11 Incredible Indie Games Every New Switch 2 Owner Should Have In Their Library

The last 10 years have been great for mashups of old and new. Hollow Knight was one of the first to take the classic 2D exploration of a Metroidvania and infuse it with the punishing combat and memorable boss fights of a Soulslike. It came to PC in 2017 but was criminally slept on until it hit Switch over a year later. Now’s the perfect time to go back since Silksong, which originally started development as a DLC expansion, is finally just around the corner with an expected launch before the end of 2025.

Tell someone something is a roguelike and they’ll either perk up, let out a deep, exhausted sigh, or ask you if you actually meant to say “roguelite.” Dead Cells helps bridge that gap with 2D action platforming that feels more like something out of a classic arcade game than the basis for a labyrinth of RNG-fueled buildcrafting upgrades to memorize and manage. It arrived on Switch in 2018 and has had 35 patches and five DLC expansions in the years since.

Stardew Valley came to Switch in the console’s first year and has been a perennial favorite ever since. The cozy pixel-art life sim channels the top-down nostalgia of an old handheld Pokémon game with perfectly tuned farm management mechanics that rival those in any Animal Crossing clone or survival crafting game. Best of all, it’s kept getting free updates that add tons of new content.

Enter the Gungeon marries one of the best roguelikes (The Binding of Isaac) with one of the best bullet hells (Nuclear Throne) and turns it into a D&D-flavored box of exploding pop rocks. In my opinion, it’s the “one of those” that best nails the balance of exploration, combat, and loot that makes the genre so compelling, and the art and animation are equally top-notch. It feels great, too, with the dodge and reload mechanics giving it a rewarding tactile quality you don’t always get in this type of arcade mashup. A handful of free updates only added to the depth.

No roguelike randomness or permadeath. No Metroidvania backtracking. No Soulslike difficulty curves. Shovel Knight is just a top-tier platformer that doubles as a satisfying tribute to classic 8-bit games like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and DuckTales. It came out over a decade ago and was ported to Switch in 2017. It’s incredible to think the studio behind it, Yacht Club Games, hasn’t released anything but expansions and spin-offs since. If you’re excited for their new game, Mina the Hollower, this October, however, you need to start with Shovel Knight first.

Deltarune Chapter 3 and 4 are launch games on Switch 2, but 8-bit RPG Undertale remains required playing. Think of it as summer reading. It combines interesting storytelling that subverts genre expectations with an incredible soundtrack and novel turn-based combat mechanics. It’s like playing a version of the original Final Fantasy that breaks all of the rules and delivers on a deeper, more engaging experience in the process. The Switch port also added a new boss fight.

Cuphead combines old-timey animation with run-and-gun gameplay into a game that’s beautiful to watch and challenging to beat. It began life as an Xbox exclusive, which is why it didn’t get to Switch until 2019 where it runs surprisingly well. There’s a “simple mode” for anyone who gets stuck, and co-op using single Joy-Con. The Delicious Last Course DLC in 2022 added a new mini-adventure, boss fights, and a third playable character.

Hades is one of the more recent Switch indie hits, coming in the second half of the console’s life. It’s an isometric third-person action roguelike that couples snappy combat and a great mix of randomized upgrades and weapons with permanent unlocks, a cool story, and complex character relationships that unravel as you grind. The sequel is a timed console exclusive on Switch 1 and 2 later this year.

Finally, a strategy game! Into the Breach is a grid-based roguelike that’s as much a puzzle game as a stripped-down XCOM-like. The rub is that every time you lose you can keep your surviving mech pilot and send them back in time to start a new run. It’s like Front Mission meets Edge of Tomorrow, where using the geography to your advantage is as important as the skills and weapons you outfit your squad with. A free Advanced Edition update in 2022 added even more content.

I’ve been informed that we’re now calling Vampire Survivors a “mowing game,” which sounds a lot more fun and elegant than something like “bullet heaven auto battler.” Like lots of other games on this list, the 2022 hit keeps getting new DLC and free updates that expand the upgrade management formula with new characters, enemies, and maps. The beauty of Vampire Survivors is that no matter how many times you start a new round, it effortlessly locks you in all over again. Unlike some of the other roguelikes on this list, however, sessions go way faster and don’t require sharp reflexes or memorized attack patterns.

It’s wild that in the last year of Switch’s tenure as Nintendo’s primary console, fans were still getting new timeless classics added to the mix. I was hot on Balatro at the start of 2024, then cooled on it significantly in the second half of the year, and recently have come back around to it being one of the best games of the 2020s. New Jokers and a deep well of unlockables mean there’s still new strategies and synergies to discover, and every time you think you’ve hit your limit a new, bigger number eventually reveals itself. Balatro is like if Goku were a calculator counting cards in a casino.