The best indie games on the Epic Games Store in 2025 (so far)

So far, 2025 has been a standout year for indie games. There's something for everyone, from physics-driven fantasy brawls to thoughtful titles that explore the physical and emotional aftercare of being a hero. We've delved into the Epic Games Store library to uncover some standout gems from the first half of the year and assembled a carefully curated list to help you discover your next indie obsession. Let’s dive in.

Eternal Strands

A magic-infused monster-hunting expedition from a team of ex-Bioware developers, Eternal Strands burst onto the scene in late January, offering players a bold narrative adventure inspired by Shadow of the Colossus and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Players wield telekinesis and harness the elements to put enemies in their place. You can hurl scorched flora at weak points or throw shield-toting challengers off of cliffs, and your elemental mastery comes in handy for charting the landscape, too. This environmental interplay is the main draw of Eternal Strands, a game that stokes your imagination with each encounter.

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is the atmospheric follow-up to 2022’s sci-fi hit Citizen Sleeper. In both games, you play as a rogue android who has broken free from its makers. 

While on the run from a complicated past, you'll use tense dice rolls to make difficult choices, specialise your Sleeper’s skillset, and foster a ragtag crew to survive this moody cyberpunk world. If you’re looking for a starfaring odyssey to sink into on subsequent evenings, Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector’s heady themes will surely inspire some poignant self-reflection.

Promise Mascot Agency

Promise Mascot Agency is an utterly absurd adventure from the minds behind Paradise Killer. Players wrangle anthropomorphic mascots like severed pinky fingers and depressed blocks of tofu to rejuvenate the fortunes of a rural Japanese town.

Expect plenty of ambient drives between gigs in a rusty truck, as well as contract negotiations with a rogue’s gallery of hilarious washed-up losers. Putting Kaso-Machi back on the map won’t be easy, but the warmth radiating from this intriguing mystery of a game will make it worth your while.

Rain World: The Watcher

Survival-platformer Rain World’s latest expansion, The Watcher, plunges players into a devastated ecological dystopia full of challenging creatures and melancholy vistas. 

You’ll plot your path through shudder-worthy scenery as a lonely Slugcat, with subtle snippets of storytelling littered throughout the landscape. If you covet that eerie feeling of being lost in a handcrafted world, Rain World: The Watcher will satiate those atmospheric desires while also busying your ears with memorable melodies.

Cabernet

If you’d prefer to mingle with vampires while toeing the line between humanity and nihilism, then Cabernet may be the right pick for your next indie adventure. A visual novel with RPG elements, you’ll choose how to spend your time as a young female vampire in a town full of potential prey.

In addition to expanding your mental palate with 19th-century art and literature, you’ll explore Cabernet's world as a bat and render yourself invisible to build your understanding of your interlocutors—before choosing whether to feast on their supple jugulars.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a contemporary ode to classic JRPGs, meticulously rendered by French studio Sandfall Interactive. In this grim Belle Epoque-inspired world, everyone of a certain age is ceremoniously erased by The Paintress each year. The titular expedition—the latest in a long line of them—sets out to stop this sordid ritual for good. 

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s turn-based combat riffs on classic RPG systems, folding real-time parries and free aiming into its formula, ratcheting the intensity of its emotionally-charged battles. But beyond the systemic depth, Clair Obscur also delivers jaw-dropping spectacle thanks to its inspired character designs and biome-blending environments. If you want to rend some hearts (and have your own heart rended), it may be time for you to join the fight against The Paintress. 

Skin Deep

All immersive sim games wield a capacity for emergent comedy, but few have dared to dredge that potential earnestly. Enter Skin Deep, the latest effort from legendary indie developer Brendan Chung and Blendo Games. Skin Deep involves rescuing cats from a cavalcade of cargo ships populated with space pirates. How, you might ask? With banana peels, bars of soap, tuna cans, and myriad airlock-related shenanigans. 

If you like smash cuts and calamitous first-person capers, then Skin Deep should be front of the line for you. Just watch out for all the broken glass when you do indulge, because the game’s protagonist is persistently barefoot…for hijinks reasons.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree

You’ve played Soulslikes, but what about a side-scrolling Soulslike set in a dark fantasy world with a gorgeous painterly art style? Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is one of the standout indies of 2025, a menacing adventure through the world of Faelduum, a realm torn asunder where darkness creeps in through the cracks.

Choose from six combat classes and craft powerful weaponry to conquer menacing behemoths, then funnel the rewards into your preferred playstyle. With multiple endings and a trove of talent trees, you can be sure that your first adventure won’t resemble your last.

Beholder: Conductor

If you’ve ever wondered what a playable version of George Orwell’s 1984 would be like, then look no further than rail-based surveillance spin-off Beholder: Conductor. Set in a dystopian future, the totalitarian State is in control—and you’re part of the problem. Unlike the previous Beholder games, where you played a landlord spying on your tenants, in Beholder: Conductor you maintain order on a train. 

Similar to its predecessors though, Beholder: Conductor asks you to observe and report on the actions of the public, and eject those who don’t belong. With corrupt co-workers, smugglers hiding among the innocent, and high-pressure jobs assigned by the higher-ups, you’ll need to wrestle with your morals (and the truth) to get ahead. 

The Stone of Madness

From Blasphemous developers The Game Kitchen, The Stone of Madness is a tactical stealth game about escaping a corrupted 18th-century monastery. Instead of one protagonist, The Stone of Madness provides you with five troubled souls to jump between as you seek to survive the hallowed grounds.

Casting spells, stunning evil spirits, and distracting enemies is one part of the puzzle here, but players also need to manage the quintet’s sanity. Push one of these poor souls too far, and they’ll earn new afflictions like paranoia or dementia that will inevitably complicate your best-laid plans.

33 Immortals

33 Immortals is a co-op action-roguelike that imitates the intensity of large-scale MMO raids by pitting 33 players against hordes of holy entities. Playing as a damned soul whose sinful life has sent them straight to the underworld, your job is to join forces with others and wage war on God himself to break free from eternal punishment. 

Inspired by Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, 33 Immortals infuses its source material with pithy gameplay. Harness the power of sins and virtues to upgrade your avatar, and work together with your fellow damned to survive. Mythic baddies and daunting environments slide into frame with stylish hand-drawn animations that make this unique multiplayer experience a true spectacle.

Wanderstop

Wanderstop is a cozy business management simulator from the developers behind The Stanley Parable. Set in a vibrant fantasy world, players embody a fallen fighter turned reluctant tea maker named Alta as they attempt to move on from recent misfortune. 

Running a tea shop isn’t all cash flow and taxes. Players will need to grow and harvest ingredients, tidy up and decorate, and chat with patrons about their day-to-day toil. Once the work is done, Wanderstop challenges players to do the hardest activity of all: sit still with their thoughts. If you’re interested in an enticing gameplay loop with a heartfelt narrative attached, Wanderstop firmly fits the bill.

Star Overdrive

Developed by Caracal Games, Star Overdrive is an open-world sci-fi racing game. Players bounce between aerial hoverboard tricks and close-quarters combat as they dig up the secrets of an alien planet, Cebete.

Playing as the impressively dexterous Bios, players flip and slash their way through puzzles and opposing forces alike, upgrading their arsenal as they circle in on the mysterious circumstances of their missing companion, Nous.