17 Best Xbox Game Pass Indie Games

Celeste

Celeste is a game about getting past problems, whether they are your own fears or a snowy mountain. This platformer might look like a typical tiny indie game, but the story’s themes will get right into players’ hearts. In fact, the difficulty of these platforming tasks has a lot to do with how hard it is to fight your inner demons.

Celeste got a lot of attention and even won the 2018 Game Awards for Best Indie Game. Even though its challenges might be scary, making it to the end is a prize that goes beyond just finishing a game.

Amnesia: The Bunker

With Amnesia: The Bunker, Amnesia is back to retake its title as the best indie horror game. If you didn’t like how Amnesia: Rebirth’s story was logical and told in a straight line, The Bunker will give you the roguelike Amnesia experience you didn’t know you wanted. You play as a French soldier in World War I who has trouble remembering things but knows that he needs to get out of the underground bunker he is stuck in.

With only a gun and a few things that can be easily replaced, you leave your one “safe” room to see if you can find the tools you need to break out. And since the expected Amnesia monster chases you every time you make a sound, every crawl outside of your manual-save safe room feels more and more like a doomed run in a horror roguelike. Once you have this attitude, Amnesia: The Bunker’s creativity shines brighter than one of those flare traps you might come across. Again, Frictional Games has done it.

Goat Simulator

In one of the best indie sim games ever made, Goat Simulator takes the crazy idea of playing as a goat and runs with it. Even though it’s not at all like a real goat’s life, it’s one of the most fun “simulator” games out there, and it’s great that Xbox Game Pass has it.

In Goat Simulator, if you are a goat, you cause a lot of trouble wherever you go. Bleat people to death, lick random things and carry them with your prehensile tongue, or headbutt cars until they burst. All of these things can be done.

Darkest Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon can be summed up in a few words: it’s Lovecraftian horror seen through the lens of a hardcore roguelike RPG with killer art, but that does it a criminal level of harm. Even though RNG has a lot to do with its thrills, Darkest Dungeon’s “stress” system, which shows how hard it is on your mind to face the extraplanar horrors of its dark fantasy world, is a very clever idea.

The heroes you can recruit in the game can develop fears and phobias based on what they see or go completely crazy if their mental threshold is passed. The costs and benefits of sending out a hero who has been through a lot need to be weighed, not just in terms of blood and gold, but also in terms of the health of the semi-steadfast adventurers.

Valheim

You might think that gamers would be tired of yet another sandbox survival game, but Valheim came along as a favorite in early access and blew our minds all the way to Viking heaven. Valheim is one of the best games you can play on Xbox Game Pass right now. It’s one of the few games in its genre that requires players to work together, and the boss fights are fun and spread out across the world. Even more amazing is that it’s still being worked on. This isn’t even the finished result yet, and it’s a lot of fun.

You and your friends can spend your time making the coziest Viking base you can think of and getting ready to fight the world bosses, or you can just wander around the world as much as you want. Valheim has all the good things about the genre and more. Just make sure you don’t spend too much time in your world. This indie game is a waste of time if there ever was one.

Inside

Even though Playdead’s first puzzle shooter, Limbo, was very good, it wasn’t until its second game that it really showed how polished and well-known it was. Inside is a master class in making a story have a lot of atmosphere. You play as a young boy who never says a word. He just keeps walking to the right, from the left side of the picture. But even so, you get a horrifying picture of the world he lives in.

Like most indie games, Inside is a short game. But it’s not one you should pass up. In the relatively short amount of time you spend playing, you’ll feel more emotions than you would in some current 20-hour triple-A games. We don’t want to give anything away about the story, so all we can say is that Inside is a great indie game that you should play at least once in your life.

Scorn

Some people might be confused by the fact that Scorn doesn’t do anything to help them. Scorn is hard to figure out, whether you look at its almost nonexistent user interface or its confusing tasks that are never explained. But if you want to play a game with some of the most interesting settings and half-stories ever made, it would be hard to find a better one than Scorn. It’s neither a normal horror game nor a first-person shooter with a lot of action.

It’s a strange mix of different types of games that focuses more on the atmosphere to tell a story and push players to keep going. Yes, the fighting can be frustrating, but Scorn is the perfect game for you if you like interesting settings and don’t mind the grossest upgrade system we’ve ever seen.

Amnesia: Collection

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is one of the most well-known horror games of all time. It was also one of the most famous indie games of all time. The collection on Game Pass lets you play three games that take place in this world. Even if you only got to play through The Dark Descent, the time you spend playing and the small file size make this a must-have. It’s a lesson in how to scare people.

Frictional Games is able to scare millions of players without the help of a triple-A team or a big budget. They do this by knowing exactly what makes people scared. The mood and story of Amnesia add to this horrifying experience, and even though it might not sound like we want you to play it, we really do.

