Not every amazing game is a product of AAA development. Some of history's greatest games are created by independent developers with no connection to any large-scale publisher, and there's more than one example of a significant indie game breaking out into the mainstream to become influential in its own right.
Indie games have become an industry pillar in the past decade. With the proliferation of digital distribution, indie game developers found more tools than ever to fund, create, and self-publish their projects online. As this emerging technology also made the creation of complex games more accessible to people outside of the mainstream games industry, more indie titles began releasing every year than ever before.
This boom alone would have meant little if the games themselves hadn't been well-received by the community at large. While not every game ends up being particularly influential, recent history has taught us that many indies have a surprisingly long reach. "Indie" is now a category in most digital game stores, dedicated indie game expos and streams showcase upcoming releases, and some of the simplest indie titles have become some of the medium's greatest successes.
Influential Indie Game: Minecraft
Minecraft is on a different level than most other games. Minecraft originally released in 2009, being sold as a simplistic, pre-alpha block-building browser game, making developer Mojang one of the pioneers of early access. By 2011, Mojang had added enough to Minecraft for a full PC release, and had multiple ports for consoles on the way. All the while, Mojang continued creating new updates for Minecraft, providing new content for the growing community that built itself around the game.
Minecraft soon became a multi-billion dollar franchise that Mojang sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion. The game's open design, multiplayer, and near-limitless creative possibilities attracted players from all walks of life, and they grew their community by sharing their experiences and creations online. Popular Minecraft YouTubers like Dream and Mumbo Jumbo helped add to the game's popularity by showing off their skills in its survival and creative modes. Through these creators, as well as Minecraft's various spinoff series and merchandise, the brand has expanded well beyond just games. As one of the mainstays of PC gaming, few are even the bigger AAA titles could hope to match Minecraft's success.
Influential Indie Game: The Binding of Isaac
Back in the early 2010s, The Binding of Isaac was all the rage. Emerging around the same time that Minecraft reached its 1.0 version, The Binding of Isaac helped establish indie flash games, roguelikes, and future roguelites like Hades and Dead Cells as legitimate mainstream contenders. The game's addicting, chance-based dungeon crawling and symbolism-steeped storyline made it and its 2014 remake, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, readily repayable. Paving the way for more modern roguelites, The Binding of Isaac was one of the first games (alongside indie hit Spelunky) to teach us that playing the same game over and over again could be fun.
But the legacy of The Binding of Isaac continues today. People who have never played it will still hammer out Isaac's "Biblethump" emote on Twitch whenever something sad happens on a stream, and developer Edmund McMillen (who also created Super Meat Boy) continues releasing updates to The Binding of Isaac. Like Minecraft, The Binding of Isaac stands out as one of the few indie games that still has an active and thriving community a decade past its release.
Influential Indie Game: Undertale
Since Toby Fox released his monumentally popular RPG Undertale back in 2015, it's become a benchmark for how far developers can push the story and gameplay of a classic, SNES-style RPG. On top of that, the game has been turned into a huge host of memes, to the point where some of its memes might be considered more famous than the game itself. Not everyone has completed a genocide run of Undertale, but almost everyone has heard the iconic first measures of in-game tune "Megalovania," or the guttural burps of Sans' voice effect.
More importantly, Undertale surprised the entire gaming world by showing us something completely new with something that seemed so familiar. Though its graphical style and aesthetic seems reminiscent of old Nintendo RPGs like Earthbound, everything else about Undertale was completely original. Almost every player action in Undertale has an effect on the world. Every character slain pushes the player closer towards one ending or the other, and it's worth it to play the game multiple times just to see how much difference there is in a pacifist playthrough compared to a genocide run. That combined with its highly-beloved cast of absurdly quirky characters make it something intimately enjoyable.
Influential Indie Game: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia gets so little attention these days that it feels like everyone is suffering from its namesake. It's strange to think that the game was at the forefront of indie horror a mere decade ago. Putting the player in control of a memory-bereft stranger caught in a puzzle-filled castle populated with nothing but split-jawed monstrosities, Amnesia defined horror games at the time. Preceding other popular FPS horror titles like Outlast, it managed to inspire enough fear to feed the growing trend of YouTubers getting shocked by horror games. PewDiePie's channel is one of the most successful born from Amnesia's fear factor, so while it may not have endured the years like Minecraft or The Binding of Isaac (though the series continues with Amnesia: Rebirth), its legacy lives on via the world's most popular individual YouTuber.
Influential Indie Game: Shovel Knight
From a gameplay perspective, Shovel Knight isn't the most influential indie game out there, as the bulk of its gameplay experience relies on the classic feel of the NES era. 8-bit sprites and chiptune music characterize this polished ode to titles like Mega Man and Castlevania, but it's the abundance of Shovel Knight crossovers that stands as a testament to just how much breakthrough potential a crowdfunded game can have. With multiple expansions and various console-exclusive elements, Shovel Knight is about as mainstream as a franchise can get without becoming a fully fledged international phenomenon like Minecraft. Nintendo was even incentivized to make a line of Shovel Knight amiibo, something it has neglected to do for any other indie game series, despite being host to many on the Switch eShop.