If you're seeking a great time in bite-sized form, January had a generous handful of great indie games worth checking out. Another year, another raft of indie games hoping to claw at the precious time of PC players everywhere. And despite it only being the first month of 2025, January still came out swinging with plenty of creative gems perfect for playing between big releases such as Sniper Elite: Resistance, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, and others. It’s further proof that the well of exciting and charming indie games shows absolutely no sign of being drained any time soon. If anything, as always, the indie game release calendar will continue to be a constant stream.

Hence why I’m going to continue rounding up some of the best indie gems on a monthly basis, all in the hopes of pointing you towards the cream of the crop. From incredibly chill (yet challenging) skiing games to skateboarding hack-and-slashers, these are the 7 best indie games released in January 2025 judging by what I was able to play. Featuring such eclectic characters as Kniferatu and Lilly the burning flame, Asfalia: Fear is a faithful ode to the point-and-click adventure genre that knows how to make whimsy its main ingredient. Sure, it’s relatively easy and brief at just three hours, but is the perfect pick-me-up for first-timers wanting to get to grips with this style of game or anyone looking to scratch that Broken Age itch (albeit in a much more scaled back fashion). Asfalia: Fear has you navigating a colourful world where your core fears become something Charlie, the protagonist, slowly learns to face. With a good message at the centre, Asfalia: Fear ends up being better than the sum of its parts.

Fast-paced boomer shooters in the style of classic Doom and Wolfenstein are a dime a dozen these days, which makes finding one with its own zany spin worth checking out sometimes tough. It doesn’t take long for Gravelord to hook you in, however, with its overtly gothic stylings, gravel-voiced titular protagonist, and legions of hellish beasties making it fun to zoom and boom through. A generous save and checkpointing system makes it hard to become frustrated when you’re blasting away at enemies on land, through the air, or even sometimes underwater. Top it all off with a Tarot Card skill system that lets you tweak your skills throughout each level as you go, and Gravelord has the makings to be one of this old-school genre’s best revivals. I can’t wait to see this one develop more!.

What would you get if you combined the super slick skateboarding action of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater with the endlessly repeatable roguelite structure and fast-paced combat of Hades? That’s exactly the question the appropriately named Helskate aims to answer, quite literally being a hellish hack-and-slasher where you get to wreak havoc on the back of a skateboard. Keeping you coming back for more is the ability to combine your preferred build with a litany of random rewards and upgrades unique to each run. Helskate had a difficult balancing act, but it combines all the systems neatly and pulls it off with flair. Now in its 1.0 release, Helskate is anything but a grind.

When it comes to old-school action-platformers with a wholesome and family-friendly bent, it really is the indie game scene carrying a lot of this weight. Case in point: Basureroes: Invasion, a pixelated 2D side-scroller that focusses on a team of heroes doing battle against their enemy, the evil Dr. Diogenes. The kicker is that all six playable characters handle slightly differently, with a unique aesthetic based on their specific power set. Most of the time you’re hopping across rooftops or caverns in an effort to waste foes, but Basureroes: Invasion does have the foresight to shakeup this gameplay with both flying and minecart levels too. A real charmer!.

Having previously nailed the chill yet challenging atmosphere that came with riding your bike through various mountain caverns in 2019’s Lonely Mountains: Downhill, the team at Megagon Industries this time turned their sights to a sport much snowier. You’d think that the effect of swerving, easing up, and sliding would be much the same on skis as it is on wheels, but Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders swiftly proves otherwise. You’re still navigating downhill trails in the hopes of achieving the best times, only now crouching to improve aerodynamics, jumping, and air tricks are thrown into the mix. Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders is definitely less pure than Downhill as a result, but full of appreciated innovations.

You needn’t look far these days for a unique take on the brand of casual bullet hell first popularised by 2020’s Vampire Survivors. And to be honest, Achilles: Survivor doesn’t even try and shy away from this core inspiration. Similar to the likes of Brotato, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, and other imitators before it, here you play as the legendary warrior taking on reams and reams of mythological creatures in appropriately epic fashion. The difference this time around is its diverse suite of starting characters, as well as the need to build various offensive and defensive structures around the map to fend off the hordes. Achilles: Survivor isn’t big or clever, yet it can be painfully hard to put down.