Alongside its big releases, PlayStation has a wide range of independent games to offer this year. Not all of the games mentioned below are exclusive to the console, but they are titles that owners will love. When PlayStation fans need a break from all the AAA blockbusters, there are plenty of engaging indie games for them to explore. There is something for every gamer, from narrative games to action-adventure and even a space simulation.
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The following games display strong concepts, bold visions, and meaningful stories. Indie games are pushing the boundaries of what console gaming entails, and have proved over and over again that they are vital to what the PlayStation has to offer.
10 Goodbye Volcano High
Goodbye Volcano High is a narrative game about a teen dinosaur named Fang trying to figure out life in their final year of high school. Fang doesn't know what they'll do after graduation, but they're dedicated to their band called VVORM DRAMA along with their best friend Trish. Even though Fang doesn't want their life to change, they don't know that their world is about to get shaken up.
The game plays like an animated series, where gamers can decide what happens through branching storylines. As Fang, players will learn to build self-confidence and understand their own emotions.
9 Season
If anyone is looking for an adventurous getaway, Season is just that. The story involves a young woman leaving behind her everyday life, to explore and document the world on her bicycle road trip.
Players will discover artifacts, new characters, and secrets about the mysterious world that dealt with a cataclysm. Season is a visually captivating, surreal world that will make players feel like they're strolling through a painting.
8 Heavenly Bodies
Gamers don't need to run around to kill crewmates in this space game; however, they do need to complete the tasks. Heavenly Bodies is an anti-gravity physics simulation game about cosmonauts. Players will have to pull and push around to move in space without accidentally floating away into the abyss
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Both solo and co-op modes are available. This 70's space expedition game will have the player constructing equipment and investigating cosmic botany as they stumble their way through the game.
7 Stray
Stray is an adventure game in which gamers will play as a cat. However, this isn't a cutesy game — the cat was separated from its family and got lost in a vast cybercity. Threats are lurking above buildings and on the streets in this city of droids.
Thankfully, with the help of a drone named B12, the stray can find a way out. As a cat, players will have to think like a cat as they move through the game. They will have to be stealthy, but also give in to the cat's silliness.
6 Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Kena: Bridge of Spirits is an action-adventure game with exciting combat. Gamers play as Kena, a Spirit Guide traversing through an abandoned village in a beautiful forest to restore the world with the power of the Spirit Realm.
As players make their way to the Sacred Mountain Shrine, they'll meet small, adorable, big-eyed spirits called Rot that decompose the dead. The Rot help Kena gain new abilities and manipulate the environment. She also wields a magical staff that helps her fight against dangerous creatures that hinder her journey.
5 Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Gamers don't have to be artists to play Chicory: A Colorful Tale, but if they are, then this game is meant for them. Players will take on the role of a dog with a magic paintbrush that brings color to the blank world.
When all the color disappeared, so did Chicory the Brush Wielder. It then was time for the main character to take Chicory's role, and bring color back into the world. On their adventure, the paintbrush helps solve puzzles and manipulate the environment. Players can paint the world however they want.
4 Little Devil Inside
Little Devil Inside is a captivating, low-poly RPG set in an alternate Victorian era filled with mysterious creatures. Players take on the role of an adventurous mercenary hired by a curious professor.
They will have to learn about the paranormal world, and occurrences that are hardly ever recognized. The goal is to survive, fight, explore, and loot the hostile environments and complete tasks to unravel the story.
3 Sifu
Sifu is a third-person game centered around hand-to-hand combat. Players will take on the role of a young Pak Mei Kung-Fu student who is out to take revenge on the assassins that killed their family.
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The various interactive environmental settings in the gang-ridden city come in handy in combat. Players can use throwable objects or building structures to their advantage. Additionally, the main character has a magic pendant that revives them when they die — but it comes at a price. Every time the character dies, they get older.
2 Recompile
This game takes place in a dim digital landscape filled with colorful lights within the Mainframe. The main character is a brightly lit, sapient AI.
The AI is on a mission to attain true sapience, but the surroundings pose many challenges. The world of Recompile unravels uniquely to an individual's play style and narrative choices. In this Metroidvania-style game, players must hack and fight their way to escape getting deleted.
1 Solar Ash
Skate in high-speed through a vivid, mysterious 3D platformer world in Solar Ash. The main character is Rey, a Void Runner, who ventured into the black hole known as the Ultra Void to save her home planet.
It's not just the landscape that places obstacles; wild creatures also try to stifle the player's progress. Solar Ash provides interesting opportunities for combat, where Rey will face enormous sentinels using unique mechanics to progress through the story.