Indie games have come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. It wasn’t much more than a decade ago that indie games would only ever be seen by a small community on PC, with no chance of ever getting put on a major console or storefront. However, with platforms like Steam bringing more attention to these projects, plus early initiatives like the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade on the Xbox 360 shining a light on how talented single, or very small, person teams could be, indie games suddenly found themselves sharing the spotlight with the high budget AAA games. In many cases, these rag-tag teams of developers working on a passion project in their spare time, with only what money they could give to it out of pocket, were reviewing better and selling more than their titanic competition.
Today, indie games are more common than ever. Once the wall was broken down, more individuals and small teams started emerging to offer new and unique experiences that the larger developers found too risky. These indie teams are where gamers turn to not for cutting-edge graphics, although the tools they have are allowing their art to rival big-budget games, but for brand new gameplay, narrative, or even fourth wall-breaking experiences that don’t exist anywhere else. In the early days, finding the best indie games was far easier, but now that time has passed and so many amazing indie titles have come along, with more arriving almost daily, there are almost too many to sort through. That’s why we’ve curated this list of the best indie games of all time.
As one of the first and best FPS games of all time, you may not think there’s more to understand about the Doom games than the fact that there are demons and you need to kill them. And sure, you can have a blast with the games just enjoying the thrills of ripping through monsters to a rocking soundtrack, but there’s actually a very rich lore and timeline beneath the surface if you’re willing to look for it. The timeline isn’t as clear as when you play the Metal Gear games in order, but it takes a bit more work to unravel the timeline from the original Doom to the newest Doom: The Dark Ages. Trust us, just like playing the Borderlands games in order, you will get confused very fast trying to figure it out on your own. We’ve read all the ancient tombs and chainsawed our way through every single Doom game to figure out how you can play the franchise in release order or chronologically.
All Doom games in release order
It is rare for any video game franchise to even survive for over 30 years, let alone maintain any level of continuity. The Metal Gear games set the standard for the best stealth games ever made, but creator Hideo Kojima also wanted to push the medium forward by introducing a level of storytelling previously unheard of in games. Like playing the Call of Duty games in order, each Metal Gear game can be tracked along our real-world timeline, though with plenty of liberties taken in terms of technology and historical events. With so many spinoffs and remakes that change the title, like Metal Gear Delta: Snake Eater, this is one of the toughest series to know how to approach as a newcomer. Thankfully, we’ve been following Snake’s adventures since the beginning and can easily tell you how to play the games in both release order and chronologically.
All Metal Gear games in release order
When it comes to FPS games, it is always a toss-up as to whether or not the story even matters. On one hand, you can play the Call of Duty games in order but only a few games actually link up with one another. Meanwhile, playing the Halo games in order is almost required to understand what’s going on. The Borderlands franchise lands somewhere in the middle, though most people probably assume the story doesn’t play a big factor since it is more focused on being comedic than telling a deep story. However, there is a ton of lore to this universe and each game, including the spinoffs, all connect leading up to Borderlands 4. Don’t let the number 4 fool you, though, because there are more than twice as many games in the franchise. We’ve been playing the franchise since it began so we will show you exactly how to play the entire Borderlands franchise in order, both in release order and chronologically.
All Borderlands games in release order
