What Even Is an Indie Recreation?

This 12 months’s Recreation Awards marked a historic second: three of the six Recreation of the 12 months nominees had been indies, one thing that The Recreation Awards’ has been loud and proud about. Indie video games have lengthy been on the forefront of creativity and innovation in gaming, collectively standing in stark distinction to the oft-derivative, overly protected AAA area. Among the best games of 2025 have been from the indie camp, and have been praised for his or her ingenuity, integrity, or different signifiers of high quality: Expedition 33 is better-written than Name of Obligation, Hades 2 has higher fight than Murderer’s Creed Shadows, et cetera.

However watching The Recreation Awards received me considering, similar to many others: what’s an indie recreation anyway? If we had been to have a look at the literal definition, which is an abbreviation of impartial, it is laborious to use it to most video games generally accepted as indie: would not a recreation should be fully self-published and self-funded to really be known as impartial? Take Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, as an example. Sandfall’s debut, which truly gained Finest Unbiased Recreation in addition to GOTY, is revealed by Kepler Interactive, a big entity that is partially owned by NetEase, the final firm most avid gamers would affiliate with the “indie” moniker. However there’s nonetheless a transparent rift between the likes of Expedition 33 and blockbuster franchises like Name of Obligation and God of Struggle. The query is what that differentiating issue truly is.

Defining Indie Gaming: Cash Issues

The nebulous definition of indie video games features a generally accepted premise: indie games are generally less expensive to make than AAA video games. If we assume a handful of video games to be indie, and one other handful to be AAA, then the information helps this notion.

It is a little bit of a large unfold, however even the costliest of the above is dwarfed by current AAA video games.

That is removed from the underside line of the indie dialogue, although. The obvious distinction between these two units of video games, half and parcel of the budgetary query, is their particular person scopes. Something like Hollow Knight is clearly a lot cheaper to provide than Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: the previous is a side-scrolling metroidvania with minimal voice appearing, developed by three folks, whereas the latter is a hundreds-person endeavor, with cutting-edge graphics, 3D physics programs, motion-captured cutscenes, and the like. That is irrespective of those video games’ replay worth or subjective “high quality,” after all.

Indie Video games Are Small, AAA Video games Are Large, Proper?

Developments would recommend that AAA video games are all the time broader in scope, funds, and ambition than indie video games, however this should not be taken as a rule. As an example, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a side-scrolling metroidvania with the “really feel” of an indie, and it will be laborious to argue that its visuals and manufacturing worth are above the self-published Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, which dons extra of the trimmings of the AAA scene than The Misplaced Crown. However you would be hard-pressed to seek out somebody calling The Misplaced Crown an indie, because it’s developed and revealed by Ubisoft, one of many largest forces within the trade.

The “Indie” Look and Dave the Diver

One cannot talk about the definition of indies in 2025 with out mentioning a sure Dave the Diver fiasco. The pixel-art recreation, which revolves round diving for assets to serve at a beachside sushi restaurant, was nominated for the Finest Unbiased Recreation at The Golden Joystick Awards and The Recreation Awards in 2023. For a lot of, this felt warranted: Dave the Diver earned stellar reviews and semi-viral success, and a cursory look at it amongst fellow nominees like Sea of Stars would possibly spark assumptions of it being one other inspiring indie hit that broke by means of the AAA noise.

However calling it impartial is a bit disingenuous. Dave the Diver developer Mintrocket is a subsidiary of Nexon, an enormous South Korean company recognized for, amongst different issues, Maple Story and The First Descendent. Nexon did not simply assist fund Mintrocket—Nexon wholly owned the studio throughout Dave the Diver‘s improvement. Mintrocket even responded to its 2023 nominations by saying, “there’s nothing indie about us, we did not apply for [the nominations].”

Why, then, was Dave the Diver thought-about for Finest Unbiased Recreation on the two largest recreation award occasions on this planet? One may think that it is as a consequence of its quasi-retro pixel aesthetic, or maybe its restricted scope relative to different AAA video games. Neither of those components has something to do with the sport being impartial, although. Geoff Keighley actually commented on Dave the Diver‘s inclusion within the indie class forward of The Recreation Awards 2023, saying:

“Does independent mean the budget of the game? Does independent mean where the source of financing was? Is it based on the team size? Is it the kind of independent spirit of a game, meaning kind of a smaller game that’s different?”

It is a bit noncommittal, however it will seem that Keighley’s major level is that there is not any single issue that determines whether or not a recreation might be known as “indie” or not. I won’t agree with Dave the Diver‘s Best Independent Game nomination, however I am unable to argue with Keighley there.

Indie and AAA Is No Longer a Dichotomy

It is clear that the “indie video games” have transcended their literal definition: video games developed and revealed independently. Many AAA video games are developed and revealed by the identical firm, and if a studio is totally owned by a serious entity, like how Mintrocket is owned by Nexon, is not that kind of the identical factor? In fact, this clashes with the dichotomy that many avid gamers, myself included, maintain in our heads. The dichotomy between the besuited, conservative, left-brain publishers and the creative, modern builders.

It is smart that we might assume this manner—everyone knows that some recreation design selections are made for the sake of revenue slightly than creativity or ingenuity. However this battle between the “enterprise” aspect of gaming and the “artwork” aspect is way extra complicated than simply huge, grasping companies straitjacketing integrity-driven artists. It is extra in regards to the battle between commerce and creativity, which might occur at any scale. Even when a developer is not being actually advised to make their recreation a sure means by a higher-up, they might nonetheless react to financial pressures, for higher or worse.

Whereas indie games like Hollow Knight Silksong and Hades 2 might be funded, partially or fully, by the income from prior titles, this is not the case for many up-and-coming studios. Even when an outfit has already revealed a worthwhile recreation, it is possible that it must search exterior funding for an upcoming undertaking. Video video games are costly to provide, and whereas they’re being made, they do not become profitable.

Perhaps these studios will staff up with indie publishers (an fascinating oxymoron) like Devolver Digital, however how, then, are they totally different from a AAA developer like FromSoftware, which operates independently of its numerous publishers? What if a studio provides a portion of its eventual income to buyers or loaners? What if an funding firm provides a studio funding in change for fairness?

To be clear, not one of the solutions to those questions ought to essentially disqualify a recreation from being thought-about indie, or AAA for that matter. However that is the purpose: there is not any litmus check for this kind of factor. All of the above questions, together with Keighley’s, should be requested when defining something as AAA, AA, or indie, even when a few of the solutions contradict first impressions or assumptions.

“Indie,” like all classes and definitions, is just nearly as good as its usefulness. In lots of instances, the entire level of calling one thing an indie recreation is to spotlight grassroots origins, smaller groups, and extra modest budgets. It is good to say “indie” when setting expectations a couple of recreation, as an example, or when attempting to present kudos to studios that did so much with slightly. However slapping an indie label on a recreation is not a mandatory precursor to such discussions or conclusions—the labels are kind of shorthand for such parts. Perhaps we should always attempt to take extra time to spell issues out.