It's that time of year again, folks. GOTY season is almost upon us, and while Mr. Keighley's big event is staying quiet on its nominees for the time being, other shows are already gearing up to crown a winner.
One such event is the Indie Game Awards, a developer-focused awards show centred on — you guessed it — indie games, which has today revealed its final award nominees across 18 different categories.
The categories cover everything from 'Achievement in Accessibility', to 'Bite-Sized Game', 'Community Management', to 'Emotional Impact'. The granddaddy of them all, as you might expect, is 'Game of the Year', and this year's nominee list is practically bursting with wonderful entries that you can try on Switch right now.
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The nominees include big players like Hollow Knight: Silksong and Hades II, but there are also smaller releases, including Citizen Sleeper 2, and Roger, Absolum, and Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo — many of which we can highly recommend you check out on Switch. There are also some tasty titles that we'd love to see come to Switch 2 in the future, like Consume Me, Keep Driving, or indie darlings Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Blue Prince.
Hit Switch titles crop up all over the place in the rest of the nominations, like BALL x PIT for 'Gameplay Design', Herdling for 'Music', Antonblast for 'Solo Development', Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown for the 'Black Voice in Gaming Award', and Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping for 'Women-Led Indie Game Award'.
The Indie Game Awards 2025 will kick off at 11:30pm GMT / 3:30pm PT / 6:30pm ET on 18th December, and you'll be able to catch it on the Six One Indie YouTube and Twitch channels. Head over to the Indie Game Awards website for the full list of nominees and award presenters.
Which indie game do you think will walk away with the ceremony's GOTY award this year? Let us know in the comments.
[source indiegameawards.gg]
Comments 51
Absolum for me. What a fantastic game.
After the disappointment of Silksong I started playing Hades 2 and what a difference. Hades 2 I'm just enjoying it, having fun despite it being difficult where with Silksong it was nonstop frustration for a variety of reasons which I've already mentioned.
What game is in the top right with the Frog/Toad?
@roy130390 Spotted that game on Steam recently and wasn't expecting much but upon playing it I was pleasantly surprised.
So many great games this year in general and also when it comes to indies in particular as can be seen here - looking forward to playing the ones already on Switch 1 and/or 2 myself when I can (and fingers crossed the remaining ones will eventually come, too)!
Silksong or Hades 2 for me, I will play absolum soon. Still playing through Hades 2 but I like the multiple paths and story. Silksong is very refined and a blast to play
@roy130390 so keen to get the game being a Streets of Rage 4 fan. How much different is the game?
Runs to check NL's 'and Roger' review
Oh...
Expedition 33, Hades 2, Blue Prince and Silksong all in one year. Indie games have put big budget games to SHAME this year!
Silksong should sweep this year.
@RobLife1 Think that's one of the playable characters from Absolum.
I have only played Hades 2 and Blue Prince. I am already close to 80 hours in Hades 2. It is a solid 10/10. I have the PS5 GameStop edition of Clair Obscur arriving today, and hope to try it soon. Abosolum looks intriguing. I'm not sure about the others. I couldn't get into Hollow Knight, but I may get around to at least trying Silksong on Game Pass.
I don't think I played any indie games that were actually released this year, but based on what I know, I think Absolum, Hades II and Silksong would be my picks.
Can I also take a moment to address the fact how weird it is to have GOTY awards when the year isn't even officially closed? I mean Mina the Hollower would be top on my list otherwise. The demo was great! And I'm bummed out it was delayed.
Hades 2 should win game of the year. Indie game of the year should go to Absolum. Publisher of the year should be Devolver Digital.
Guess Silksong is my choice as the only one I've played. I didn't enjoy it as much as the original Hollow Knight, with the controls never quite becoming natural and some of the bosses getting boring long before my muscle memory caught up enough to beat them, but the world design and the sheer quantity and variety of content still make it an exceptional game. Pipistrello and Blue Prince also seem cool, so I'd like to check them out at some point.
How is Ball x Pit missing?
Still waiting on a port of Blue Prince.
"Black Voice in Gaming Award" ?
"'Women-Led Indie Game Award" ?
Well, I thought women and black people were human after all.
While I don't think it'll win against the other Giants here. Pipistrello is amazing and definitely one of my favorite titles to come out this year.
Hades 2 is so incredible, they've managed to improve on absolutely everything, and the first game was already amazing.
Didn't play E33 yet, but it's the one other game that, for my taste, might be a competition for Hades 2
@Potimarron they are, but, historically, have had less opportunities in many fields, gaming being one of them.
Awards like this gives exposition and merit to people who have been snubbed many times before.
@Jack_Goetz I think they just got a nomination for "Gameplay design", but it's competing against Hades 2 and Silksong, shouldn't have a chance against those.
But I feel you, I've been hooked for weeks lol
My vote for Citizen Sleeper. Amazing strategy game.
@Gaymer90 I get the idea. Maybe, as a (southern) European (or simply as a non-citizen of the current USA), I find that quite disturbing.
Thought it was going to be a battle between Silksong and Hades2, with Blue Prince being the Dark Horse. Played and absolutely loved the 3 of them.
I didn't expect Clair Obscure to really qualify for Indie. But we've seen Dave the Diver being nominated in the past. There is clearly a grey area.
