Alongside our Game of the Year top 10 list and personal picks from the Push Square editorial team, we are recognising the best PS5 games of 2025 in select categories. Today is the turn of the best PS5 indie game of 2025.
Bronze Trophy: Skate Story
Forget about Tony Hawk for a second; you'll find this year's most unique and stylish skateboarding game in Skate Story.
You play as a demon tasked with swallowing the moons of Hell, and you'll accomplish that by skateboarding around a series of open areas, taking in the graphical splendour and performing tricks. This is one of those visual and auditory experiences you've simply got to play for yourself, and you can do a kickflip along the way. What's not to love?
Read our Skate Story PS5 review through the link.
Silver Trophy: Absolum
Roguelites are common in the indie scene nowadays, but this list proves there are still new, tantalising takes on the concept worth playing. Absolum is one of them, a side-scrolling beat 'em up that comes with tight, excellent combat and fulfilling loops to make another run worth it. With a strong soundtrack and striking visuals on top, Absolum will have you gripped from start to finish.
Read our Absolum PS5 review through the link.
Gold Trophy: Ball X Pit
Probably one of the most addictive PS5 games released this year, Ball X Pit marries Vampire Survivors and Breakout to seriously impressive effect. You blast legions of enemies, then manage and build up a town, all wrapped in a roguelite coating. With runs short enough that you always have the urge to start another and engaging upgrades, Ball X Pit might seem unassuming, but dig a little, and you'll find one of PS5's most gripping experiences.
Read our Ball X Pit PS5 review through the link.
Platinum Trophy: Hollow Knight: Silksong
With expectations set so high, things could have gone awfully wrong for Team Cherry and its Hollow Knight follow-up.
Fortunately, though, after more than seven years of development, Hollow Knight: Silksong delivered and then some. The colossal Metroidvania is an incredible achievement of gameplay satisfaction, intriguing exploration, and utterly brutal boss fights and enemy gauntlets. It's not for the casual player, but those who conquer its quest are rewarded with one of the most satisfying experiences in all of gaming. Hollow Knight: Silksong is the indie scene at its unequivocal peak.
Read our Hollow Knight: Silksong PS5 review through the link.
Do you agree with our picks for the best PS5 indie game of 2025? Share your thoughts in the comments below and check out more of our Game of the Year coverage through the link.
Comments 29
Absolum purely because it has Mick Gordon on the soundtrack
Blue Prince was an extraordinary experience. I had so much fun writing in notebooks to keep track of and uncover the puzzles within puzzles. Loved it.
Blue Prince was so captivating. I loved the way you gradually exposed new levels of game play..
Silksong really is overrated and is carried by hype. I'm willing to bet the upcoming years won't be kind to it.
Ball X Pitt is my Indie of the year. Its utter perfection and addictive as crack.
Silksong and Ball x Pit were both excellent fun this year. Never got round to Blue prince but I shall one day.
Absolum slipped past me! I'll have a look into it!
No Blue Prince? How disappointing.
Absolutely disgusting leaving Sword of the Sea off the list. You should be ashamed.
Indies have been the breath of fresh air we all needed, IMO. I've always been an indie buff, but I think this year was a particularly good one for the smaller companies.
Silksong is my Game of the Year. Incredible experience
@DennisReynolds Totally disagree. Silksong’s a bonafide classic. One of the best games I’ve ever played. I don’t think it got enough credit for what it was. Feels like the “it’s too hard” movement sort of killed the game’s momentum and it deserved better than that.
@somnambulance The game isn't hard its just really tedious and monotonous. Its easily one of the most metrovanies out there and has learnt nothing in the years since Hollow Knight. It was originally an expansion to HK and those origins are painfully obvious. Its not a bad game far from it but if it was something new from a new indie dev and wasn't connected to HK no one would give a damn about it. Give it 2 years i expect "let's face it Silksong was kinda mediocre and overhyped" will be a popular way to farm likes.
Silksong for me. I didn’t like the original Hollow Knight, but its sequel is one of my all time favorite games. It’s crazy how drastic the difference is for me personally. With that said, Absolum and Ball x Pitt are exceptional as well.
Lumines arise
Halls of Torment
Sword of the Sea is my pick. Silksong is an incredible game that might just be out of my league but I’ll keep chipping away at it when I’m feeling optimistic.
I was put off Silksong due to the hype, followed by the talk of its punishing difficulty but I picked it up on a whim and whilst it is brutally difficult its still probably the best game I've played all year.
It's impeccably designed from level and creature designs, art direction, sound design and combat and traversal mechanics that all combine to create a world that invites curiosity and wanderlust that makes the brutal difficulty and punishing runbacks tolerable...if not always forgiveable.
For me the best indie game is Expedition 33 after background AI textures got patched.
Shinobi art of vengeance is the best indie game.and absolum is incredible. Word up son
Baby Steps was interesting from what I tried with "Trial" but I won't ever go back to it. Blue Prince was boring af after a few runs and rng killed all the will I had which wasn't that big tbh. I liked Silksong and plan to continue in the new year but I can't see the appeal other than it being a good game and not anything special.
Currently playing and loving Hades II. Why on earth is that not here?!
Ball X Pit was like the pleasant surprise of the year. Looking forward to the inevitable new/DLC content that gets added later.
@playthedangame Because it is only out on Steam and Switch at the minute.
@Jey887
Ah of course, easy to forget it's not on all consoles.
Hades II by far
I restarted Blue Prince after loosing 200 hours of gameplay due to a file corruption. Gotta be Blue Prince for me
Knew nothing about Ball X Pit, assumed it was some kind of shovelware so ignored it. But now I'm thinking that as it has a trial and 20% off in the sale, I'll give it a whirl.
I've not played all of this but so far it's Skate Story over Blue Prince (I think I gotta give that one some more time)
@wilky2988 They already announced its getting 3 free updates next year that add a ton of new content
I haven’t played Silksong yet, because I wait for the physical version for Switch 2. But this whole hype about it (no preorders etc.) turned me off a bit.
And then I read the review in Edge, where it got the score 8/10 (Hollow Knight got 9/10). The main complaints were 1) a less interesting lore and 2) an unbalanced difficulty, which is higher in the first half of the game.
Long story short, I‘m still looking forward to play it in 2026. But after so many years, my expectations were higher.
Can you confirm these two points? What were your impressions?
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