If you're anything like me, you've probably scrolled past dozens of indie games without giving them a second glance. I get it. Gaming has boomed for years now, and sometimes finding a gem through a vast ocean of releases from thousands of studios and publishers feels so overwhelming. It's easy to be paralyzed with so many choices we have today, and honestly, it doesn't matter anymore whether a game comes from a AAA studio or an indie. A good game is a good game.
To that point, the indie scene has always been a masterclass in giving us thought-provoking games, new art, and inventive designs. But sometimes, like all things indie, most of them flew below the radar. The list I'm about to give you isn't just budget alternatives to AAA titles, many of the concepts here are original, and some might not even have had the greenlight if they were behind a huge publishing studio, but that's why they're brilliant. Your backlog is about to get worse, and you're going to thank me for it.
#10 Age of Darkness: Final Stand
Age of Darkness: Final Stand is a survival RTS in a grimdark fantasy setting that shares some similarities to another indie game, They Are Billions. In this game, you start with a small hamlet, build your forces, send out your hero to vanquish the encroaching darkness, and when the demon horde grows too large, defend the settlement you have built.
From the jump, the game's divergent systems take control. On one hand, you have to build up your town and generate resources like food, wood, and stone that you'll need to keep expanding, and recruit more soldiers. On the other hand, you have to manage your hero by sending them out on expeditions so they can get enough experience and skills to survive the ensuing horde. It's a balancing act that you have to constantly manage, and the game's formula of build, adventure, and survive is a very addictive concoction that will tie you up with endless hours of playthrough.
#9 Hero's Hour
Heroes of Might and Magic is in decline mainly due to Ubisoft, but Hero's Hour? This indie game is keeping that legacy alive. Hero's Hour is a turn-based strategy RPG that draws heavily from the Heroes of Might and Magic series while carving out its own identity. This game features the classic empire-building, heroes, and tactics like what you'd normally expect in a game in this genre, but wrapped in a charming pixel art style reminiscent of Heroes 1 and 2.
The game features multiple factions, each with their own mechanics. Cities start out as empty shells, and as you explore the map, claim lumber mills, mines, and other resources, you expand and construct your empire bit by bit. Heroes are also the backbone of this game since they lead your armies, pick up loot, and level up through combat. The hero skill trees can be rewarding, and they can also change the way you play.
The system works surprisingly well. There's no army limit on the map, but you're limited in how many units you can deploy in any given battle. You also need to carefully plan when to attack enemy citadels. Hitting them at the end of the week means they'll get a massive reinforcement of fresh troops so you may want to weaken your opponents throughout the week, then strike when their armies are depleted. It's a deeply strategic game that can keep you busy for hours of content. If you loved HoMM but have cravings to try out something classically different, then this game is for you.
#8 Wartales
Wartales is what happens when you take XCOM-style tactical combat and smash it together with a medieval mercenary company management sim. The result is one of the most engaging and grounded strategy RPGs I've played in years, and it's criminally underrated.
You lead a roaming warband in a sandbox world where you take on contracts, hunt bounties, and explore regions all at your own pace. There's no grand chosen-one narrative here, instead, you're just a simple group of sellswords trying to make a living and survive in a harsh medieval world.
#7 Thronefall
Thronefall is a minimalist RTS/Tower-defense hybrid that proves sometimes, less really is more. The game places you inside a world where your decisions mean everything. During the day, you build your economy and set up defenses. You place towers, walls, recruit units, and upgrade your meager settlement.
At night, the enemy attacks in waves to destroy everything you've built. You've got direct control of a mounted monarch as you ride around the map to support your troops and bail out the weak points in your defense. This game is the definition of "one more run," where you could just load it up, try out a map, be satisfied in the time it takes to finish a lunch break, and after a few hours, come back for more.
#6 Against the Storm
Against the Storm breaks the mold of traditional city builders and throws away all the tried and tested formula by making each settlement a roguelike run where you're facing against an ever-increasing hostility meter called "the Queen's Impatience."
Traditional city builders have this problem where the early game is exciting as you establish your economy, get your goods up and running, but eventually you're always bound to hit a wall where you're just waiting for things to happen. Against the Storm solves this by making that early game loop your entire gaming experience.
You manage multiple races of humans, beavers, lizards, and harpies, each one with different housing needs, food preferences, and production bonuses. The game also throws you random events, weather conditions, and biome modifiers which you need to adapt on the fly all the while trying to complete objectives before the Queen's Impatience meter fills up. There's no large swathes of idle time here, the pressure is constant and you can feel the game trying to push you and be on edge.
