10 Best Indie Games of the 2020s That Blew Up

There are many indie games that are released every year, and not many of them make it huge. Most indie titles get slight recognition, but ultimately fall into obscurity over the years.

However, there are some indie games that get catapulted into the stratosphere of popularity, having millions of copies sold, and becoming remembered for many years to come. These indie titles are something truly special, and they deserve to be recognized.

The 2020s have had some great indie successes, with multiple games selling millions of copies. It is not every day that these games get recognized, so it is time to put them in the spotlight once more.

10 Unpacking

Unpack a Life

Unpacking is a personal favorite of mine that really blew up in the early 2020s. This small, cozy title about unpacking items from a box and placing them around different rooms, became an overnight sensation.

I remember watching videos of people placing objects and being very mellow as they slowly unpacked a life. To this day, I know many who still play this game from time to time to relax.

Unpacking quickly sold over 100,000 copies within the first 10 days of its release in November 2021. To this day, the game has sold over 1.2 million copies on Steam.

9 Lethal Company

Collect Scrap

Lethal Company saw major success when it was released in October 2023. This cooperative horror title focuses on going to alien worlds, collecting scrap, and bringing it home to sell to the company.

Of course, these jobs aren't as easy as they sound, with players needing to fend off unknown monsters and avoid death traps. Social media for a while been filled with videos of players dying in hilarious ways.

This helped skyrocket the popularity of Lethal Company, allowing it to amass over 12 million sales. While the game isn't nearly as popular as it once was, it still gets thousands of players per day.

8 Dispatch

A Superhero Story

Considered an indie title by many, Dispatch had some major backing, as it was created by AdHoc Studio — a development copy created by a bunch of industry veterans. It also had some celebrity endorsement thanks to Aaron Paul.

The excitement for this game grew over the course of the year until it was released in October 2025, and everyone immediately fell in love with the band of misfits-turned heroes.

One day later, everyone was talking about Dispatch, causing it to amass around 1 million sales within 10 days. Almost a year later, and the game has sold over 4 million copies.

7 Balatro

Care to Play Cards?

If you told me that a game where you play poker would be recognized as a massive success, I wouldn't believe you. Well, if it were before 2024, I wouldn't have believed you, but that was before Balatro hit the scene.

Balatro seemingly came out of nowhere, being released on Steam in February 2024, and this poker roguelike blew up in popularity, selling over 5 million copies worldwide. This outstanding achievement showed that anything could become big.

Not only this, but Balatro was recognized at The Game Awards, being nominated for five categories and winning the awards for Best Mobile Game, Best Independent Game, and Best Indie Game. These are some amazing achievements for a simple game about poker.

6 Vampire Survivors

Be the Bullet Hell

Released in October 2022, Vampire Survivors became an instant success. It quickly became many gamers' addiction, and it is easy to see why. The entire game centers around slaying hordes of the undead in a bullet hell-style manner, but you are the one unleashing the mayhem.

While it may be roughly four years old, the game is still getting attention, with it attracting thousands of players on steam each day. As far as sales go, it sold almost 8 million copies on Steam alone.

Along with this, Vampire Survivors was recognized by multiple award shows, with it receiving the awards for Best Game and Best Design at the BAFTA Awards. It also received Action Game of the Year at the D.I.C.E Awards and the Breakthrough award at the Golden Joysticks.

5 Peak

Climb to the Top

Peak is a simple game where you are meant to climb to the top of the mountains in various biomes, all while helping your fellow campers along the way. While the concept is simple, the game proves to be rather difficult, with it taking some real skill to reach the top of the peak.

This game was released in June 2025, and almost overnight social media was filled with clips of players falling to their deaths while attempting to climb the mountain. Bing Bong, the game's mascot, started popping up everywhere as well.

Peak is still popular, with it getting spikes of 20,000 players per day on Steam. Overall, it sold over 10 million copies in the first two months, and has since hit over 14 million in sales.

4 Fall Guys

Battle Royale With Beans

Fortnite may have popularized the battle royale genre, but Fall Guys shook things up by switching it to a more Wipeout-style contest where players compete in mini-games in arenas that are meant to throw you around.

This game blew up in the early 2020s, releasing in August 2020, and before it transitioned to a free-to-play model in 2022, it had already sold over 17 million copies. After becoming free-to-play, another estimated 1.6 million downloads happened.

Fall Guys is still popular, but in its heyday, it blew up overnight, and everyone was talking about it. You couldn't look at clips on YouTube, Tiktok, or Instagram without running across it.

3 Phasmophobia

Ghost Hunting

If there is an indie horror title that people remember, it is Phasmophobia. Phasmo is a title that focuses on friends joining together to hunt down ghosts, ghouls, banshees, and more in various locations.

This game basically places you in the middle of a paranormal hunting television show and asks you to identify what type of entity you are dealing with. It can be nerve-racking, but it is a lot of fun.

Phasmophobia quickly exploded when it was released on Early Access in September 2020, and it has since sold over 25 million copies across PC and console, and it is still consistently getting updates.

2 Hades

Hack and Slash

The 1.0 version of Hades hit the market in September 2020, and has since become well-known for its rogue-like dungeon-crawling action. The game requires you to hack and slash your way out of the underworld, fighting numerous beasts along the way.

This fast-paced title has kept the attention of many fans, and has since received a sequel that released in 2025. Both games have a massive fanbase that speak highly of them.

While the sequel to Hades did very well, the original is by far the favorite of the two, with it amassing over 8.3 million copies in sales. 700,000 of those copies were sold during its early access period.

1 Palworld

Pokémon With Guns

2024 started very strongly with the release of Palworld. Leading up to the release of this title, marketing showed what appeared to be a Pokémon-style game, but with a survival setting, and fans ate it up.

It didn't take long for Palworld to receive the moniker of "Pokémon with guns," and excitement for the game only grew. When January 2024 finally came around, and Palworld hit Steam, the sales numbers skyrocketed.

Now, Palworld has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, and over 35 million players have tried it out. It is easy to say that Palworld exploded and became an overnight sensation, and it is still popular to this day.