Every Wednesday, dive into the Indie Select Hub — your gateway to a fresh, curated indie collection plus four themed spotlights that rotate weekly! You can always find this collection hub in the XBOX Store and on XBOX.com/IndieSelects.
The holiday season is just around the corner, and the ID@XBOX team is excited to share November’s Indie Selects! Think this is our last Monthly Selects of the year? Think again. Stay tuned next month for our first-ever December Selects, with plenty of indie games to add to your wish list, whether you’re asking Santa or just dropping not-so-subtle hints to your roommate.
This November, we’re thankful for six standout Indie Selects that invite you to survive unbelievable horrors, live your best life, and sometimes do a little of both. Do you slay the undead by the dozen, or put them to work as a surprisingly productive agricultural workforce? Do you prefer solving puzzles surrounded by vibrant colors or unspeakable nightmare fuel? And that sound you hear? Maybe there’s a killer after you. Or maybe the rhythm is going to get you.
Whether you’re not quite ready to let go of Halloween or just looking for something that matches your unique vibe, here are this month’s Indie Selects (in no particular order):
Silver Pines
Silver Pines
Team17
Outside of its odes to Resident Evil and Twin Peaks, Silver Pines has borrowed some of the most innovative features seen in modern gaming to deliver a highly polished survival horror experience. It has Silent Hill’s map annotations, Gears of War’s active reload, and most notably, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s photo system. If you find a boarded-up door but don’t yet have the crowbar, or a cryptic clue for which you haven’t found the puzzle, you can use your in-game camera (you play as a detective after all) to take a photo which will be pinned to your map. This makes backtracking when you find the necessary item so satisfying, as you work through your own visual to-do list. It’s a feature that should be mandatory for all Metroidvanias moving forwards.
Wych Elm, the ex-Arrowhead developers, opted for rotoscoping to give their protagonists, NPCs and enemies a unique aesthetic that fits perfectly with the unsettling town they have built for you to explore. The gameplay takes place on beautifully drawn 2D scenes which have routes towards and away from the camera, allowing you to explore an intricate, interconnected 3D map which encourages and rewards exploration.
Silver Pines is the best survival horror game you will play this year. It delivers a cohesive, consistent experience, with a single protagonist and play style that eerily builds the tension and mystery over its 15-hour runtime. Any fan of horror or Metroidvanias owes it to themselves to jump in. See you in Silver Pines, detective.
– Ben Robinson
Graveyard Keeper 2
Graveyard Keeper 2
tinyBuild
Halloween might be over, but the spooky season lives on with a dark medieval RPG called Graveyard Keeper 2. You don’t have to have played the first game in order to enjoy the second, but there are some delightful narrative callbacks that deepen the mystery. In the first game you were pulled through a portal from your mundane contemporary life into a strange medieval fantasy world of magic and zombies; there was a village the explore, lots of NPCs to meet, tasks to accomplish, and zombies to recruit as your helpers. In the sequel, the town has been overrun by zombies and you are the last hope. While the premise sounds dark, there’s a lot of dry humor here and yes, everyone’s favorite sassy revolutionary Donkey is back, of course!
The overall gameplay loop is similar to the first game (a good thing, since it was so effective.) You perform tasks like crafting, building, gathering and farming. You level up and unlock new abilities in the tech tree and advance quests. There’s a lot to juggle in Graveyard Keeper 2, but an improved quest system helps keep your goals clear. While some grinding is unavoidable, finding your groove is deeply satisfying as its many systems begin to automate, overlap, and fuel your progress.
Graveyard Keeper 2 is a stellar sequel that builds on everything that made the original so enjoyable. Gorgeous pixel-art environments and fully voiced story scenes bring its darkly charming world to life. If you want a cozy game with a morbid twist that can easily devour your free time, this is it. Jane Pinckard
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2
Devolver Digital, Big Fan Games
“The Emperor protects”, but bringing a bolter to the fight never hurts!
Warhammer 40K: Boltgun 2 returns with another glorious helping of retro-inspired FPS action, brutal combat, and enough pixelated carnage to make even the most battle-hardened Space Marine smile. Sometimes you just want to turn your brain off, grab an absurdly oversized weapon, and unleash righteous fury upon anything foolish enough to stand in your way.
As someone who loves first-person shooters, I’ve always appreciated games that understand the simple joy of movement, powerful weapons, and combat that keeps you on your toes. There’s something incredibly appealing about a shooter that doesn’t ask you to spend half your time hiding behind cover. Sometimes the best defense really is an aggressive offense!
This time around, players can step into the armored boots of returning Ultramarine Malum Caedo or unleash destruction as Sister of Battle Nyra Veyrath. Each offers a different approach to combat, with unique weapons and playstyles to explore. The branching campaign also brings some welcome variety, giving players different paths through the grim darkness of the 41st millennium.
