Indie game studios

Solo (1) · est. 2012 · 1title

Solo developer Eric Barone, creator of Stardew Valley. Famously refused publisher buyouts and continues to ship free updates years after launch.

Small (2-5) · est. 2010 · 1title

Two-person Swedish studio founded by Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin. Best known for Hotline Miami's neon ultra-violence.

Solo (1) · est. 2014 · 1title

Vancouver-based solo dev Daniel Mullins. His fourth-wall-breaking puzzle horror works (Pony Island, The Hex, Inscryption) consistently land in GOTY conversations.

Small (2-5) · est. 2015 · 1title

Melbourne studio founded by James Pearmain and Julian Wilton. Cult of the Lamb broke 1M sales in its first week, becoming Devolver's biggest indie launch of 2022.

Small (2-5) · est. 2018 · 1title

Small team led by McPig (Pizza Tower's lead artist and developer). Their debut Pizza Tower channels Wario Land into a Newgrounds-era fever dream.

Medium (6-15) · est. 2014 · 1title

LA studio founded by Masi Oka. Outer Wilds was originally Alex Beachum's USC thesis project before Mobius produced it.

Small (2-5) · est. 2018 · 1title

Copenhagen studio founded by Jeppe Carlsen (former lead designer on Limbo and Inside). Cocoon refines his nested-world puzzle approach into 4 hours of dense, dialogue-free design.

Small (2-5) · est. 2015 · 1title

Montpellier studio behind Stray. Their cyberpunk cat-protagonist concept took 7 years from prototype to release.

Triple-I (50+) · est. 2010 · 2titles

Warsaw-based, NewConnect-listed. Develops and self-publishes thematically heavy titles (Frostpunk, This War of Mine, Indika). Same legal entity also runs the publishing arm.

Solo (1) · est. 2020 · 1title

Solo developer Greg Styczeń. Manor Lords sold over 2M copies in early access in its first month — one of 2024's biggest indie debuts.

Solo (1) · est. 2017 · 1title

Solo dev Yuts. Norco's Southern Gothic point-and-click is praised for its prose and refusal of conventional adventure-game structure.

Solo (1) · est. 2018 · 1title

Solo developer Gareth Damian Martin. Their interactive-fiction-meets-RPG approach (In Other Waters, Citizen Sleeper) found a strong narrative-game audience.

Small (2-5) · est. 2019 · 1title

Small team behind Calico, an early standout of the cozy-game wave. Now expanding into multiple cozy/wholesome projects.

Small (2-5) · est. 2014 · 1title

Adelaide trio (Ari Gibson, William Pellen, Jack Vine). Hollow Knight kickstarted at AU$57K, shipped to ~10M sales. Silksong has been in development since 2019.

Solo (1) · est. 2021 · 1title

Solo developer Luca Galante. Vampire Survivors started as a $4.99 early-access experiment in 2021, grew to ~5M units and BAFTA Game of the Year by 2023.

Solo (1) · est. 2021 · 1title

Solo developer who shipped Balatro in February 2024 as a poker-roguelike side project. 5M units in 8 weeks; partnered with Playstack for publishing.

Medium (6-15) · est. 2009 · 1title

San Francisco / remote. Founded by ex-EA staff. Bastion / Transistor / Pyre / Hades / Hades II — every release self-published, every release critically acclaimed.

Large (16-50) · est. 2016 · 1title

Tallinn studio. Disco Elysium (2019) won 4 BAFTAs and ~2M units. 2022-2024 had a notorious founder dispute; remaining team continues original-IP work.

Small (2-5) · est. 2017 · 1title

Seattle indie. Slay the Spire (2019) sold ~5M units and effectively defined the modern roguelike-deckbuilder genre. Slay the Spire 2 in development.

Small (2-5) · est. 2001 · 1title

Bordeaux-based worker cooperative. Dead Cells (2018) sold ~10M units; live-ops since handed off to spin-off studio Evil Empire.

Small (2-5) · est. 2015 · 1title

Vancouver. Celeste (2018) won BAFTA Best Game and shipped ~5M units. Earthblade was cancelled in 2024 after a multi-year development.

Medium (6-15) · est. 2010 · 1title

Oakville, Ontario. Cuphead (2017) hand-drawn animation pipeline produced ~8M units. 2022 DLC Delicious Last Course extended sales another year.

Solo (1) · est. 2015 · 1title

Solo dev Andrew Shouldice. Tunic (2022) took 7 years; the in-game manual mechanic became its calling card. Published by Finji.

Solo (1) · est. 2017 · 1title

Solo dev Billy Basso. Animal Well (2024) shipped after 7 years of development, published by Bigmode (founded by Videogamedunkey). 1M+ units in first 6 weeks.

Solo (1) · est. 2018 · 1title

Solo developer behind Lethal Company. The 4-player co-op horror caught fire on streams in late 2023, hitting 200K concurrent players within weeks of early-access launch.

Small (2-5) · est. 2017 · 1title

Russian indie collective. Loop Hero's auto-battling pixel-art roguelike landed top of Steam's bestseller list in March 2021 — Devolver published.

Medium (6-15) · est. 2014 · 1title

Montréal studio behind Spiritfarer, Sundered, and Jotun. Self-publishes; one of the louder French-Canadian indie shops.

Medium (6-15) · est. 2016 · 1title

Québec studio. Made The Messenger (2018) and Sea of Stars (2023). Sea of Stars hit 250K units in its first week and won multiple GOTY nominations.

Small (2-5) · est. 2016 · 1title

Barcelona studio founded by Adrián Cuevas, Roger Mendoza, and illustrator Conrad Roset. Gris (2018) and Neva (2024) — hand-drawn art platformers, both Devolver-published.

Large (16-50) · est. 2005 · 1title

Vancouver studio. Don't Starve / Don't Starve Together / Mark of the Ninja / Oxygen Not Included / Invisible Inc. Self-publishes everything; majority-acquired by Tencent in 2021 but operates independently.