The indie gaming scene has never been in better shape. While the major publishers continue to consolidate, delay, and occasionally disappoint, independent developers are producing some of the most creative and memorable gaming experiences available. 2026 looks set to continue that trend, with a remarkable slate of titles in development that span everything from brutally difficult roguelikes to emotionally rich narrative adventures.
If you have been keeping an eye on gaming conventions, crowdfunding platforms, and the deeper corners of Steam’s coming soon section, you already know that the anticipation for this year’s indie crop is significant. Here are the titles generating the most excitement heading into the year.
Hollow Wanderer
The spiritual successor to nobody’s game in particular and everybody’s favourite genre all at once, Hollow Wanderer has been quietly building a devoted following since its first trailer dropped in late 2025. Developed by a small studio out of Portugal called Fractured Meridian, it blends the atmospheric world-building of Dark Souls with the intimate storytelling of a graphic novel. The hand-painted art style is striking, and early previews suggest the combat system rewards patience and positioning in ways that punish button-mashing without feeling cruel.
What sets it apart from the crowded Soulslike market is its approach to death. Rather than simply losing progress, dying in Hollow Wanderer permanently alters certain elements of the world, with some doors closing and others opening depending on where and how your character meets their end. It is an ambitious mechanic, and whether it holds together across an entire playthrough remains to be seen, but the concept alone has people talking.
Saltmarsh
If you grew up playing point-and-click adventures in the 1990s, Saltmarsh is going to feel like a letter written directly to you. Developed by Australian studio Blackwater Lantern, this mystery game is set in a fictional coastal town on the Victorian coast and follows a journalist investigating a disappearance that the locals seem oddly reluctant to discuss.
The writing, based on the demo released at PAX Australia last year, is exceptional. The dialogue feels lived-in and specific rather than generic, and the town itself has the kind of texture that makes you want to click on everything just to see what the protagonist will say about it. Blackwater Lantern has spoken openly about the influence of Disco Elysium on the project’s approach to character and conversation, which is a high bar to aim for but clearly a genuine aspiration rather than empty marketing.
For Australian players in particular, there is something quietly thrilling about seeing the particular light and landscape of coastal Victoria rendered with this level of care.
Veldt
Veldt arrived out of nowhere in January when its developer, a solo creator working under the name Duskmoore, posted a short gameplay clip that proceeded to accumulate several million views in a matter of days. It is easy to see why. The game presents as a top-down survival experience set in an alien ecosystem, but the ecosystem itself is the point. Every creature, plant, and weather pattern in Veldt is procedurally generated but governed by a web of interdependencies that the player gradually learns to read and exploit.
Early coverage has drawn comparisons to Rain World for its willingness to put the player inside a functioning ecosystem rather than a world built around player convenience, and that comparison feels apt. You are not the most important thing in this environment. You are just trying not to become part of the food chain.
The scope is extraordinary for a solo project, and some scepticism about whether Duskmoore can deliver everything promised is entirely reasonable. But the systems on display in the previews suggest a developer who knows exactly what they are building.
Threefold
Turn-based tactics games have had a resurgence over the past few years, but Threefold is doing something genuinely unusual with the genre. Each mission is played three times simultaneously, with different versions of your squad operating in parallel timelines that occasionally intersect. Decisions made in one timeline create constraints and opportunities in the others, and managing all three at once is, by all accounts, wonderfully brain-melting.
Canadian studio Lateral Axis has described it as a puzzle game wearing tactics clothing, and that framing helps explain why the preview community has responded so warmly. The satisfaction comes not from overwhelming the enemy but from finding the elegant solution hidden inside an apparently impossible situation.
It is also one of the most visually distinctive games in this list, with a minimalist aesthetic that keeps the screen readable despite the inherent complexity of three simultaneous combat scenarios.
The Understory
Narrative games live or die by their writing, and The Understory, developed by a team of former literary fiction writers who apparently decided video games were more interesting than novels, has some of the most distinctive prose in any game announced for 2026. Set in a near-future version of the Pacific Northwest where old-growth forests have begun to exhibit unusual behaviour, it follows a ranger trying to understand a phenomenon that the scientific establishment is not yet ready to acknowledge.
The game has no combat. Progression comes through observation, conversation, and the gradual accumulation of understanding. The Understory is unapologetically slow, and the studio has been refreshingly direct about the fact that it is not for everyone. For players who loved games like Firewatch or A Short Hike and wanted something even more contemplative, it looks like essential territory.
Ironspire: Reclaimed
The city builder genre has been well served in recent years, but Ironspire: Reclaimed takes an angle that feels genuinely fresh. You are not building a city from scratch. You are rebuilding one that was abandoned, and the previous civilisation left behind infrastructure, ideology, and environmental damage that your new settlement has to reckon with.
The sustainability angle is built into the mechanics rather than applied as a cosmetic layer. Industrial remnants from the old city leach pollutants into the soil, affecting what you can grow and where. Communities have memories of the previous regime that influence how they respond to governance decisions. It is a city builder as much interested in the consequences of development as in development itself, which is either exactly what the genre needed or too interesting for its own good, depending on your tolerance for complexity.
What Makes 2026 Different
Looking across this slate, a few things stand out. The budgets are bigger than they used to be, but the ambitions are outpacing even that growth. Developers are attempting systems and narrative approaches that would have been dismissed as too difficult or too niche just five years ago, and they are finding audiences willing to meet them.
The tools available to independent developers have also improved enormously. Engines like Unity and Unreal, combined with accessible AI-assisted asset creation and a global marketplace that reaches players in every country, have removed many of the barriers that once kept certain ideas unrealisable. The result is a generation of games that reflect a much wider range of perspectives, experiences, and aesthetic sensibilities than the medium has historically produced.
None of the games on this list are guaranteed to deliver on their promise. Game development is difficult and the gap between a compelling preview and a finished product is often larger than anyone anticipates. But the ambition on display across these projects is real, and the indie scene in 2026 is producing ideas that the major studios would not touch in a hundred years.
That, ultimately, is the point of independent games. And it has rarely felt more exciting.
