Indie Selects for November 2026: Survive and Thrive

Each Wednesday, dive into the Indie Choose Hub — your gateway to a recent, curated indie assortment plus 4 themed spotlights that rotate weekly! You possibly can all the time discover this assortment hub within the XBOX Retailer and on XBOX.com/IndieSelects.

The vacation season is simply across the nook, and the ID@XBOX group is happy to share November’s Indie Selects! Assume that is our final Month-to-month Selects of the 12 months? Assume once more. Keep tuned subsequent month for our first-ever December Selects, with loads of indie video games so as to add to your want listing, whether or not you’re asking Santa or simply dropping not-so-subtle hints to your roommate.

This November, we’re grateful for six standout Indie Selects that invite you to outlive unbelievable horrors, stay your finest life, and typically perform a little of each. Do you slay the undead by the dozen, or put them to work as a surprisingly productive agricultural workforce? Do you favor fixing puzzles surrounded by vibrant colours or unspeakable nightmare gas? And that sound you hear? Possibly there’s a killer after you. Or perhaps the rhythm goes to get you.

Whether or not you’re not fairly able to let go of Halloween or simply on the lookout for one thing that matches your distinctive vibe, listed here are this month’s Indie Selects (in no explicit order):

Outdoors of its odes to Resident Evil and Twin Peaks, Silver Pines has borrowed a number of the most modern options seen in fashionable gaming to ship a extremely polished survival horror expertise. It has Silent Hill’s map annotations, Gears of Struggle’s energetic reload, and most notably, Prince of Persia: The Misplaced Crown’s picture system. Should you discover a boarded-up door however don’t but have the crowbar, or a cryptic clue for which you haven’t discovered the puzzle, you need to use your in-game digicam (you play as a detective in spite of everything) to take a photograph which can be pinned to your map. This makes backtracking whenever you discover the required merchandise so satisfying, as you’re employed by means of your individual visible to-do listing. It’s a characteristic that must be necessary for all Metroidvanias transferring forwards.

Wych Elm, the ex-Arrowhead builders, opted for rotoscoping to offer their protagonists, NPCs and enemies a novel aesthetic that matches completely with the unsettling city they’ve constructed so that you can discover. The gameplay takes place on fantastically drawn 2D scenes which have routes in direction of and away from the digicam, permitting you to discover an intricate, interconnected 3D map which inspires and rewards exploration.

Silver Pines is the most effective survival horror recreation you’ll play this 12 months. It delivers a cohesive, constant expertise, with a single protagonist and play fashion that eerily builds the strain and thriller over its 15-hour runtime. Any fan of horror or Metroidvanias owes it to themselves to leap in. See you in Silver Pines, detective.

– Ben Robinson

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Halloween is likely to be over, however the spooky season lives on with a darkish medieval RPG referred to as Graveyard Keeper 2. You don’t need to have performed the primary recreation so as to benefit from the second, however there are some pleasant narrative callbacks that deepen the thriller. Within the first recreation you have been pulled by means of a portal out of your mundane up to date life into an odd medieval fantasy world of magic and zombies; there was a village the discover, a number of NPCs to fulfill, duties to perform, and zombies to recruit as your helpers. Within the sequel, the city has been overrun by zombies and you’re the final hope. Whereas the premise sounds darkish, there’s a number of dry humor right here and sure, everybody’s favourite sassy revolutionary Donkey is again, after all!

The general gameplay loop is just like the primary recreation (a great factor, because it was so efficient.) You carry out duties like crafting, constructing, gathering and farming. You degree up and unlock new skills within the tech tree and advance quests. There’s quite a bit to juggle in Graveyard Keeper 2, however an improved quest system helps hold your objectives clear. Whereas some grinding is unavoidable, discovering your groove is deeply satisfying as its many programs start to automate, overlap, and gas your progress.

Graveyard Keeper 2 is a stellar sequel that builds on all the pieces that made the unique so pleasurable. Beautiful pixel-art environments and absolutely voiced story scenes convey its darkly charming world to life. If you would like a comfy recreation with a morbid twist that may simply devour your free time, that is it. Jane Pinckard

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“The Emperor protects”, however bringing a bolter to the battle by no means hurts!

Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2 returns with one other superb serving to of retro-inspired FPS motion, brutal fight, and sufficient pixelated carnage to make even essentially the most battle-hardened House Marine smile. Typically you simply need to flip your mind off, seize an absurdly outsized weapon, and unleash righteous fury upon something silly sufficient to face in your approach.

As somebody who loves first-person shooters, I’ve all the time appreciated video games that perceive the straightforward pleasure of motion, highly effective weapons, and fight that retains you in your toes. There’s one thing extremely interesting a couple of shooter that doesn’t ask you to spend half your time hiding behind cowl. Typically the most effective protection actually is an aggressive offense!

This time round, gamers can step into the armored boots of returning Ultramarine Malum Caedo or unleash destruction as Sister of Battle Nyra Veyrath. Every presents a special method to fight, with distinctive weapons and playstyles to discover. The branching marketing campaign additionally brings some welcome selection, giving gamers completely different paths by means of the grim darkness of the forty first millennium.

