
    454pts
18. 18
    Rain World

    Videocult's 2017 survival platformer about a slugcat in a hostile, living ecosystem.
    394pts
19. 19
    Firewatch

    Campo Santo's 2016 first-person mystery about a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness.
    394pts
20. 20
    What Remains of Edith Finch

    Giant Sparrow's 2017 narrative game exploring the strange deaths of one cursed family.
    394pts
21. 21
    Slime Rancher

    Monomi Park's cheerful first-person sim about ranching bouncy slimes on a faraway planet.
    394pts
22. 22
    Inside

    Playdead's bleak 2016 puzzle-platformer about a boy slipping into a sinister research facility.
    394pts
23. 23
    Sayonara Wild Hearts

    Simogo's 2019 pop-album video game, a neon rhythm ride through heartbreak.
    394pts
24. 24
    Hyper Light Drifter

    Heart Machine's 2016 pixel-art action RPG about a dying drifter in a ruined neon world.
    394pts
25. 25
    Overcooked

    Ghost Town Games' chaotic 2016 co-op cooking game that tests friendships in tiny kitchens.
    324pts
26. 26
    Florence

    Mountains' 2018 interactive storybook about a young woman's first serious relationship.
    324pts
27. 27
    Katana Zero

    Askiisoft's 2019 neo-noir action platformer where one hit kills and time can be slowed.
    324pts
28. 28
    Getting Over It

    Bennett Foddy's infamous 2017 climbing game controlled with a hammer and pure frustration.
    245pts
29. 29
    The Messenger

    Sabotage Studio's 2018 ninja platformer that jumps from 8-bit to 16-bit mid-adventure.
    245pts
30. 30
    Baba Is You

    Hempuli's 2019 puzzle game where you rewrite the level's rules by pushing word blocks.
    245pts
31. 31
    Into the Breach

    Subset Games' 2018 turn-based tactics game where mechs defend cities from giant Vek.
    245pts
32. 32
    Outer Wilds

    Mobius Digital's 2019 space exploration mystery set inside a 22-minute time loop.
    245pts
33. 33
    Return of the Obra Dinn

    Lucas Pope's 2018 one-bit deduction mystery about the fate of a lost merchant ship's crew.
    245pts
34. 34
    Darkest Dungeon

    Red Hook's 2016 gothic roguelike RPG where heroes crack under stress as well as wounds.
    245pts
35. 35
    The Witness

    Jonathan Blow's 2016 open-world puzzle game set on an island of line mazes.
    245pts
36. 36
    Owlboy

    D-Pad Studio's 2016 pixel-art adventure about a mute owl boy, nearly a decade in development.
    245pts
37. 37
    Disco Elysium

    ZA/UM's 2019 detective RPG where an amnesiac cop argues with his own skills in a broken city.
    151pts
38. 38
    Stardew Valley

    ConcernedApe's 2016 farming and life sim, built almost entirely by one developer.
    151pts
39. 39
    Subnautica

    Unknown Worlds' 2018 underwater survival game set on a vast alien ocean planet.
    151pts
40. 40
    Dead Cells

    Motion Twin's 2018 roguelite action platformer with a shifting castle and fast, fluid combat.
    0pts

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