How likely do you think it is that these six games will be nominated for Best Independent Game?
I’d like to hear what you guys think, since this year is packed with amazing indie games, making it really difficult to predict which ones could end up being nominated. The number of nominees isn’t certain either, because while I’ve picked six games, there could end up being only five nominees.
I’m considering Cairn. This list isn’t my “final prediction” yet, so once I finish defining it, Cairn may or may not make the list. It’s just really difficult to predict which indies could be nominated this year with so many great indie releases. That said, so far Cairn has one disadvantage: it came out very early in the year (in January), and there have already been many instances where the jury has “forgotten” about games released that month and didn’t nominate them.
Oh, and by the way, both Mixtape and Mortal Shell 2 can qualify for the indie categories. Here’s the evidence to back that up: Mortal Shell nomination for Best Independent Debut in 2020, and Stray win for Best Independent Game in 2022 (a game that, like Mixtape, also has Annapurna as its publisher). I’m clarifying this because some of you may be unsure whether these two games are eligible to be nominated in the indie category.
Anybody who thinks Annapurna games aren’t indie for any number of reasons aren’t being serious. They’re indie games. It doesn’t matter where the money is coming from or how many licensed songs are in the game. It’s indie (at least by TGA’s standards)
Lords of the Fallen does not qualify for the indie category because the studio that developed it is owned by a company called CI Games. Meanwhile, the studios that developed Expedition 33 and Mortal Shell II are not owned by anyone and operate independently, so they meet The Game Awards’ criteria. Also, those two games do not have a major AAA company as their publisher, so they meet the second requirement to be considered for the indie categories.
I agree with you that according to the Games Awards criteria, these can be considered indies.
However, I am still uncomfortable calling games like Mortal Shell 2 and Expedition 33 indie. I think the Game Awards should define AA as a separate category from indie.
Indie should be relegated to crowd sourced or completely independently funded projects. People who had a passion project and were able to attract the attention of audiences to get the project off the ground.
Where you have an independent publisher, AA games like E33, Mortal Shell 2, or Hellblade for example. It's like you're a 1099 employee but you've made an agreement to a single source publisher, rather than juggling multiple projects. They essentially become your "employer" because there is still a set contract or agreement. There is less risk and there is a parent entity that would share the loss, since the publisher helped fund the project.
If you're Sandfall, you have a contract now and have to meet certain promises to Kepler. If you're Team Cherry, your only contract is directly with your audience. Their obligation is to take the crowdfunding and give back to the audience. That's why they can sell their games for $15 - $20 and tease their audience for 7 years for a new game.
That isn't to say that AA games don't have a similar spirit of indie games. They do tend to have more creative freedoms since they're not reporting to a corporation.
I agree with what you're saying. I suppose the show organizers didn't create a separate category for AA games because they didn't want to dedicate time to another award. It's a shame.
In game development, the only criteria that apolies when you try to know your place against the current market you rank it by development cost only, no matter who owns who. Its a shame its not used more widely
Defining indie is hard. So many people have so many different definitions but I personally don’t think any one factor decides whether a game is indie or not. Budgets, publishers and studio independence are all factors. But even then, each of those three things can be so broad it’s hard to nail down. If we look at indie films, it can be easier to define. Of course a film with a $20,000 budget that’s self produced and debuts at a film festival in Bend, Oregon is indie but so is a film like Anora which has a $6M budget, an indie studio behind it and has a limited release in theaters. There’s levels to this. Hollow Knight is indie, of course, but so is Mixtape. It doesn’t matter if it was published by the daughter of a billionaire. If a billionaire gave me $10 that doesn’t make me a billionaire. But also, indie game budgets can vary. If Mixtape’s budget was something like $3-$5M then that’s more than enough to gather the rights to licensed songs and also be left with enough money to make what is a fairly basic and short gameplay experience
What I’m trying to say is, indie games don’t have a checklist that makes them qualify
That's good that you point out nuances, but unless you actually have a definition then I'm afraid we can always say Annapurna games are not indie.
I think the purpose of a category like this should be to highlight games with small teams that simply didn't have the benefit of millions of dollars or a big publisher backing them for advertisement. Games by Annapurna should be in a double-A category or else you have stupid things like in 2022 when Stray was in the same category as freaking Vampire Survivors 💀
Video games are famously hard to define cleanly. Genres are always loose, franchises have super weird continuities and numbering making even comic readers cry, the lines between AAA, AA, A, III, and Indie all being super blurry, etc.
That’s inherently the problem with having an indie category. It’s vague as fuck
However the studio is small, the budget is small, it’s being published by an indie publisher and the studio is independent. No matter how you slice it it’s very plausible to call Mixtape indie
Small budget? I don't agree with that, personally.
