There’s something about an indie game that you can spot a mile away. There’s an uninhibited feel to the design, an experimental feel to the content, and a bubbling of genuine passion under the surface.
10 Best AA Games With Indie Game Vibes
All the wholesome charm of an indie game, but with bigger teams and bigger budgets.
AAA games are often quite the opposite. Very calculated, extremely polished, almost corporate in their approach. Very rarely do you get a game that walks and talks like an indie, mainly because it’s just too much of a financial risk when budgets are that high.
However, as with most things, there are always those strange anomalies that feel quaint and plucky in nature but are, in fact, financially backed mega-games. They may not be true indie games, but these titles all have something about them that would fool you at a glance.
11Animal Crossing: New Horizons
A Slice Of Island Life
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
It feels weird to call Animal Crossing a game that has indie vibes, but even though it isone of Nintendo’s biggest cash cows, it’s also been the catalyst for endless indie townbuilders aiming to emulate the AC formula.
Due to the cute visuals, the emergent gameplay that comes from making your island in your own image, and the low-stress gameplay that keeps you coming back every day, it’s about as addictiveas a cozy game gets.
Admittedly, it’s a very polished game and has been as a series for what feels like forever. But regardless, there’s no denying that the sense of whimsy, the community spirit, and the vibrant art style all scream plucky indie. Just ignore the Nintendo-shaped elephant in the room.
10Viva Piñata
Care For Them, Don’t Whack Them!
Viva Piñata
When it comes to gaming royalty, there aren’t many developers out there that have quite as much prestige as Rare, a studio that has spanned decades and delivered bangers regularly.
Almost all of their games have a certain vibe about them that marries together experienced developers' high standards and talents with a certain childish whimsy and understanding of what makes a game fun.
It’s why we got surreal games like Conker’s Bad Fur Day and the more recent pirate epic, Sea of Thieves. But for me, Viva Piñata is the one that fits the bill best.
This ranch sim was a creative sandbox like no other, where Piñata pet care was the aim of the game, and good piñata care practices would help you expand your ranch.
It can be as cozy or as methodical and demanding as you like, as the breeding mechanics are deeper than you might think at first glance, and with no quests or direct goals, you really are the one who sets your own ranch’s standards.
It’s meditative, charming, cute as a button, and a game that just makes me want to dust off the ol' Xbox 360 and catch up with my old patchwork pals.
9Pentiment
Decades Playing Detective
For quite some time, you could have argued that Obsidian Entertainment was an AA company, but when Microsoft came in and bought the Fallout New Vegas devs, their financial power and available resources changed overnight.
That said, they still found a way to produce a game that looks nothing like what a global conglomerate like Microsoft would ever greenlight in the form of Pentiment.
Pentiment is anarrative-driven and historically-fuelled affairthat will have you caught up investigating a string of murders, but this isn’t going to be a quick case. In fact, it’s going to take you twenty-five years to get to the bottom of this one.
This means that with every new clue and big decision, the ripple effects have years to spread, and one small decision can have drastic effects on what evidence exists, and who lives and dies.
It’s one of the most unique narrative-driven games in existence, and usually, that level of unique charm is reserved for indie titles. Hence why Pentiment is a perfect fit for this line-up.
8Mirror’s Edge
Hardcore Parkour
Mirror’s Edge
EA as a company is about as far away from the ideals of the indie scene as you can possibly get, but despite their rather money-hungry nature and regularly scheduled annual sports releases, Mirror’s Edge feels like something entirely different.
Mirror’s Edge, even to this day, offers some of the most refined andenjoyable parkour traversal mechanics on the market, where there’s a real sense of flow and momentum from one movement to the next.
But beyond that, the dystopian setting is interesting, the visuals are eye-catching without leaning into a super-high-realistic art style, and, as is the metric for a lot of these listings, the game is a very outlandish and experimental one that has turned into a bit of a cult classic.
Sadly, Catalyst couldn’t quite catch the lightning in a bottle again, but the original still stands as a wonderful game of yesteryear, well worth checking out today.
7Split Fiction
A Sci-Fi/Fantasy Splice
Split Fiction
Fextralife Wiki
I think you could probably argue that It Takes Two was right on the fringes of AA, as it was part of the EA Originals division that offers financial backing to plucky indie devs, making it a natural AA middle-ground.
However, when Josef Fares announced the follow-up to their marquee co-op adventure, you just knew that this one would be given the backing to be bigger and better. But, despite that, this game still has a certain indie-adjacent charm, even with the added production value.
