# 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.

*By YPB Team · Published October 30, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/top-40-indie-games-of-the-late-2010s*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Celeste** — score 1000/1000
   A 2018 precision platformer about climbing a mountain and facing anxiety, from Maddy Makes Games.
2. **Hollow Knight** — score 874/1000
   Team Cherry's 2017 hand-drawn Metroidvania set in the ruined insect kingdom of Hallownest.
3. **RimWorld** — score 702/1000
   Ludeon's colony sim, fully released in 2018, driven by an AI storyteller and emergent chaos.
4. **Gris** — score 615/1000
   Nomada Studio's 2018 watercolor platformer about a young woman moving through grief.
5. **Frostpunk** — score 615/1000
   11 bit studios' 2018 city builder about keeping a steam-powered city alive in endless winter.
6. **Enter the Gungeon** — score 598/1000
   Dodge Roll's 2016 bullet-hell dungeon crawler packed with absurd guns.
7. **Untitled Goose Game** — score 598/1000
   House House's 2019 comedy stealth game about a horrible goose terrorizing an English village.
8. **Slay the Spire** — score 555/1000
   Mega Crit's 2019 deckbuilding roguelike that kicked off a wave of card-battler imitators.
9. **Night in the Woods** — score 555/1000
   Infinite Fall's 2017 adventure about a college dropout cat returning to her fading hometown.
10. **Oxenfree** — score 555/1000
   Night School Studio's 2016 supernatural thriller about teens opening a ghostly rift on an island.
11. **Doki Doki Literature Club** — score 508/1000
   Team Salvato's free 2017 visual novel that turns from cute dating sim into psychological horror.
12. **A Short Hike** — score 508/1000
   Adam Robinson-Yu's cozy 2019 exploration game about climbing to a mountain peak for phone signal.
13. **Superhot** — score 508/1000
   A 2016 first-person shooter where time moves only when you move.
14. **Abzû** — score 454/1000
   Giant Squid's 2016 wordless underwater journey through vivid ocean ecosystems.
15. **A Hat in Time** — score 454/1000
   Gears for Breakfast's Kickstarter-funded 2017 3D platformer inspired by the N64 classics.
16. **Cuphead** — score 454/1000
   StudioMDHR's brutally hard 2017 run-and-gun shooter drawn in 1930s rubber-hose cartoon style.
17. **Hypnospace Outlaw** — score 454/1000
   Tendershoot's 2019 simulation of policing a fake late-90s internet as a content moderator.
18. **Rain World** — score 394/1000
   Videocult's 2017 survival platformer about a slugcat in a hostile, living ecosystem.
19. **Firewatch** — score 394/1000
   Campo Santo's 2016 first-person mystery about a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness.
20. **What Remains of Edith Finch** — score 394/1000
   Giant Sparrow's 2017 narrative game exploring the strange deaths of one cursed family.
21. **Slime Rancher** — score 394/1000
   Monomi Park's cheerful first-person sim about ranching bouncy slimes on a faraway planet.
22. **Inside** — score 394/1000
   Playdead's bleak 2016 puzzle-platformer about a boy slipping into a sinister research facility.
23. **Sayonara Wild Hearts** — score 394/1000
   Simogo's 2019 pop-album video game, a neon rhythm ride through heartbreak.
24. **Hyper Light Drifter** — score 394/1000
   Heart Machine's 2016 pixel-art action RPG about a dying drifter in a ruined neon world.
25. **Overcooked** — score 324/1000
   Ghost Town Games' chaotic 2016 co-op cooking game that tests friendships in tiny kitchens.
26. **Florence** — score 324/1000
   Mountains' 2018 interactive storybook about a young woman's first serious relationship.
27. **Katana Zero** — score 324/1000
   Askiisoft's 2019 neo-noir action platformer where one hit kills and time can be slowed.
28. **Getting Over It** — score 245/1000
   Bennett Foddy's infamous 2017 climbing game controlled with a hammer and pure frustration.
29. **The Messenger** — score 245/1000
   Sabotage Studio's 2018 ninja platformer that jumps from 8-bit to 16-bit mid-adventure.
30. **Baba Is You** — score 245/1000
   Hempuli's 2019 puzzle game where you rewrite the level's rules by pushing word blocks.
31. **Into the Breach** — score 245/1000
   Subset Games' 2018 turn-based tactics game where mechs defend cities from giant Vek.
32. **Outer Wilds** — score 245/1000
   Mobius Digital's 2019 space exploration mystery set inside a 22-minute time loop.
33. **Return of the Obra Dinn** — score 245/1000
   Lucas Pope's 2018 one-bit deduction mystery about the fate of a lost merchant ship's crew.
34. **Darkest Dungeon** — score 245/1000
   Red Hook's 2016 gothic roguelike RPG where heroes crack under stress as well as wounds.
35. **The Witness** — score 245/1000
   Jonathan Blow's 2016 open-world puzzle game set on an island of line mazes.
36. **Owlboy** — score 245/1000
   D-Pad Studio's 2016 pixel-art adventure about a mute owl boy, nearly a decade in development.
37. **Disco Elysium** — score 151/1000
   ZA/UM's 2019 detective RPG where an amnesiac cop argues with his own skills in a broken city.
38. **Stardew Valley** — score 151/1000
   ConcernedApe's 2016 farming and life sim, built almost entirely by one developer.
39. **Subnautica** — score 151/1000
   Unknown Worlds' 2018 underwater survival game set on a vast alien ocean planet.
40. **Dead Cells** — score 0/1000
   Motion Twin's 2018 roguelite action platformer with a shifting castle and fast, fluid combat.

Tags: games, adventure, indie, 2010s