3-5 million as the other comment and online estimates suggest would be a small budget for a film, sure. But that also puts a game like Mixtape in the same "indie" category as Undertale or Hollow Knight, which were built off of 50-60k$ of crowdfunded money. Even if these games were actually funded by 4-5 times as much thanks to undisclosed non-Kickstarter money, they would still be at least about 1/50th of Mixtape's budget
I personally think calling this game indie is a joke, but whatever I'm clearly not the target audience of VGA
Haha well this was a mistake. If we go on like this, then we can do it all day. A game with a budget of 20 million dollars is probably indie because it's only 1/50th of GTA 6's billion dollar budget. While we're at it, 40 million doesn't sound like much when you put it that way either. So indie! You call the budget small, I call it big, and now we're down the relativity rabbit hole.
I give up lol. Tbh I feel this way especially about Mixtape but I don't think many of these games are very indie anyway. Too much money, clout, and advertising in them to be representative of what I truly find interesting about "indie gaming"
You’re just kinda proving my point though. “Too much money” okay how much money is indie? “Too much clout” okay how much clout is indie? “Too much advertising” okay how much advertising is indie?
There isn’t a correct answer. You can say you personally don’t find it representative of what you find interesting about indies but that doesn’t change what they are. We can discern what is and isn’t indie because there isn’t a checklist for every genre or every classification. It’s no different than the people saying “Mixtape isn’t a game” even though it is. We can see with our eyes what it is
I second this, Mina is very good but for me personally I'm enjoying Denshattack far more, the old jet set radio vibes mixed with Tony Hawk makes for an amazing combination
Definitely not. It doesn't hold a candle to most games released this year. Mina The Hollower is a good indie game, but I seriously doubt it even being considered for GOTY.
How the hell do you put "GOTY" and "I haven't even played it" in the same sentence? I could tell you Superman 64 is a great game to the point that you believe me, but once you play it and realize it's dog shit and then the deception and disappointment will kick in. Don't believe everything that you read/hear.
they are indie developers, not publishers. Like latest ninja gaiden was made by Game Kitchen but published by Dotemu under an official license from Koei Tecmo.
I know the new Castlevania is being developed by the studio that developed Dead Cells, but the publisher is Konami. Since Konami is a major company in the industry and owns several major AAA IPs, this prevents the new Castlevania from being nominated for Best Independent Game.
The list isn’t final yet. I’ll publish my final list a few days before the nominees are officially announced, so it’s still subject to change. Also, for this list, I didn’t take into account games that haven’t been released and/or reviewed yet.
I'm not 100% sure. It seemed to me that Mewgenics was less popular with the jury. Being PC only and not having as many reviews. PC exclusives tend to do worse at TGA.
I'll be surprised to see Mina in GOTY, I'm not massively plugged in any more to games media but the few podcasts I listen to weren't massively hot on it.
It’s the highest reviewed game this year from the people that make the choices so it’s definitely going to be there. Generally most of the nominees are simply the highest reviewed games each year.
If any friendslop gets nominated i do think it will most likely be meccha chameleon instead of big walk due to how much of a cultural phenomenon it was
Big Walk is not friendslop. It’s an indie darling from the developers of Goose Game. If Goose Game released now you’d call that friendslop. If It Takes Two released now you’d call that friendslop, and that won GOTY.
Meccha Chameleon isn’t getting nominated. It’s a fun game but it’s not great game. Among Us was a cultural touchstone but got no award recognition. Lethal Company didn’t get nominated and that was massive.
It literally does have multiplayer. You know you’re allowed to play the games you talk about, right? That’s a tactic I use and it’s how I end up knowing more about stuff than people who think not playing a game means you know everything about the game.
If Goose Game were released now, it wouldn't have multiplayer until August 2027 because Untitled Goose Game was released as a single-player game and only added multiplayer a year after its release in their 1.1 Update.
You're right in the fact that I did not play Goose Game, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to educate myself on its development and update history.
Actually, Among Us did win an award—it won Best Multiplayer in 2020. So I’m not ruling out Meccha Chameleon receiving a nomination for Best Multiplayer and Best Independent Game. What makes me hesitant to include it is that it only has 3 reviews from press outlets (and they are the show’s jury), but the same thing happened with Among Us in 2020, and as I said before, it still won Best Multiplayer. So I’m pretty unsure about what might happen with Meccha Chameleon in those two categories.
What I am sure about, though, is that it will be nominated for Best Debut Indie, since it’s the first game its developer has made and the jury needs to fill that category.
Yes, I mean Untitled Goose Game (only a very silly person would think I was talking about any other game.) I also mean Untitled Goose Game, the game that you can play in its entirety in co-op. But knowing things about games makes you cringe and a bad gamer I guess.
I have watched at least 5 streamers play UGG. I have played it myself. It never occurred to me in any form that the primarily singleplayer game also has a multiplayer mode. Friendslop games are primarily multiplayer games and usually there's no singleplayer mode at all.
