Indies and non-sequels have exploded in the last year, and it's not all friendslop

"Indie studios produced 20 of the 21 extra breakout launches in the 2026 cohort," reads one industry analysis.

You'll never play every game. In fact, most people won't play most games — plenty of games release on Steam to approximately 0 user reviews, and last year, more than half of the 19,000 games that came out had fewer than 10. But that doesn't mean indies and anything else outside of the biggest blockbusters are all sent out to die. So far in 2026, all-original indies have been making waves.

That insight comes courtesy of Sensor Tower (via GamesIndustry.biz), which recently published an industry analysis report sharing some trends among the year's breakout hits. For reference, a breakout is defined in the study as a game which sold at least 500,000 units in its first 30 days. While ultimately based on estimates as not all publishers release sales numbers, the report is full of interesting tidbits.

The most noteworthy findings in the report are thus: there were 76 breakouts between September 2025 and August 2026, up from the previous year's 55. Indie breakouts shot up from 13 to 33, making up 43% of the pack, and 35 of the breakouts were non-sequels — around 53%. 27 of those were made by indie studios. Nine of the indie breakouts were friendslop hits like Meccha Chameleon and RV There Yet?, while 18 were debuts in other genres, such as Escape From Duckov and Megabonk.

Triple-A blockbusters have not really budged, according to the report. Last year they had 27 breakouts, this year they had 28 (notably, due to the methodology used, some huge games are excluded from this report: no free-to-play games like Marvel Rivals are included, and Call of Duty isn't accounted for.) But this does suggest a strong showing for cheap, often low-spec indies with novel ideas and multiplayer, and if you're longing for something new amidst all the proximity voice chat, you'll be happy to hear that both non-sequels and non-friendslop are making up a sizable portion of the year's hits.

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Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he's amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky '90s esoterica. Whether he's extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it's hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he's not at his keyboard, he's probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...

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