Xbox Live Arcade has changed the industry for the better. It paved a new path to experiencing the incredible indie games gamers have missed.
You can insist that we take the normal indie game today. Often they offer better experience than mainstream, big budget blockbusters from the largest publishers in the industry. I returned on Xbox Live Arcade Day, but that certainly wasn’t the case. The Indies were the new kids in town.
These games were A breath of fresh air from growing trends in bloated copy paste gameplay from the industry’s largest franchise. There was only one problem. They were not always easy to discover and buy.
Thankfully, Microsoft was able to search and purchase these games very easily, aside from using Microsoft points, of course.
Some of my favorite Xbox 360 games are from Xbox Live Arcade and are still absolutely retained today.
10 Geometry Wars: Retro Evolution
I’ll shape it
I recently wrote about Geometric Wars. After finishing the article, I immediately downloaded it on Steam and played it all night on the Steam deck. This game is as good today as I remember nearly 20 years ago.
The Twin Stick Shooter has the perfect balance of accessibility and has a smooth difficulty curve that throws and fires more enemies.
1) It doesn’t bother chaos to unfold as it looks incredibly stylish.
I think Twin-Stick Shooter will be left behind in modern times, but Geometry War’s gameplay is timeless.
9 Castle Crusher
The Shine of the Cooperative
The Giants made it to the scene with a successful retail release of Alien Himoids. They invaded the mainstream with follow-up castle crushers. This is a cooperative side-scrolling beat packed with style, personality and addictive gameplay.
Games like this try to use shallow gameplay so it’s easy to rely solely on humor, but Castle Crashers do well to avoid this pitfall. the A great love letter to the Beat M-up genre.
Yes, some of the humor, such as watching a deer fart in the woods, may feel a little outdated and boyish today, but in a world where Deadpool’s films raised $1.3 billion at the box office, they claim to be at home.
Following its remaster, Castle Crashers now allows new viewers to discover, explore, and fall in love with its style, fun, and addictive gameplay.
8 Battle Block Theater
Masterpiece Theater
Behemoths are more than Castle Crusher and Alien Himoids. This gem under the radar is one of the best cooperative platformers you can still play today.
It was one of the first games my wife and I have played together. When we first started dating a few years after its release, we launched it and quickly fell in love with every second of it.
The top presentations that we all know and present love from the giants are fully on display, and are backed by Incredibly tight control and platform accuracy.
Co-op Platforming is becoming more popular and requires two fiction and split fiction, so you need to go back and check out Battleblock Theatre. I promise you will like it.
7 Fes
The sparkle of the platform
Say what you want about Phil Fish, but the guy knows how to make video games.
Fez is one of the greatest platformers of all time. This is an incredible achievement in design from start to finish, offering players a unique way to tackle the genre. That camera’s perspective is not new, but here’s the hook. Fez is not about exploration, not platforms.
The game’s presentations actively encourage players to explore at all times. Its seemingly simple gameplay helps guide the player’s journey.
Players aren’t focused on “How can I get there?” Instead, they ask themselves, “When I get there, what is waiting for me?”
Fez is a masterclass of immersion, style and gameplay, and is offered in ways that almost no game can take. Again, I say what you want about Phil Fish. This guy is controversial, but he is also a genius when it comes to video game design.
6 Super Meat Boy
It’s very challenging
If you had a poster kid about how Xbox Live Arcade brings success in indie games, it would be Super Meat Boy.
Super Meat Boy, who debuted at XBLA in 2010, took the world by storm. First of all, I never saw a proper retail release for this game. Be honest: Who will support this in their righteous minds? Microsoft and Xbox Live Arcade, who is it?
Super Meat Boy is a master class in platform gameplay. That difficulty still reflects Donkey Kong Country’s best challenges, even today, testing the game to its limits.
After games continue to push gamers to their limits and countless deaths, in a world where Super Meat Boys are at home, they are eggs. Despite being released over a decade ago, it feels in line with the game released in the world of Dark Post Souls and helps to age like a bottle of fine wine.
