“What’s interesting about that [’80s] era that’s very similar to now is there’s access to the means of production – an ability to get your hands on the tools,” Chan said.
“There’s a lot of full circle there, and I feel like the middle 20 years were the locked-down years.”
Dozens of new games from small teams are being released on digital platforms every day, but those with exceptional art, innovative storytelling, unique concepts or from proven creators tend to float to the top. This includes games primarily made by just one person (Animal Well, Tunic, Balatro), games that blend familiar genres or themes (Dredge, Vampire Survivors, Cuphead) and games made in a retro style (UFO 50, Pizza Tower, Sea of Stars). With lower overheads, and from a potential audience of billions, it’s possible for games to be financially successful even if they only appeal to a niche subset of players. But some cut through to hit a broader cultural relevance.
Among the small but growing list of modern indies that have managed to capture the zeitgeist and sell more than a million copies, not counting free games or titles designed for phones, there are several that were made at least in part in Australia, including Untitled Goose Game, Unpacking, Cult of the Lamb, and the original Hollow Knight.
10 notable indie games of 2025 (so far)
Absolum – Modern art and progression meets old-school brawler.
The Alters – An emotional sci-fi cloning story.
Dreams of Another – Shooting creates a world rather than destroying.
The Drifter – Harrowing pixelated point-and-click.
Hades II – A beautiful Greek God rogue-like.
Hollow Knight: Silksong – Challenging combat-forward metroid-like.
Rematch – Arcadey online soccer.
Schedule I – R-rated narcotics business simulator.
Slay the Spire II – Fight bizarre creatures with your deck of cards.
Sword of the Sea – Tony Hawk play meets moving underwater art gallery aesthetic.
Among games on that list, few are as beloved as Celeste, a Canadian-made platformer released in 2018 that was hailed as both a masterfully crafted design and an insightful reflection on overcoming anxiety. Its creators Maddy Thorson and Noel Berry, of Extremely OK Games, were in Australia recently for Melbourne International Games Week. They agreed that the console-dominated middle period of the games industry — during which they were both creating games but didn’t have a broad mechanism to distribute them — was the odd era out, but that in addition to technological change the high price and impersonal nature of big games had driven a resurgence in indies.
“Big blockbuster games lost credibility. They went so hard on microtransactions, all the prices have gone up,” Thorson said.
“The graphics are great but … it’s like Hollywood, they’re made through a process. They’re processed games.”
Celeste and Silksong are each sold for around $30, whereas blockbuster games can go for more than three times that.
“Indie games are more approachable,” Berry said.
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“If you want to spend $30 and get this cool piece of art, and it feels like it was made by individual people, that comes through a lot more in indie games. Big triple-A games are made with amazing artists who are really talented, but it’s a much bigger machine.”
Thorson and Berry can both code, and Celeste was written in C# rather than being built using a commercial game engine. The pair collaborate on art, story, design and mechanics with help from friends, which all speaks to a hallmark of solo developed or small team indie projects, a consistent creative vision and a feeling of artistic intent.
Thorson said the process of creating games holistically and touching all the various parts meant her thoughts in certain areas naturally ended up affecting others. In Celeste, many of the themes of kindness and forgiveness ended up impacting how the mechanics work, which may be part of what the audience reacted so strongly to.
“I think if you are indie, it’s probably partially because you want your fingerprints on the work,” she said.
“And that lends itself really well to people who enjoy playing games from the perspective of an art form rather than a spectacle.”
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In a sense, it’s like the difference between blockbuster films and arthouse cinema, if both were equally available on the same platforms to reach the same mainstream audiences. Thorson and Berry prefer to compare game creation to making a graphic novel or a music album rather than a movie. It’s something they do primarily for themselves, letting their feelings come through without much thought given to how their art will be received, which probably isn’t the case for a blockbuster game made by hundreds of staff, costing millions of dollars and needing to appeal very broadly.
Though motivations will differ across the huge spectrum of game creators, the focus on making art for art’s sake is something shared by the Silksong creators.
“It’s the process that’s enjoyable. The satisfying thing with Hollow Knight was that we were making something that was to our tastes, and that meant that we were making things that were slightly different,” said Team Cherry’s William Pellen in an interview with ACMI curator Jini Maxwell, as part of Game Worlds.
“And it’s rewarding, obviously, when people respond to that. But it’s rewarding because it’s a suggestion that there are other people who share those likes and dislikes in games; they’re also responding to the things we agree are cool.”
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