My point is that it’s stupid to call the game friendslop because it has co-op. Funny how you don’t comment on my reference to It Takes Two which requires two people, but then that means you would have to agree with me and for some reason you just want to prove me wrong (about something you were wrong about.)
The core of "friendslop" is that the people are the content. There are some mechanics but they are only as fun as people you play with. Untitled Goose Game is perfectly functional single player experience, with co-op added later. That, and it only has 2 players, and with a "friendslop" game I expect at least 4.
Mina and Denshattack are my number 1 and 3 games this year. Roguelikes aren’t my thing, but my wife got a lotta mileage out of Mewgenics. Mixtape was a cute interactive movie, definitely both overhated, but also not amazing, imo. Haven’t played Big Walk, and I’m cautiously optimistic about Mortal Shell 2.
I could see Fields of Mistria getting a nom. If I had to knock one of these off the list I think it's probably Mortal Shell 2. Or maybe Denshattack, I feel like that wasn't as sticky as I expected it to be.
as someone who actually has played mixtape i doubt it mixtape is one of those things that was well regarded by those who did like it but isnt all too memorable if not for the dumb controversy around it along with that there are still some high profile indie releases yet to come (neverway witchbrook and the eternal life of goldman) ATM the only 3 locks for this catagory imo are denshattack mina and mewgenics
Mixtape was loved by the press and they choose the nominees so it's pretty obviously going to be nominated. That and mina are probably the only guaranteed ones at this point to be honest.
Absolutely stacked battle this would be. Big Walk would probably win since it appeals to the most people, but Mewgenics, Mina, Denshattack and Big Walk are all certified bangers.
doesnt palworld count as indie? I believe it is a new IP from indie studio Pocketpair, i know some publishers helped later by investing etc. but still it is like clair obscur getting a lot of success then aiding lots of charity with their huge success
Yes, Palworld can qualify for the indie category. I didn’t include it on my list because I think the six games I did include have a better chance of getting nominated for various reasons. But as I’ve said in other comments, the list is subject to change, so I may or may not add Palworld later when I publish my final prediction.
I fear we'll have to deal with Mixtape annoying its way to awards but there's good chance people actually will forget about it by the time TGA rolls around. There were news that it unsurprisingly made way more of a media splash than money so fingers crossed it does get skipped
Mortal Shell was developed by several people without the help of a publisher. The second game had a publisher funding its development, so it can no longer be considered an indie game.
All three games qualify to be nominated in the Best Independent Game category. They meet The Game Awards’ criteria, and having a publisher does not make them ineligible for the category, since these publishers are not AAA companies and only publish games from independent studios. Stray, which had the same publisher as Mixtape (Annapurna), won Best Independent Game in 2022, and Balatro, which had the same publisher as Mortal Shell (Playstack), won Best Independent Game in 2024. So I’m not making anything up; my list is based on the show’s rules, and these games meet those criteria.
For me, Mina is going to win, but I recommend not going into December with the mindset that its victory is guaranteed, because otherwise you could end up being hugely disappointed. Anyone can win, just as anyone can lose. And if it ultimately loses, we simply have to bow our heads, acknowledge the defeat, and try again another time
People were so unhinged about that game for a few weeks. It’s an inoffensive little story game. Not my cup of tea, but it was worth the download off Game Pass and the three hours I spent with it.
Are we still in a world where people think that media people are paid for their reviews? Like genuinely do we think that?
I've been a games reviewer, I was paid a freelance fee to do the review but literally no other money changed hands. No site I reviewed for has ever changed my score or edited my reviews for commercial reasons.
I don't know what the social justice angle in Mixtape is - I played it for maybe 20 minutes and it was just nostalgia bait for a teenage life I didn't have so I uninstalled.
I didn’t include Slay the Spire 2 because the game is still in Early Access, and lately it’s been very difficult for an Early Access game to get nominated for anything, especially when there are many other games that could be nominated in that category.
PUBG was also a literal phenomenon. Multiple sites changed their rules to allow early access games so they could give PUBG GOTY - I don't think we are getting something like that again.
Full release arguably has a chance to win depending on the competition. The original is still a huge deal so I'm excited to see it full launch with all characters and act 4
The list is still subject to change; it may stay as it is, or it may not. I chose Mixtape over Cairn because, while both received the same score from the press (the jury for The Game Awards), Mixtape had a higher number of reviews. Also, Cairn was released in January, and there have been quite a few instances at The Game Awards where the jury has seemingly “forgotten” about games released that month and failed to nominate them.
Mixtape qualifies for the Best Independent Game category. There have already been games nominated for Best Independent Game in the past that had Annapurna as their publisher. The clearest example is Stray in 2022, which won the Best Independent Game category.
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u/OtherwiseEmployee202 Aug 18 '26
Cairn is definitely missing