5 Fortress
The beginning of something wonderful
While Supergiant is best known for his work with Hades today, Bastion has proven that he can offer classics from day one.
Indie Studios created waves in its establishment. Former gaming journalist Greg Casabin was one of my inspirations to actually enter the industry. I was excited to see what he and the other teams could cook.
Bastion reinforced the fact that some of the best games of the 2010s came from the independent scene, like the indie d’arling before Braid. Action RPGs are full of incredible presentations and polishes that are comparable, or sometimes even better than the AAA games of the time.
It offers a great mix of engaging gameplay and engaging storytelling, and even after credit roles, gamers connect in a variety of ways. While it may not be as challenging as other similar titles, Bastion is not afraid to make things fresh and interesting.
4 Peggle
Your old addiction
I don’t think many young games realize how popular Peggle is during their heyday.
Yes, we’re all memes about the Peggle 2 announcement, but hey, that was a big deal at the time! One of the most popular World of Warcraft add-ons lets you play Pegul in-game!
Pegul is a type of game that is dangerous if released on mobile. The addictive gameplay loop plays perfectly with the final few hours of sessions. We launched it on our Xbox360 while waiting for a friend to go home and log in for some Hello.
There are very few puzzle games that capture games like Peggle. Yes, the presentation of the game can be uncomfortable, but once you get over it, it pays off an incredible experience that is hard to beat.
3 Spellunky
Roguelike Classic
Roguelike in 2008 definitely surpassed that era, and helps you endure it very well today. You can argue that Spelunky 2 is a great game, but it’s important to respect where you come from.
Spelunky is a great Roguelike and always shows you new ways to kill players. But it’s fun! The procedurally generated caves you explore work very well, avoiding the pitfalls of a bland, common, and repeated procedurally generated world We’re looking at it from the bigger hits in the industry.
“Procedural World” is now an unfortunate buzzword, but in the late 2000s it worked well as games like Spelunky kept their designs more concentrated and smaller. All the runs feel different. You will be forced to be on your toes when it comes to experiencing new challenges and obstacles and dealing with the hurdles that have pose your path.
Playing Spelunky in 2025 is like taking a time machine to the glory days of indie games when it was a breath of fresh air from the nasty development of mainstream games. It still serves as a great escape from today’s buzzword-filled AAA games.
2 Shadow Complex
Excellent Metroidvania
If Shadow Complex was released today, it will be highly praised alongside other great modern Metroidvanias. Alas, Metroidvania’s revival was not in full swing in 2009.
Its unique hooks provided something new to the genre. Exploring levels in 2D space felt familiar, but fighting enemies on a 3D axis added a great wrinkle to the game’s combat. This can lead to serious control issues, but everything works very well.
It doesn’t push the genres behind this gameplay twist forward, but it doesn’t need to. Remember, in the 2000s, Metroidvanias were not exactly a dozen.
Something like Shadow Complex came in and served as a love letter to Super Metroid, especially as Nintendo was more focused on first-person Metroid games.
The 2015 remaster proved that it wasn’t just a look back at the game with rosy glasses. Shadow Complex holds quirks and other things very well.
1 Limbo
Minimalism of movement
The biggest knock-on-limbo today is that it is covered inside the successor. If that’s the worst thing about the game, I’d argue that we’re in a good place.
First-time players may not be aware of how influential this indie is today, but when it was released there was very little similarity. That minimalist presentation is already open-ended for various interpretations and is added to the story that is there. The monochromatic art style is also a perfect fit here, adding a sense of uneasiness that perfectly matches the style of gameplay trial and error.
Limbo is one of the most prominent examples of the era of how video games are considered works of art. Gameplay is there to challenge you, but it helps the story told. It’s the type of game that is meant to end at once thanks to a short period of time, and will be with you ever since the credits are rolled.
Again, as I just talked about in Shadow Complex, those games are 12 dozen today, Limbo still holds up just like Star Wars. New hopes still continue. Empire Strikes Back is certainly a good movie, but the first part is still a fun time.
