External Discovery
56 indie games in this list, released 2022, from developers such as TaleWorlds Entertainment, F2House, BATOVI Games. Pick one to read our editorial note and jump to its store page.
These are editorial pages. The developers and publishers are not affiliated with The Gaming Nest unless explicitly stated.
By TaleWorlds Entertainment · Turkey
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord mixes strategy with action role-playing, casting players as a custom character in a vast medieval sandbox where diplomacy, crafting, trade and conquest are all options. Armies raised on the campaign map fight in large real-time battles with skill-based combat. A prequel set 173 years before Warband, it comes from Turkish studio TaleWorlds Entertainment and left early access in 2022.
By F2House · Australia
One Dreamer is a story-driven adventure game in which some sections have players solve puzzles by writing and editing code. Critics highlighted both that unusual puzzle design and its emotionally affecting storytelling. It was made by the independent developer F2House, a team from Darwin, Australia, headed by Gareth Ffoulkes, who spent around seven years on the project before its release in 2022.
By BATOVI Games · Uruguay
Pixel Cup Soccer - Ultimate Edition is a retro-styled arcade football game. It offers friendly matches, tournaments and a career mode where players build a team, and up to eight people can play together locally or via Steam Remote Play, competing or cooperating. It was developed and published by BATOVI Games, a studio based in Uruguay, and released in October 2022 for Windows, macOS and Linux.
By niceplay games · Russia
Potion Craft casts players as the keeper of a shop in a medieval fantasy world, brewing potions from alchemical ingredients and selling them on. Its management simulation is built around a crafting system that critics praised as both novel and intuitive. Russian independent developer niceplay games created it, tinyBuild published it in 2022, and it received several nominations at the 2023 Independent Games Festival.
By Redbeet Interactive · Sweden
Raft is a survival sandbox game that starts players on a tiny floating platform in an endless ocean, surrounded by sharks. Using a hook to pull in drifting debris, they expand the raft into a base, craft tools and keep hunger and thirst in check, alone or with friends. A radio receiver leads to story islands with a narrative about rescuing prisoners. Swedish studio Redbeet Interactive began it as a university student project and released the full version in 2022.
By Bad Vices Games · Italy
Ravenous Devils is a darkly comic horror cooking simulation set in Victorian London in the 19th century. Players manage a tailor shop and a pub run by Percival and Hildred: he kills his customers and sends the bodies down a trap door, and she turns them into meat dishes for diners upstairs. Its style and story borrow heavily from Sweeney Todd. Bad Vices Games of Italy both developed and published it in Unreal Engine 4, releasing it in April 2022.
By Fractal Projects · Brazil
Save Room - Organization Puzzle turns survival horror inventory management, in the style of Resident Evil 4, into a series of puzzles about fitting items into a briefcase. Space can be freed by combining items, healing with them or reloading weapons. Brazilian developer Fractal Projects released it on Windows in April 2022, and critics liked how cheap and carefully detailed it was while noting it was simple and brief.
By Ebb Software · Serbia
Scorn is a survival horror adventure steeped in biopunk themes, with first-person shooter elements among its listed genres. Its imagery takes inspiration from two visual artists, Zdzisław Beksiński and H. R. Giger. It was developed by Ebb Software in Serbia using Unreal Engine 4, published by Kepler Interactive, and released in October 2022, with a PlayStation 5 version following a year later.
By Gungrounds (Macanga Games j.d.o.o.), Croteam · Croatia
Serious Sam: Tormental is a twin-stick shooter with a rogue-lite structure, made by Croatian developer Gungrounds with Croteam and published by Devolver Digital in 2022. One or two players fight through procedurally generated stages set inside the mind of Mental, the series' villain, each carrying two weapons and upgrading the primary gun with mods. Characters can dodge roll and use a special ability, and defeat sends you back to the beginning.
By rose-engine · Germany
Signalis is a survival horror game from rose-engine, a studio in Germany. You control the android Elster as she hunts for her ship's missing pilot inside a hostile mining facility gripped by a supernatural event. Its visuals and play deliberately echo fifth-generation consoles, inspired by Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Released in October 2022, it won Best Narrative and Best Indie Game at the Fear Fest Horror Games Awards 2023.
By Neverjam · Latvia
SpiderHeck is a party brawler starring spiders armed with laser swords. Players duel friends to the death or team up to hold off swarms of hostile enemies, swinging, stabbing, and shooting while pulling off acrobatic parkour moves. It was developed by Neverjam, a studio from Latvia, published by tinyBuild, and launched on Windows in September 2022, with Steam tagging it as a casual action game.
By Sokpop Collective · Netherlands
Stacklands is a management and construction sim played entirely with cards. Dragging cards onto one another produces resources, raises buildings and triggers fights with creatures, so a villager placed on a berry bush yields food that keeps the settlement alive. It was developed and published by Sokpop Collective from the Netherlands and came out for Windows and macOS in April 2022.