What attracts me to Boltgun 2 is its unapologetic dedication to old-school taking pictures. Quick motion, relentless enemies, chunky weapons, and that great feeling of being an unstoppable power in a universe decided to cease you. Add the gothic Warhammer environment and nostalgic pixel artwork, and also you’ve obtained a mixture that’s troublesome to withstand.

You don’t have to know the distinction between an Ultramarine and a Chaos House Marine to get pleasure from this one. Should you’ve ever puzzled what Doom may appear to be after spending a couple of thousand years serving the Imperium of Man, Boltgun 2 has a fairly explosive reply. For the Emperor!

– Steven Allen

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What do you do when the music stops? In Colorbound, you go discover it. You play as Anku, a younger Aymara boy whose late grandfather was a beloved musician. His band scattered way back, so Anku units out throughout the land to seek out the lacking gamers, assist them reconnect with their devices, and reunite them for one final tribute efficiency. It’s a narrative about loss, however not a tragic one. It focuses on the colour an individual leaves behind and on pleasure fairly than grief.

As Anku travels by means of lush forests, dusty deserts, and forgotten cities, he collects colours on his palette and makes use of them to reshape the world round him. Each shade behaves in a different way. Lighter shades make painted objects float away, whereas heavier ones make them drop. Discovering the intricacies of this mechanic turns mild platforming and logic puzzles right into a satisfying recreation of trigger and impact.

Colorbound can also be a celebration of the creators’ heritage. It started as an entry within the Latin American Video games Showcase Sport Jam in 2025, constructed across the theme “What the eyes don’t see, the center doesn’t really feel.” It’s now a pastel, watercolor-inspired journey formed by Chilean developer Isaías Arrué’s Andean roots. Its music facilities on the zampoña, the panpipe Anku picks as much as start his journey, and that instrument ties the sport’s music and shade collectively. It’s a comfy puzzle-platformer that one can simply discover themselves misplaced in.

– Glenn Gregory

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“I do not know what that is, however I need to play this,” is what I mentioned once I noticed the announce trailer for this recreation. A roguelike rhythm-based RPG mixing musical beats with side-scrolling motion is a kind of style mashups that may simply fall on its face, however Ratatan actually hits it out of the park and is a reminder that experimental genres are what make the indie area such a cool place to be proper now. I by no means had any expertise with the Patapon collection, which is the religious predecessor to this recreation, so I went into this loopy musical recreation with recent eyes and an open thoughts.

Ratatan sends its titular hero on a colourful quest to journey throughout a harsh land and attain The Everafter whereas battling hostile Testa and native wildlife in a playful journey crammed with cartoonish chaos. You management Ratatan straight whereas issuing beat-driven instructions to your military, choosing Hades-style boons alongside the best way earlier than dealing with every world’s huge boss. As you progress, Ratakaruta provide random elemental buffs that change your assaults and unlock new skills. Mixed with the rhythm-based gameplay, they hold every run recent and rewarding. After every run, you come to Rataport to unlock everlasting upgrades, craft stronger weapons, and develop your military.  The issue curve appears unreasonably onerous at first, however after a couple of runs, the upgrades I gained made bosses far more satisfactory.

Ratatan’s joyful sound design and colourful cartoon aesthetic convey the sport to life. Chaining rallies, jumps, guards, and assaults creates an addictive rhythm, with nice pacing between intense battles and quieter moments. Rhythm recreation and roguelike followers will discover loads to like in Ratatan.

– Raymond Estrada

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Should you’re right here for chill feels and a heat, fuzzy story a couple of lady checking on her ex-boyfriend who’s out of the blue gone somewhat MIA, then this throwback mixture of old-school 2D PC journey recreation with some really harrowing survival horror motion might be not the selection for you. As a substitute, Tenebris Somnia performs straight into the aesthetics of horror movie diehards who like to dip their celluloid occult leanings right into a vat of ’70s giallo-tinged weirdness.

Then, it makes full sense that you just play as an indie filmmaker named Julia who retains having bizarre nightmares about her ex-boyfriend getting killed by monsters. So, what’s a nervous ex-girlfriend to do however test on him within the condo they as soon as shared. Nothing may probably go unsuitable, proper? Incorrect! And your journey to that condo yields a stumble down the figurative rabbit gap into an alternate dimension crammed with witches, demons, and different unspeakable horrors that may pursue you thru the assorted rooms, hallways, and random areas as you try to unravel the thriller of what precisely is happening. I dig how the sport mixes the backstory of Julia and Ivan’s soured relationship with twisty puzzles and useful resource assortment on high of some actually fairly stunning and unusual live-action cutscenes. The standard of these filmed segments is fairly stable – and the temper? It’s positively displaying the sport studio’s fondness for all the pieces horror from “Suspiria” (notably the ‘70s model) to Silent Hill (notably video games 1-3).

However even if you happen to’re somebody who’s all in on the precise horror bent that Tenebris Somnia is aiming for, be warned that the gameplay parts – from the motion in ducking enemies, to the problem of puzzles and resource-hoarding – aren’t mere trifles. There’s a truthful quantity of robust love and tactical thought concerned in surviving what Tenebris throws your approach. However if you happen to really feel seen by a recreation that delves deep into its very offbeat love for spooky cinema, that is positively one for the devoted horror heads on the market.