Every year sees the release of hundreds of indie games on PlayStation 5 and PS4, but there are always some true standouts. Of course, 2021 has been no different, with many excellent smaller titles hitting both consoles.
The below are our picks for the best indie games of the year, with the Push Square editorial team selecting their favourites from the last 12 months.
Bronze Trophy: Death's Door
Death's Door doesn't do anything truly unique, but it's an incredibly well-produced isometric action game nonetheless. The simple combat and thoughtful puzzle design are great, and presented in an intriguing world that only gets better as the game goes on. Add to this charming characters, some excellent boss fights, and subtly beautiful presentation, and you have one extremely solid indie.
You can read our full Death's Door PS5 review here.
Silver Trophy: Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Colouring in a black-and-white world has been done before, but none with such style and charm as Chicory: A Colorful Tale. Using a magic paintbrush, you can bring life back to the environment in any way you see fit, giving a sense of freedom to the adventure. Of course, there's more to it than that, with imaginative missions to complete, bosses to defeat, and characters to talk to. It's all delivered with real heart, too — something few other games have matched in 2021.
You can read our full Chicory: A Colorful Tale PS5 review here.
Gold Trophy: Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
Disco Elysium is an outstanding role-playing title — and when we say that, we mean that it's a proper RPG. An RPG where your actions have consequences not just for the narrative, but for your own character. Not many games would put you in the (initially misplaced) shoes of a middle-aged, mutton-chopped cop with a hangover so bad that it's given him amnesia, but Disco Elysium is packed with unique and interesting ideas that form a truly memorable whole.
You can read our full Disco Elysium: The Final Cut PS5 review here.
Platinum Trophy: Hades
It might have taken nearly a year to arrive on PS5 and PS4, but Hades really is as good as everyone claimed. Supergiant Games put its own spin on the rogue-like, adding engaging characters and a gameplay-driven narrative to the fold, and it works out brilliantly. Attempts to escape the Underworld are fun every time with all the randomly generated rewards and perks, while the hub has just as much to offer, slowly building up the story and characters after each death. It's just so well constructed, deeply addictive, and cohesive in its design and presentation that we had to put it atop this list.
You can read our full Hades PS5 review here.
Honourable Mentions:
- A Short Hike
- Cyber Shadow
- Dodgeball Academia
- F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch
- The Pedestrian
- Röki
- Toem
Narrowing down the best indie games is always a tough call, but what do you think? What have been your favourite indie titles of 2021? Vote in our poll, and voice your thoughts in the comments section below.
Comments 29
Death’s Door easily. Not only my indie game of the year but it’s my overall game of the year. Amazing game.
Justice for The Pedestrian! But yeah, Disco Elysium and Hades are also absolutely incredible. This has been a very good year for games that came out last year 😛
Kena Bridge of Spirits deserves a mention I think.
Not even a mention for Kena? Weird
Hades is one of my favorite games of all time. So clear winner for me (from a Playstation perspective). Still haven't played Disco Elysium. Not big into CRPGs but that one looks interesting.
Judging purely on games released first in 2021 I'd vote Deaths Door with Kena Bridge of Spirits being a close 2nd.
What about Kena is that not in this category?
Playing it now as got in the sale for £23.
Great game.
From this list I've only played hades but it's a hell of a game! Hard to argue with it being top of the list. So many games I want to play on this list though! Disco elysium, deaths door and chicory all look great. Like others have said, the one that's missing is kena, very hopeful there's a physical version heading my way in a couple of days!!
Kena was brilliant apart from the insane difficulty spike in master difficulty. There’s difficult and there’s rage inducing...
Hades must be the greatest game ever made. Keeps winning awards.
Absolutely loved Hades but my Indie GOTY is Narita Boy. Kena gets an honourable mention but the devs need to learn to balance pass. That game is zero fun on master.
Has Chicory got a plat? Eying this up
Not played enough to have a serious view (always a problem on the fan side) but Kena was wonderful day 1. Personally had no bugs, had a wonderful time playing start to finish. My only criticism was the unbalanced difficulty spikes for boss fights.
Still thinking about it several months later which surely counts for something.
Shame not to see it included. But as I’ve said for a while, there may have not been one or two stand out AAA games to win GOTY this year. Regardless it HAS been a great year for gaming, especially on the indie side
@Shigurui 100% right. Very rarely give up on a game due to difficulty but my replay of Kena on Master for the Plat. was cut short very early due to BS balancing. It’s just not right.
EDIT: to be clear that was my second play through, it’s a great game, with too steep difficulty spikes and some unfair moves (e.g. leaps across the whole arena tracking you even as you dodge). I’ve platinumed most souls games, those were tough but fair… this was not especially on Master.
F.i.s.t. forged in shadow torch is like a old school video games platformers dreams.word up son
Hades is fantastic but played it on the Switch last year. Was tough to decide between Disco Elysium and Deaths Door but opted for the latter in the end. It was just so charming and beautiful and wholesome.
I also echo the thoughts on Kena being missed. Definitely in my top 3.
Axiom Verge 2
A cool list of games here. I don't want to speak for @Quintumply here because I'm not 100% certain, but I believe Kena was considered but we weren't really sure whether it truly constituted an "indie" game or not.
Obviously, the lines are increasingly blurred between what an "indie" game actually is.
Maybe the game that actually won the awards in kena?
Dodgeball Academia, because it will getting physical release.
@get2sammyb that’s fair. Ember Lab itself (just 15 core employees) is an independent studio, and Kena was self developed and published by them. However they partnered with Sony for a console exclusive deal that allowed them to hire hundreds of additional staff including Vietnamese animation studio Sparx to get that AAA feeling. Definitely blurred lines.
@themightyant - Totally agree. I did beat master (Ninja Gaiden veteran lol), but it was brutal. It's just cheap. Turning the difficulty up to obnoxious without fairly scaling damage values is beyond poor design.
As Sammy's said above, games like Kena and It Takes Two were of course considered for this feature, but we ultimately reached the decision that they don't quite fit the label "indie". Unfortunately, the term's true meaning has long been abandoned, and the definition has become so blurry that it's hard to know where to draw the line!
This would be pretty much my Top 4 for 2021, only in a slightly different order.
I only played 3 indies this year, Hades, F.I.S.T. and Oddworld.
I would give top spot to F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch because I am a sucker for metroidvanias and the game is very good. I'm just sad that the physical is Asia exclusive.
Maybe Record of Lodoss would have surpassed it, but I haven't played it yet.
@Shigurui agreed! games like Ninja Gaiden and Cuphead are brutally hard but most of the time they are fair. You die it’s your fault and you can learn and improve.
That wasn’t always the case with Kena. Bosses were obnoxiously cheap and sometimes it was one mistake and you were dead on master. That just wasn’t fun anymore, which is why I gave up.
Outside of that I loved the game.
Well done on beating Master.
@themightyant - Thanks! Once I popped the master trophy I instantly deleted the game lol, I still need to mop up a few trophies for the plat but I'd just had enough of the game and all its BS at that point. Hopefully the devs can fairly balance their next game.
Hades is crap. God knows why there's so much praise
Disjunction is excellent
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