Best Indie Games Like Shadow of the Colossus

The best indie games like Shadow of the Colossus are Praey for the Gods, Journey and Rain World. Below are 6, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to indie costs you.

Why Indie Is a Good Answer for Shadow of the Colossus

Filtering to indie means you want the answer a small team would give. It is usually the most interesting filter on this site, because small studios take the risks large ones cannot.

What you get: One strong idea, explored completely, at a price that makes trying it easy. Indies have no production to hide behind, so the design is exposed.

What made Shadow of the Colossus worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the indie part of that answer, and only the indie part.

6 Indie Games Like Shadow of the Colossus

  1. 1. Praey for the Gods

    An unashamed homage — climbing huge bosses in a frozen open world, plus survival mechanics.

  2. 2. Journey

    Wordless, small, and built almost entirely from scale and silence.

  3. 3. Rain World

    A hostile, indifferent world where you are small and nothing explains itself to you.

  4. 4. Titan Souls

    Boss rush distilled: one arrow, one hit, sixteen puzzle-bosses in a quiet overworld.

  5. 5. Sable

    A whole game of riding across emptiness towards something on the horizon, and no combat at all.

  6. 6. The Pathless

    Traversal as the entire pleasure, punctuated by five enormous hunts.

What This Filter Leaves Out

Polish and scale, sometimes. A few of these are rough at the edges, and a big-budget pick will always look better doing the same thing.

Specifically, these are strong answers for Shadow of the Colossus that are not indie games, so they are not on this page:

  • Ico — Same director and the same restraint — an empty castle, one companion, almost no dialogue.
  • The Last Guardian — Team Ico's third game: the colossus is on your side this time, and it does not always listen.
  • Death Stranding — The long empty traversal between objectives is the game, not the filler between it.

The full list is on games like Shadow of the Colossus — 11 picks, no genre filter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best indie game like Shadow of the Colossus?

Praey for the Gods. An unashamed homage — climbing huge bosses in a frozen open world, plus survival mechanics.

Are all of these on the PlayStation 2?

No. Shadow of the Colossus released on the PlayStation 2, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.

What actually counts as an indie game?

Self-published, or published without a large publisher's money. It says nothing about the size of the game, which is why a forty-hour metroidvania and a two-hour art piece sit under the same label.

Why are indie games often better designed?

Constraint. Without a budget to hide behind, one idea has to carry the whole thing — and a small team can commit to something risky that a large one would sand down.

How are these chosen?

By hand. Each pick was written for the full Shadow of the Colossus list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is indie — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.

Other Angles on Shadow of the Colossus

More Indie Games Recommendations

Or read the indie guide for where to start in the genre generally.