#5 They Are Billions
They Are Billions is a survival RTS base-builder set in a steampunk zombie apocalypse, and it's one of the most brutally unforgiving strategy games I've ever played. That title right there isn't an exaggeration. You're literally defending against countless hordes of zombies, and if even one breach occurs, it will most likely cascade into a full colony collapse in minutes.
The game places you as the last bastion of humanity and it's highlighted throughout the game. You're always on edge where planning and placement of your walls, towers, and traps matter more than anything else. One small gap in your walls, one overlooked zombie shambling toward your base, and suddenly your hours of building is over as infection spreads through your colony like wildfire.
They Are Billions is extremely hard even on normal difficulties but is also so addicting that you'd always want to give it another go even after you fail a number of tries.
#4 Tooth and Tail
Tooth and Tail is essentially RTS for people who dislike traditional RTS games. The game is stripped down to only the core mechanics core without all the complexities of modern RTS games. You play as a flag-touting commander leading with a roster of pre-selected units before each match. Base building is as easy as it gets, you either build farms to boost your economy or construct unit-producing buildings to start your army. Balancing that decision is a key aspect throughout the game. Farms have limited output before they become barren, which forces you to invest in one of the many other mills scattered across the map to keep your resources flowing. This pushes you to expand and clash with your opponents and is the sole reason why a match of Tooth and Tail feels quick and frantic.
This game is extremely easy to pick up because of you're not exactly doing heavy loads of micromanagement like in a traditional RTS game but it still has plenty of room for strategy once you understand how to counter other units and become used to the maps.
#3 Northgard
There's been a huge wave of Norse or Viking themed games released mostly by AAA publishers like Skyrim, Hellblade 1 &2, God of War Ragnarok, and Assassin's Creed Valhalla. While these may not be strategy games, all of these games have virtually taken over the Viking-themed gaming experience, which makes Northgard a game that flew under a lot of people's radar.
Which is a shame, really, because Northgard is genuinely one of the best strategy games to come out in recent years. This game combines the elements of 4X, strategy, and survival all packed inside a tile-based colony system. What makes Northgard unique is that the crux of the game isn't exactly a faction-on-faction combat like Starcraft of Age of Empires, but rather it's players versus the environment and the threats that dwell within it. You're fighting against wildlife, giants, and the brutal elements of winter as much as you're fighting other clans.
#2 Balatro
It's hard not to put Balatro in any list that has "indie strategy" in the title, since they've reached a surprising number in terms of sales and whether or not you truly missed this game is something I'd leave up to you, but if, on the off chance, you do, fair warning, because it will consume your life, or at least in my case, about two weeks straight.
This poker roguelike deck-builder is something that you can play at 3 a.m. in the morning, and you'd be so lost in it that you'd forget you have work in the morning. You start with a basic 52-card deck and play poker hands to score points. Simple enough, right? But then you start discovering that there are Joker cards that completely break the game in all sorts of ways. These Jokers multiply your scores, add bonuses based on card suits, or trigger special effects that create absolutely insane combos. The game is highly replayable with a retro-CRT aesthetic, and I dare say is the perfect thing to take on the road with you if you have a Steam Deck or Switch.
#1 Into the Breach
I'm a bit biased over my number one in this list because I love mech games but even if you don't I truly believe that Into the Breach is one of the best and brilliant strategy games ever made. It's developed by the team behind FTL: Faster than Light, and it's such a masterclass in game design that it constantly proves that you don't need always need millions upon millions of budget just to produce a good game.
Into the Breach is a turn-based tactical game that plays more like a puzzle where you're constantly solving life-or-death scenarios. You control a squad of three mechs defending the world from an alien threat. The twist here is that you can see exactly what the enemies are going to do beforehand.
Each mission takes place on a single 8x8 grid where you can see every moving piece. It's beautifully contained, no fog of wars, no hidden mechanics, no RNG screwing you over and if you lose, it's because you made a mistake and not because the game decided to betray you. Runs don't end when your mechs are destroyed, they end when the power grid goes down. This means you'll sacrifice mechs, thrown them into the meat grinder, all to protect a turn. Every decision carries weight because even in the direst of circumstances, there's usually a way out if you're clever enough.
If you've been sleeping on indie games, you're missing out on some of the most innovative and addictive gaming experiences available today. The games on this list represent the best of what indie strategy has to offer in 2025 but all of them has a common denominator and that is the willingness to experiment. Big publishers would never greenlight half of the games in this list but each and every one of them is brilliant in their own right.