Indie games have definitely come a long way from what they were in the early 2010s to the quality of games we get now.

It’s actually at a point I almost prefer indie games over the blockbuster AAA releases. It’s not to be edgy and say AAA games are bad. I still enjoy quite a few of them. But for the most part I just find myself avoiding a lot of them until a huge sale. A lot of these bigger titles are good for one good playthrough and you never play them again, or a 2nd playthrough just doesn’t hit the same. The Last Of Us is a perfect example of this for me personally. For some people that’s enough to just have one good run and that’s valid. For me I’ve always been a person who appreciates high replay value and having fun vs just playing a game that’s fun to run through once and take screenshots for Twitter on how beautiful it is.

Rougelike/rougelite indie games like Hades and One Step From Eden are almost perfect for me when it comes to the replay value of just looping and the experience never being completely the same whenever you play it. You also have cool games like Cuphead, Stardew Valley, Eastward, Hollow Knight, etc that are all just extremely high quality, and fun to play at anytime.

Yep.

Mount and Blade Warband had to buy it twice in PC and later console, sunk so much time into it

indies are prioritizing gameplay/style/fun, while AAA prioritizes graphics/profit

Yuup
I've enjoyed playing games like hades, stardew valley, forgotten city, death's door, nobody saves the world and hollow knight over pretty much any new AAA game

Dying Light 2
Elden Ring
Forza Horizon 5

all 3 of these AAA games gave me way more content and overall fun than most if not all indie games, lol

Doom Eternal and Jedi Fallen Order were also amazing AAA games that provided a lot of fun content while being highly visually stimulating

For every good AAA game there are 10 duds

Silksong any day now

Facts

Those are good examples (haven’t played DL2 but I don’t doubt it’s good since the first was) but they are also rare examples. Most AAA games don’t have the replay factor anymore. For me it’s basically FromSoft games or Nintendo AAA I get the most replay out of. Games like Detroit, Spider-Man, Ratchet, Days Gone, etc I play them once and have like no desire to ever touch them again. Then if I do it’s just a short lived experience where I realize I don’t want to replay it

I’ve been playing Donkey Kong Country 2 since I was 4 years old. I turn 30 in June and I’m still playing it just as much. I can say the same for many other old games like Mega Man, Resident Evik 4, Metal Gear Solid 3, etc I replay at least once a year and get the same joy. But AAA games today just don’t give me that same relay factor personally

Begging (sports story too)

Disagree

Have to look outside the main major companies like ubi n act for great AAA games n take more chances outside your comfort zone

Indies are great too but im eating off both them

Great indie recs that are a lil underappreciated:

• Synthetik: Legion Rising
• Ultrakill
• Last Epoch
• World of Horror
• Timberborn

These alone have given me more enjoyment than a LOT of AAA games ever could these past few years.

but like for every great indie game its the same right

bad indie games just dont get any attention while bad AAA games always get attention

This is true, hut it’s inevitable when pretty much anybody can make a video game now. AAA games have massive budget with hundreds of devs so when they put out trash it just cuts deeper.

But yea there are probably more bad indie games than bad AAA technically