The 30 best indie games on PC and consoles | Gaming

Gaming keeps evolving year after year, and our standards for the best indie games evolves with it. One of the most exciting things about the best indie games in 2018 is that unlike major game publishers, who need to subsidize their releases with microtransactions – the best indie games are inexpensive and free of these malevolent monetization models. The best indie games, free of corporate influence, give you a glimpse at the developer’s pure artistic vision, especially if you’re playing on one of the best gaming PCs.

However, that’s not to say the best indie games can’t trade blows with the newest Assassin’s Creed or Call of Duty. In fact, the best indie games regularly surpass the latest AAA games in both quality and scope, thanks to their less repetitive nature – they don’t need to rely on tired cliches and tropes to sell through millions of units.

With this list, we culled through the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of indie games we’ve played and ranked the 30 best indie games you can play today – only the best of the best have made it. We mixed in classics like Braid and Dwarf Fortress, with modern indie darlings like Hollow Knight and Night in the Woods. To discover all the best indie games that made our list, read on!

Joe Osborne, Kane Fulton and Gabe Carey have also contributed to this article