Indie – synonymous with hipsters and low-key psychedelic bands. Love it or hate it, indie is good in the gaming sense, trust me. You can thank indie games for keeping the Xbox One relevant in its early days, back when the platform was subdued under the weight of unnecessarily remastered titles and rereleased unoriginal messes.
Indie titles are really hit and miss when it comes to gaming these days [cough, No Mans Sky, cough]. Except sometimes you really find a diamond in the sand – and I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 favourite indie titles so you don’t have to search out your trowels and dig yourselves, and then end up getting sand in your eyes. You’re welcome.
These are the titles that really do make the Xbox One a console to proudly display among your collection, and are the ones that quite possibly saved the Xbox during the remaster crisis it originally faced in the recent years after release.
Please bear in mind these are in no particular order as I find all of these indie games especially great, I’m sure at least one of these will appeal to you – so if something seems interesting then make sure you pick a copy up to show your love to the devs! Please be aware that some of these games may contain violence and adult content, and as a result aren’t suitable for children – play at your own discretion.
1. LIMBO
I don’t know about you, but I can’t think about indie games without thinking of LIMBO. LIMBO is a bleak, monochrome 2-D platformer from Playdead (fitting name) about the journey a young boy embarks upon to find his sister and discover her fate in the unforgiving landscape of purgatory. The artistic aesthetic of the game and it’s challenging nature make it a rewarding experience and definitely a play-through to be remembered. Despite first debuting on the Xbox 360 in July of 2010, LIMBO absolutely doesn’t look like a 6-year-old game – mostly due to its timeless art style and enhanced resolution for the Xbox One. LIMBO is available on both the Xbox One and Xbox 360, alongside various other versions that we don’t care about – am I right Xboners?
2. Castle Crashers
What do you get when you splice together 4 vividly-coloured cartoon knights, an exciting 2.5-D overworld, and up to 4 of your best chums? If you said endless potential for fun and mayhem, then you’re correct! Castle Crashers is a 2.5D, up to ‘4-player adventure’ starring 4 quirkily-coloured knights set in a cartoon-y medieval-esque kingdom. Your castle has been besieged by a powerful necromancer accompanied by a small army of barbarians, and it’s your job to bring them to justice and rescue the Princesses. The overworld in which you play in quickly varies itself to keep the game feeling fresh as you hack and slash your way through hordes upon hordes of foes. Castle Crashers is a somewhat linear experience, but definitely one to be given a chance. Re-playability on Castle Crashers is excellent; be it collecting all of the pets, or simply re-playing the game with a whole new set of knights. It should be said that you can play Castle Crashers on your own, but it’s a far more enjoyable and memorable experience if you bring in as many others as possible. Castle Crashers was originally released in 2008 for Xbox Live Arcade, but has since been remastered for Xbox One and other platforms.
3. Cuphead
Keeping up the theme of aesthetically unique games, Cuphead is a 1930s cartoon-esque 2-player run and gun platformer from Studio MDHR. Cuphead is yet to be released, however I’ve seen gameplay – and it looks like the most unique and innovative game to be released this year. Cuphead is shaping up to be an unforgiving and challenging experience much the way the Dark Souls franchise has made itself, and is set to heavily revolve around boss battles. Cuphead is set to be only released on Microsoft Windows and Xbox One currently.
4. We Happy Few
This game’s certainly like nothing I’ve ever played before. The name of the game for Compulsion Games’ We Happy Few is to provide you with as creepy of an experience as possible, it seems. The game is set in a fictional Orwellian English town, that’s inhabited by masked drug-crazed denizens that have a horrifying tendency to attack anyone not conforming to societies drug-use epidemic. The entire populace of Wellington Wells is addicted to taking happy pills called Joy, although you’ve looked past the rose-tinted glasses and decided to try escape – in one piece. We Happy Few is certainly different, and sometimes harrowing at times. It’s definitely an interesting journey into a dystopian universe. A free trial is currently available on the Xbox One marketplace, or you can purchase the full game preview for £23.99.
READ MORE: FIRST IMPRESSIONS: We Happy Few
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