What draws me to Boltgun 2 is its unapologetic commitment to old-school shooting. Fast movement, relentless enemies, chunky weapons, and that wonderful feeling of being an unstoppable force in a universe determined to stop you. Add the gothic Warhammer atmosphere and nostalgic pixel art, and you’ve got a combination that’s difficult to resist.
You don’t need to know the difference between an Ultramarine and a Chaos Space Marine to enjoy this one. If you’ve ever wondered what Doom might look like after spending a few thousand years serving the Imperium of Man, Boltgun 2 has a rather explosive answer. For the Emperor!
– Steven Allen
Colorbound
Colorbound
Whitethorn Games
What do you do when the music stops? In Colorbound, you go find it. You play as Anku, a young Aymara boy whose late grandfather was a beloved musician. His band scattered long ago, so Anku sets out across the land to find the missing players, help them reconnect with their instruments, and reunite them for one last tribute performance. It’s a story about loss, but not a sad one. It focuses on the color a person leaves behind and on joy rather than grief.
As Anku travels through lush forests, dusty deserts, and forgotten cities, he collects colors on his palette and uses them to reshape the world around him. Every color behaves differently. Lighter shades make painted objects float away, while heavier ones make them drop. Discovering the intricacies of this mechanic turns light platforming and logic puzzles into a satisfying game of cause and effect.
Colorbound is also a celebration of the creators’ heritage. It began as an entry in the Latin American Games Showcase Game Jam in 2025, built around the theme “What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t feel.” It’s now a pastel, watercolor-inspired adventure shaped by Chilean developer Isaías Arrué’s Andean roots. Its music centers on the zampoña, the panpipe Anku picks up to begin his journey, and that instrument ties the game’s music and color together. It’s a cozy puzzle-platformer that one can easily find themselves lost in.
– Glenn Gregory
Ratatan
Ratatan
GAME SOURCE ENTERTAINMENT
“I have no idea what this is, but I must play this,” is what I said when I saw the announce trailer for this game. A roguelike rhythm-based RPG blending musical beats with side-scrolling action is one of those genre mashups that can easily fall on its face, but Ratatan really hits it out of the park and is a reminder that experimental genres are what make the indie space such a cool place to be right now. I never had any experience with the Patapon series, which is the spiritual predecessor to this game, so I went into this crazy musical game with fresh eyes and an open mind.
Ratatan sends its titular hero on a colorful quest to journey across a harsh land and reach The Everafter while battling hostile Testa and local wildlife in a playful adventure filled with cartoonish chaos. You control Ratatan directly while issuing beat-driven commands to your army, picking Hades-style boons along the way before facing each world’s massive boss. As you progress, Ratakaruta offer random elemental buffs that change your attacks and unlock new abilities. Combined with the rhythm-based gameplay, they keep each run fresh and rewarding. After each run, you return to Rataport to unlock permanent upgrades, craft stronger weapons, and expand your army. The difficulty curve seems unreasonably hard at first, but after a few runs, the upgrades I gained made bosses much more passable.
Ratatan’s joyful sound design and colorful cartoon aesthetic bring the game to life. Chaining rallies, jumps, guards, and attacks creates an addictive rhythm, with great pacing between intense battles and quieter moments. Rhythm game and roguelike fans will find plenty to love in Ratatan.
– Raymond Estrada
Tenebris Somnia
Tenebris Somnia
New Blood Interactive
If you’re here for chill feels and a warm, fuzzy story about a woman checking on her ex-boyfriend who’s suddenly gone a little MIA, then this throwback mix of old-school 2D PC adventure game with some truly harrowing survival horror action is probably not the choice for you. Instead, Tenebris Somnia plays directly into the aesthetics of horror film diehards who love to dip their celluloid occult leanings into a vat of ’70s giallo-tinged weirdness.
Then, it makes complete sense that you play as an indie filmmaker named Julia who keeps having weird nightmares about her ex-boyfriend getting killed by monsters. So, what’s a worried ex-girlfriend to do but check on him in the apartment they once shared. Nothing could possibly go wrong, right? Incorrect! And your trip to that apartment yields a stumble down the figurative rabbit hole into an alternate dimension filled with witches, demons, and other unspeakable horrors that will pursue you through the various rooms, hallways, and random spaces as you attempt to solve the mystery of what exactly is going on. I dig how the game mixes the backstory of Julia and Ivan’s soured relationship with twisty puzzles and resource collection on top of some really pretty shocking and strange live-action cutscenes. The quality of those filmed segments is pretty solid – and the mood? It’s definitely showing the game studio’s fondness for everything horror from “Suspiria” (notably the ‘70s version) to Silent Hill (notably games 1-3).
But even if you’re someone who’s all in on the specific horror bent that Tenebris Somnia is aiming for, be warned that the gameplay elements – from the action in ducking enemies, to the challenge of puzzles and resource-hoarding – aren’t mere trifles. There is a fair amount of tough love and tactical thought involved in surviving what Tenebris throws your way. But if you feel seen by a game that delves deep into its very offbeat love for spooky cinema, this is definitely one for the dedicated horror heads out there.
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