Vampire Survivors

If you want to play the hit roguelike game that has been copied dozens of times, look no further than Vampire Survivors. The goal of the game is very easy to understand, but that’s where the magic of Vampire Survivors lies. To play the game, all you have to do is move your little character and watch as their automatic passives destroy the monsters around them slowly but surely.

The more monsters you kill, the more levels you get, the more passives you can get and improve, which lets you kill more monsters, and so on. That’s really all there is to it. But it’s a great idea. It draws you in. You can play it for hours without realizing how much time has gone by. You can’t really sell Vampire Survivors if you haven’t read it yourself. So believe us. Go try it out.

Escape Academy

The fact that Escape Academy hasn’t gotten more attention is a huge mistake. Even though it’s a pretty simple puzzle game, the fact that it’s like real-life escape rooms makes it one of the best couch co-op games out there. You and a partner are students at this elite school for “escapists.” Even though it sounds crazy and silly, the problems and logic in the situations you have to get out of are perfect. It’s neither too hard nor too easy. And having a friend with you through it all makes it even better. Drift Boss is a great indie game that you shouldn’t miss. It’s also one of the best co-op games ever made.

Death’s Door

Death’s Door is a great game that reminds us a lot of Souls. This has been said more times than we can count, but it’s true. You play as a Reaper who has to collect the souls of different bosses. To get to these bosses, you have to move through different lands that are all related to each other while reading item descriptions to learn about the story. Do you recognize it?

But Death’s Door has been changed to make it easier to fight. Even though the game is still hard, with a small life pool and tough enemies, it still feels a little bit like a baby’s first Dark Souls. This is in no way a mistake. Even though the story is told in a simple way, Death’s Door is a lot of fun and has a great plot. And it makes the challenge that most Soulslike games have easier to deal with.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley has become such a hit in the years since it came out that it doesn’t feel right to call it an indie game at this point. But there’s no getting around the fact that this wonderfully retro farming game was made by one person on a small budget. Aside from the story of how it came to be, what makes SDV really stand out is the clever way it layers different game concepts.

The main part of the game is controlling and building your farm, but when you fall in love with a townie, you get a sort of dating sim element. Going to the mines to fight monsters and steal treasure is a simple action-RPG that reminds me of old Zelda games. And really, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the surprisingly cool long-form story that can be played.

Superliminal

Great indie games are the ones that try out crazy ideas that most triple-A games won’t. Superliminal is a great example of the magic that can happen when a unique idea is given room to grow in an indie game. In the same way that Portal taught you how to solve puzzles by “thinking with portals,” Superliminal teaches you how to solve problems by changing your point of view.

You know how things that are far away can look small because they are so far away? And when you hold up small things right in front of your eyes, they can look huge. That’s pretty much the main idea behind Superliminal. The game tests your ability to think outside the box by making you deal with things like distance, shadows, and angles. This secret gem is a nice addition to the Xbox Game Pass library, and the short time it takes to finish makes it a more interesting game to try.

Among Us

The indie game that took the world by storm was Among Us. Friends came together to play this social mystery game, and this is still the case today. Even though Among Us started out as a mobile and PC game, it is now also available on Xbox devices, giving it even more players. It’s a great thing for the library of indie games that it’s on Xbox Game Pass. More people than ever can work on tasks with their other crewmates, sabotage important functions on the ship by pretending to be someone else, and accidentally kick out innocent people during hot debates.

Aragami 2

If the phrase “undead ninja-assassins stealthily trounce fire-wielding glory boys” sounds interesting to you, you should check out Aragami 2. Players take on the role of these sneaky undead ninja-assassins and have to protect the people of Rashomon Valley from an army of pyromaniacs. They do this by using stealth, magical shadow powers, and sometimes good old-fashioned sword-to-sword fighting. The best part is that the game can be played with up to two other people in a cooperative stealth-action mode, and the feeling of elation that comes from organizing silent takedowns perfectly is a real treat. Even when sneaking doesn’t work, the combat system is surprisingly deep while still being easy to learn. Parrying and dodging are the main ways to fight, giving the game a unique “Souls-lite” feel that’s fun to master.

Deep Rock Galactic

Deep Rock Galactic is a very fun shared multiplayer game where space dwarfs take valuable resources from caves across the galaxy for fun and profit. Simply put, this game is a lot of fun. Each of the up to four players chooses a completely different character class and goes into a procedurally generated dungeon with their bearded allies to complete different tasks for their corporate masters while fighting off waves of alien spiders that want to eat them. It’s a lot of fun.

Hollow Knight

When a Souls-like game meets a Metroidvania game and wraps itself in a cute gothic art style, you get Hollow Knight. In a word, it’s magic. Exploring the world of Hallownest and meeting its surprisingly cute insectoid people is a very Zen experience. Fighting is tense and rewarding, and the setting is very interesting. You can’t say enough about how well the light Souls-like parts fit into this side-scrolling action-RPG adventure, and gamers of all types should give it a try.