This is mostly down to Josef’s approach to game design,which is not only co-op-centric,but also with unadulterated fun at the forefront of design. After all, I don’t think there are many AAA games on the market that allow you to control pigs that fart rainbows.
It has all the polish of an AAA blockbuster, but it has the charm, the experimental mechanics, and the feel-good factor of an indie darling. It’s the Josef Fares effect, and long may he continue to blur the lines between corporate AAA and small, plucky projects.
6Katamari Damacy Reroll
Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'
Katamari Damacy Reroll
Back in the PS2 era, there was a wild west feel to game development, as everyone and anyone was vying to become a household name on the most popular console of all time. But to stand out from the crowd,you needed to be a little weird.
Katamari took this to a whole new level though, as this game is a whole bucket-full of weird as you need to use the gravitational pull of your Katamari to suck up everything in your path until you’ve completely amassed everything in the entire stage.
It’s a simple premise with a bit of a convoluted setup, and the mechanics are pretty easy to understand, too. Essentially, all you do is roll a ball and gather up junk from around the world, effectively like rolling the biggest snowman’s body ever made.
But it’s the zany charm that makes it so engaging, and the cathartic yet straightforward gameplay that makes it so addictive. Sounds quite a lot like what your typical indie game does to find success, right?
5Powerwash Simulator
Grime Be Gone!
PowerWash Simulator
For the longest time, I was completely unaware of Ubisoft’s ties to the Powerwash Simulator IP, and had assumed this was a tiny little studio that had just caught fire with a fun, if a little mundane title. Which, in all honesty, speaks volumes about why it ends up on this list.
Powerwash Simulator is a game that riffs on indie games of old that effectively gamify boring tasks. Games like Viscera Cleanup Detail and House Flipper paved the way so that Powerwash Simulator could run.
The premise couldn’t be simpler. You run a powerwashing company, get sent out on jobs, and spend an inordinate amount of time scrubbing increasingly elaborate levels.
It never gets any more mechanically interesting, but there is an overwhelming sense of pride, accomplishment, and catharsis that comes with completing a huge job.
It’s a perfect second-screen game and a natural step up from an adult coloring book if you’re looking for something a touch more involved.
4Rayman Legends
2D Co-op Bliss
Rayman Legends
After the big boys in gaming pivoted to big-budget 3D projects many moons ago, it has been the indie gaming collective that has largely kept the 2D platforming scene alive and kicking. Which is perhaps why Rayman Legends feels cut from the same cloth.
Rayman is a beloved mascotand is easily one of the most recognizable characters in gaming, which certainly gives Rayman Legends that AAA, household-name feel. But from a gameplay perspective, its feels like an indie platformer through and through.
With whimsical stages to blitz through, co-op functionality allowing you to play with pals, and a format that is largely absent of Ubisoft’s typical bloat, it’s something that will resonate with AAA fans and indie lovers alike.
We admit that we don’t think an indie developer would have been able to afford quite as much licensed music, but that’s the beauty of this best-of-both-worlds approach.
3Gravity Rush
Gravity Is Just A Suggestion
Gravity Rush
Indie games are usually all about taking one mechanic or gimmick that works super well and then expanding on that gimmick and getting every ounce of excitement and potential out of it.
This is why we feel that Gravity Rush is such a good candidate here, as this game is all about providing players with an open-world format where gravity is more of a suggestion.
Players will think up is down and down is up as they switch off gravity on a whim to cascade through the air to the next floating island in the sky in a true Buzz Lightyear-esque falling with style fashion.
The sequel is a little more AAA spec as the game features a more involved narrative, a bigger world, and deeper systems, but all in all, it’s an outlandish game that AAA fatcats running the show fear, making this one a AAA game masquerading as a plucky indie.
2LittleBigPlanet
A Blend Of Little & Big Ideals
LittleBigPlanet
In truth, we could have plopped just about any Media Molecule game on this list, as this UK studio has always had a unique way of crafting games that have AAA polish while also offering gameplay, vibes, and cute characters that feel like they could only exist in indie projects.
This is partly down to the whimsical and childlike tone of the game, for sure. But, it’s also down to Media Molecule’s now famous DIY approach to game design, as they always create enough developer-made content to get the ball rolling, but expect the community to pick the ball up and run from there.
LittleBigPlanet was all about using the wealth of whimsical and comical assets on deck to create user-generated projects that often outdo anything the developers themselves were able to craft.
It’s about as high-risk, high-reward as a game can be, which is a very indie approach, and this, combined with the fact that the game oozes charm, makes it a very appropriate mention.
