Best indie game that looks more like AAA

Summary

• Indie games encompass a variety of genres and styles, challenging the idea that open-world games and dungeon crawlers are exclusive to big studios.

• Titles like Kena: Bridge of Spirits and Hades showcase indie expertise with impressive visuals, compelling stories and tight game mechanics.

• Despite limited resources, indie developers like Team Cherry create masterpieces like Hollow Knight, proving that detailed world building and tight controls are possible in indie games.

Today, indie games have a great reputation thanks to the creative genius and style displayed by the cream of the self-funded crop. But not all indie games are guaranteed to be future classics, and many of these games come with more blemishes than most gamers can handle due to a lack of money to cover the cost of playtesting and polishing.

Because they don't have the same amount of resources as AAA games (so called to signal reliably large profits to investors), indies tend to be small, focused and good at what they do, but some games have come out of the gate with all the luster that usually only given to studios with huge add-ons: stunning visuals, wide scope and long running time.

Kena: Bridge Of Spirits

Bridging the gap between two worlds

Most people would be surprised to know that Kena: Bridge of the Spirits is an indie product, given its high level of polish, presentation, and Pixar-like character design and animation. The game follows Kena, a young spirit guide, as she helps restless spirits move on while making a sacred pilgrimage.

Kena: Bridge of the Spirits comes between two worlds in more ways than one. Ember Lab had cut its teeth in character design and animation, which is how many of the characters in the game come out with such fluid liveliness. Kena was independently funded and developed, but its design and world are more reminiscent of old-school, large-scale platformers and action-adventure games from the sixth console generation.

Death's door

An awesome adventure worth dying for

Death's door proving that the classic dungeon crawler still has a lot of life left in it, even when its themes revolve around the harvesting of souls. With games like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of WisdomNintendo clearly hasn't abandoned the traditional top-down format, but they don't have a monopoly on it either.

Death's door mixes tightly crafted combat, clever puzzles and an eerie yet charming world where crows act as harvesters of lost souls. Each scene feels carefully crafted, with secrets and challenges that reward exploration and persistence.

Hades

The immortal god of roguelikes

The indie (and ironically named) Supergiant Games redefined the roguelike genre in 2020 with Hadeswhich mixes relentless action, rich storytelling and a sense of Greek mythology and style. Stunning art direction and fluid combat work simultaneously as Zagreus traverses the ultimate, endless dungeon: the Underworld itself.

Every escape attempt is as much about uncovering family secrets and divine rivalries as it is about survival, making every inevitable defeat still feel like progress. With its razor-sharp mechanics, unforgettable characters and dynamic narrative, Hades is a prime example of indie expertise that can easily rival the big bucks of AAA development.

Subnautica

An indie both wide and deep like an ocean

Open world games with base building mechanics are usually the domain of the big boys in gaming, but Subnautica somehow manages to make deep-sea exploration feel satisfyingly expansive without overstaying its welcome while removing many of the tedious elements that can make crafting in similar games feel like a chore.

However, Subnautica always striving to make players feel like they are pushing for progress with every fathom deeper they go into the sea. Base building is not just a side feature but feels like a way to escape to a vital sanctuary in a sea of ​​pressure and dangerous monsters.

Outer Wilds

A tightly designed and mysterious creation

When working with a budget, time is hardly an infinite resource. This is not so in Outer Wildswhere the sizable solar system resets every twenty minutes, both hindering and aiding the player in their quest to unravel the time-locked mystery. Players are limited by time, but they're not as limited by space, thanks to their rustic spaceships, which they're free to fly around basically from the start.

Although the system is miniaturized, the explorable space, with each of its planets and satellites, still feels wonderfully vast. The technology below The Outer Wilds' hood is proof that sometimes all it takes is a great idea and clever coding, not necessarily a publisher with deep pockets, to make a great game come true.

Hollow Knight

Reclaims a beloved style and genre with soul

Although 2D animation has virtually disappeared since the 21st century, the appetite for it has not, as evidenced by the popularity of a game that Hollow Knight. Its stunning presentation, with its hand-drawn graphics and haunting sound design, makes it look and feel like something from a powerful studio. However, Team Cherry consists of a handful of people.

Despite the studio's small size, they managed to produce a deadly underground game world filled with melancholic atmosphere, well-hidden secrets, tight controls, and some of the best Metroidvania level designs for gaming in general, not just from the indie crowd.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

The binding of two worlds

The astonishing level of detail in the Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice isn't just limited to Melina Juergen's excellent face-captured performance and the overall haunting environment design. What could be mistaken for a cinematic indie slasher uses dark fantasy tropes to recreate the harrowing experience and invisible suffering often experienced by people with mental illness that can often feel impossible to convey through written or spoken reportage.

It's unlikely that this kind of risque subject matter would be pitched as a full AAA game, and indeed, Senua's sacrifice was not put together and financed by a major publisher but by twenty or so people at Ninja Theory, who, aware of the extremely polished presentation mixed with the sensitive and intimate subject matter, described Hellblade as a “AAA indie”.