Considering that by word of mouth and critics general consensus it feels like Clair Obscure was already favorite for Goty, looks like it is going to take this one then. Still have to play it
Absolum, Hades 2, Ball x Pit, Pipistrello, Clair Obscur, and Silksong are all top tier games for me. I won’t be mad at whatever game wins. It’s a good reminder that this year has been stacked with brilliant games.
@Potimarron I see what you mean, as a Brazilian, I can fully understand the need for such award. It's a very old structural problem, and having worked in a consultancy project in which we had to map hierarchy, gender and race over time for big companies, it becomes very evident.
Its also nice to note this award has categories for best game by South American, Southern Asian, New Zeland developers for this very same reason, give them visibility they would not get otherwise, regardless of how good their games are!
Silksong is my GOTY, but I really want Pipistrello to get more attention as that's my 2nd favorite GOTY. Considering how off-putting i found the artstyle initially, I could not have imagined how much fun I'd end up having with it.
Silksong already won before it was released
@graviton So far, I have played only the first Citizen Sleeper game. While I admit that I’m usually not drawn towards narrative-heavy games, I thought the writing in CS1 was astonishingly good. Truly brought the world alive in my mind, like a compelling novel. And really meshed with the atmosphere.
Also — as I understand it — IIRC, one person did most of the development of both games, aside from the music. Very impressive, all things considered.
A solid list of quality candidates. My only gripe is that Clair Obscur absolutely does not belong on this list: Sandfall is a small studio, but if a studio with 50+ employees counts as "indie" than so does a uselessly-broad swath of the industry. Might as well nominate the Trails in the Sky Remake.
Silksong, Absolum and Hades 2 are my picks this year. I liked Blue Prince but not enough to give it the GOTY, while it has its moments, it's not perfect, too many repetitions and sometimes frustration because of the general game design. And I must admit Expedition 33 didn't click much with me, I played 10 hours and stopped because I thought it was boring and not well written.. Yeah, I know, hot take, I might give the game another chance in the future but currently I don't see myself giving it a GOTY. Great art direction and soundtrack, obviously but as a whole, not as good as my three favorites which, in each of their genre, are the better games.
Pipistrello is fantastic. The chunky pixel graphics look great on a Switch Lite.
Hades 2 is my pick. Bookmarked Absolum and Pipistrello; never heard of those before but yet look cool. Blue Prince is really fun, and creepy at times!, but I never finished it as despite trying to be a PS5 gamer, I just can't. Keep Driving looks interesting, and hope it comes to S2 soon so I can check it out. Haven't played or seen much of the others.
@LightSpirit
Totally agree. Was going to wait on Hades 2 for a sale to try and be good by waiting until I finished Silksong, but after dying again after several attempts at a boss fight and making way all the way back from a save point far away, I died again, thus losing my silk bundle (or whatever it's called) and was like, nope. I'm done. Downloaded Hades 2, and haven't stopped playing, despite dying left right and sideways.
Has to be 33. So good.
Surprised about the vast majority of the comments being between Hades 2 and Silksong, which I absolutely adored, but are ignoring E33 and almost no mention to Blue Prince.
Guess that makes some sense in a Nintendo page, considering those 2 games are not available.
I imagine the opposite happening in PushSquare were Hades 2 is not available for PS users yet.
Anyways, as mentioned before E33 was already favorite for the big award, so being nominated here is almost a sure win (haven't played yet)
My reaction to this shortlist:
"VERY INTERESTING."
"YOU ARE MISSING SOMETHING IMPORTANT."
Absolute banger year for indies. Absolum is probably my big winner, followed by, of these, E33.
@RobLife1 ABSOLUM! Play it the game is so great!
Indies knocked it out of the park this year. Completely eclipsed AAA offerings
What a stacked year! Expedition 33 was fun, fresh, and cinematic.
Silksong has been a dream come true for me, so that’d be my choice but I haven’t played most of the others.
Based on the comments here I’m interested in giving Absolum a look.
Only heard of 4 of those games lol, and only played 1 (E33).
Does E33 really count as an Indie Game though?
E33 was not made on an indie budget, I can tell you that, haha.
Silksong is one of the best game i played in the last 10 years
I vote Silksong! But just because, thanks to Silksong, I haven‘t had time to give Hades 2 and Absolum a proper go …
Y’all need to check out games by flynns arcade
@CR0J0 @Anachronism
Thanks!
I put off playing Absolum because I wanted to stick with Hades 2 but after about 15 hours or so, and despite loving Hades, it just is not grabbing me. Absolum however, is amazing and I'm enjoying it far more than Hades 2. My other choice for indie game of the year would be Ball X Pit
@Luigia Ah, sorry for the late reply. Absolum is more story driven and there's also a lot more replayability. Every round will unlock new stuff, as in new bosses, npcs, interactions, places to see, etc. It really has a lot to discover and do, specially by beat'em up standards. As for combat, punches feel as good as in SOR4, but this game is more focused on learning how to defend from attacks by dashing on time to counter them. Learning to do builds is also important and quite fun as you are constantly learning the synergy between different abilities.
@roy130390 really appreciate your comments which help a lot. I’ve added the game to santas Christmas list 🎅🏻
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