Ela Bambust Reflects On The Time Of Indies | Winter Spectacular 2025
2005 was a great year for video games. Starting off strong with Resident Evil 4, it saw the release of Chaos Theory, Civilization IV, God of War, Battlefield 2, Guitar Hero, and Burnout Revenge. If you bought any of those, you likely played them for a big chunk of that year. My own poison was Civ, but there was an abundance of choice. A dedicated enjoyer of video games could probably work their way through these, though, even with Call of Duty 2, Gran Turismo 4, Forza Motorsports, and Jade Empire on that list. Someone with the clear and present intent to play a lot of video games could play through these games and come out the other side in a few weeks. Maybe months.
2015 was a phenomenal year for video games. Metal Gear Solid 5. Undertale. Bloodborne. The Witcher 3. Nuclear Throne. Pillars of Eternity. Divinity: Original Sin. Steamworld Heist. Cities Skylines. Life is Strange. Rocket League. Darkest Dungeon. SOMA. MKX. Invisible Inc. Hearthstone. Talos Principle. Splatoon. Sunless Sea. Helldivers. Crypt of the Necrodancer. Vermintide. Until Dawn. Jotun. Ori and the Blind Forest. Even the maligned-at-the-time Arkham Knight and Fallout 4 are looked back on fondly. A truly outrageous smorgasbord of games. A lot more indies are now on the must-play list.
Still, I’d argue, manageable. Sure, MGS, Bloodborne, and The Witcher were likely to soak up the majority of your time; many of these were indies and what would later be assigned the somewhat ignoble “double-A” title. A lot, in fact. The majority, even. The mid-2010’s is when I’d argue the smaller-scale games really started to come into their own, and playing everything was much more of a challenge.
It’s 2025. There are, at a quick glance, over 200 games that are considered “must play” that were released this calendar year. I’ve not counted sports and racing games. These are games people have told me, “this was my favorite game this year,” or, if nothing else, in that month. And every month had a game that would’ve been an easy game of the year not ten years ago. Hades 2, for all its faults. Silksong. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Doom: The Dark Ages. Hell Is Us. Silent Hill f. Spider-Man 2 (on PC). Citizen Sleeper 2. Avowed. R.E.P.O. Look Outside. Monster Train 2. Ghost of Yōtei. Indiana Jones & the Great Circle. Of the Devil. Despelote. Haste. Date Everything! Peak. Death Stranding 2. Deck of Haunts. Subverge. Atomfall. Wanderstop. Rift of the Necrodancer. Hyper Light Breaker. No, I’m Not Human. Mohrta. Dispatch. Arc Raiders. Demonschool. Donkey Kong Bananza. Heartworm. Blue Prince. Skin Deep. Consume me. PEAK. Spilled! Keep Driving. Sword of the Sea.
The game industry has a problem.
Okay, well, it has several dozen problems, not the least of which involve worker abuse, sexual harassment, crunch, bloated scope, a hamstrung press culture, a nazi problem, tech industry involvement (derogatory), and ever-growing demands and expectations of big names that have less and less oversight.
But other than all of that¹, it has a time problem.
¹Besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
There isn’t enough of it. Oh, sure, people who play multiplayer games have always had this problem, and it’s largely why the live service model exists: to monopolize your time and ensure that you spend all of your time playing Assassin’s Creed or Call of Duty or Fortnite or Overwatch.
But now, in 2025, there simply isn’t enough time to play everything. Yes, that is in part because of the aforementioned ballooning – Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 alone easily takes 50-60 hours to get through – but even if you skip the massive big-budget titles, indies have completely taken over the market. I don’t think that’s a bad thing! I do, however, think it’s a problem.
I don’t think Necrodancer, Steamworld Heist, Deltarune, or Invisible Inc. would be a success in 2025, and that has nothing to do with the quality of the games. Or maybe it has everything to do with the games. The best games to come out this year will sit at 7 reviews on Steam for life. The game that will change your outlook on life is an itch exclusive nobody’s even heard of, made by an insane trans woman in her spare time.
My point is that there are simply too many games coming out in 2025 and too many of them are getting drowned out by the few, and that’s partly because of the way we’ve been talking about games. For the longest time, games journalism’s job, in a way, was to make sure you didn’t waste your time on garbage. Shovelware is a term for a reason, and it’s one tailor-made for this industry.
As many games were released in the first half of 2025 as there were from 2006 to 2016. Combined. Over 9,500. Most of it will be shovelware.
The problem is that we are still operating as if we are trying to separate The Good Big Ones to play vs the Duke Nukem Forevers and the Colonial Marines of the world. The focus is still on the biggest titles, with a few “double-A” titles thrown in for good measure.
But we are living in a time of unbridled creativity. It is literally easier than ever before to come up with the idea for a game and get it out there. It’s never been easier for a visionary designer to create something true and impactful and soul-crushing, and it has never been harder for them to get their work seen.
If you made a video game twenty years ago, that was the achievement alone.
Last year, almost 20,000 games were uploaded to Steam. Even without all of the shovelware, the trash, the AI slop, the grift, the gambling games, and the asset flips, it is simply too much.
We carry, I think, an obligation, and by me, I don’t mean people like myself who write our little thinkpieces and consider that a job well done, although we certainly and definitely do, but all of us who play around in this colossal sandbox. I think we owe a responsibility, not to look for the best anymore, but to look for the things out of the way. When you have a few evenings, look through the smaller titles. Pick up something cheap – most indie titles will not cost you more than a fancy coffee from your local non-zionist, non-union-busting coffee place – and try it and then talk about it.
We live in an age of word of mouth, and it is the only way we can reward this age of unimaginable creativity. I understand that your time is limited and that often you are only looking for distraction. I am too. But art is being made, every day, and uploaded, sometimes even for free.
If you have the time, if you have the energy, don’t look to the new Call of Duty or the next FIFA or whatever Capcom or Ubisoft are doing, but look to the smaller games, the ones you haven’t tried, the ones you wouldn’t have, and try them and talk about them. Shout their names from the rooftops. Sell them to your friends. Advertise them.
Don’t make indie developers do all of their own marketing because they can barely afford to. You have power, simply by talking about what they’ve made for you than they do. So be loud and excited and exuberant. There is so much joy to be found.
I’ve recently enjoyed the hell out of Q-Up, a silly incremental game dressed as a parody of eSports titles, made by a 3-person family. I’m really looking forward to Hungry Horrors. The Séance at Blake Manor was a revelation. Motorslice made me feel like I was playing Sands of Time again.
With the Game Awards around the corner (or just behind the corner, depending on when you read this), it’s going to be so important to remember that it’s the small games, not the billion-dollar projects, where the future of the industry lies.
The old gaming industry is dying. A new one struggles to be born. Now is the time of Indies.