By Kodo Linija · Lithuania
Stardeus casts the player as the artificial intelligence of a wrecked starship carrying drones and human survivors in hibernation. Play centres on directing those drones to patch the damaged vessel, keep the sleeping crew alive and eventually move the ship onward between the stars. It blends colony simulation with strategy and RPG elements. The game comes from Lithuanian studio Kodo Linija, was published by Paradox Arc and launched on Steam in 2022 for Windows, Mac and Linux.
By BlueTwelve Studio · France
Stray is a third-person adventure in which you play a stray cat trapped in a walled city of robots, machines and mutant bacteria. You leap between ledges, climb obstacles and interact with the world, while the drone B-12 carries items and hacks devices to solve puzzles. Hostile Zurks and Sentinels must be evaded along the way. It was built in Unreal Engine 4 by BlueTwelve Studio from France and released by Annapurna Interactive in 2022.
By Crema · Spain
Temtem is an online multiplayer role-playing game built around catching, raising and battling creatures, an approach its creators drew openly from the Pokémon series. Players share a persistent world with others while assembling and training their creature teams. Spanish developer Crema built it in Unity, raised part of its budget through a Kickstarter campaign in 2018, and moved from early access to a full launch in September 2022.
By Color Gray Games · Latvia
The Case of the Golden Idol is a deduction puzzle game in which players gather clues and assemble ideas, people and evidence to make sense of what happened. Its cases trace a story that stretches across four decades of the 18th century. It was made in Latvia by brothers Ernests and Andrejs Klavins of Color Gray Games, built in Godot and released in 2022 through Playstack, and it was recognized with awards among the year's best games.
By Mads & Friends · Denmark
The Forest Quartet is a 2022 puzzle adventure by Mads Vadsholt, an independent Danish developer working as Mads and Friends, published by Bedtime Digital Games. Players control a spirit trying to bring her old band back together, drifting through three stages and interacting with objects to solve puzzles that light up the dark forest and extinguish fires. Its sound work earned the Excellence in Audio prize at the Independent Games Festival in 2023.
By Blue Brain Games · Slovakia
The House of Da Vinci 3 concludes the puzzle adventure trilogy from Blue Brain Games, a studio based in Slovakia, and was released in December 2022. As in earlier entries, progress comes from solving a large number of fresh puzzles and brain teasers. Players also explore new, strikingly detailed locations with mysteries to uncover, continuing the series' puzzle-first approach on Windows and Mac.
By Sengi Games · Ukraine
The Serpent Rogue is a roguelike in which players take the role of The Warden, a plague doctor from an order of alchemists who guard the world against a consuming force called Corruption. Studying the surroundings lets the player brew many kinds of potions, and fights play out as real-time action. It was developed by Sengi Games in Ukraine and published by Team17 in 2022, and the team finished it during the Russian invasion of their country.
By Splashteam · France
Tinykin is a 3D puzzle platformer from Splashteam, a studio in France, published by tinyBuild. Researcher Milodane explores a strange planet and gathers tiny creatures with special abilities that help him reach new areas and complete goals. It began as Bubble Town at the 2019 Global Game Jam and takes cues from Pikmin and Paper Mario. Released in August 2022, it earned honorable mentions at the Independent Games Festival.
By //commentout · Japan
TOKOYO: The Tower of Perpetuity is a side-scrolling action roguelike in which players scale a towering structure with one aim: to reach the very top. Its roguelike structure means repeated attempts at the climb, combining action with the genre's run-based format. It was made by the Japanese developer //commentout and published by Playism, arriving in 2022 on Windows and Nintendo Switch. Critical reception at launch was mixed.
By Epic Llama Games · Argentina
Unusual Findings is an adventure game that follows three young friends investigating strange events during the 1980s, a decade the game fills with synth music, video rental shops and eight-bit gaming references. Choices made along the way shape how the story develops, and the plot involves an alien conspiracy. It comes from Argentine studio Epic Llama Games and was published by ESDigital Games in 2022 on Windows, Mac and Linux.
By poncle · United Kingdom
Vampire Survivors is a roguelike shoot 'em up from poncle, the studio name of UK-based developer Luca Galante, which launched fully in 2022 after an early access period. Your character attacks automatically while you steer through endless waves of monsters, trying to last as long as possible and unlock new characters, weapons and relics for later runs. Widely seen as an early example of the bullet heaven genre, it won two British Academy Games Awards, for Game Design and Best Game.
By Garage Heathen · Russia
Who's Lila? is a psychological horror game played in a point-and-click style, pitched by its creator as a reverse-detective adventure. Instead of picking lines of dialogue, players communicate with the characters they meet by manipulating facial expressions. It was made by the Russian independent developer Garage Heathen and released in February 2022, with IndieArk joining as a co-publisher.