Here are ten super interesting indie RPGs you may not know about yet. They’re all projects currently in development that I’ve already covered at some point on these pages, but I liked the idea of putting them back in the spotlight.
There are some things I like doing when I make this list; one is that there’s always a game with a unique idea that makes me think, “Tell me more about it.” It does not necessarily need to be the biggest open world or the most expensive-looking trailer.
Many times, I am just as curious about an unorthodox battle system, an unusual setting, or a small group of developers who are going to try something slightly new. That is basically what I am looking for with all of these 10 turn-based RPG projects.
Singing They Pass
- Developer: Roguehaven
- Release Date: To be announced
- Platforms: PC
- Steam page and demo
You’ve already lost the war in Singing They Pass. The emperor is dead, the army has collapsed, and the soldiers under your command have been left to find their own way home.
Unfortunately, getting there means crossing territory they previously helped conquer. I find that a pretty strong narrative point: these people have plenty of reasons to keep moving, and the locals have equally good reasons to dislike them.
You lead a battered group called the Sparrows through tactical missions and narrative events, dealing with hunger, illness, exhaustion, and declining morale along the way. Combat features grid-based positioning, cover, and overwatch, but the journey also asks you to scavenge and decide which risks are worth taking.
Soldiers can die permanently, so an expensive victory can leave you in a worse position for the next stretch of the retreat. Getting everyone home sounds like the sort of goal I’d become far too invested in.
Underground Security Inc
- Developer: KRNK Studios
- Release Date: 2026
- Platforms: PC
- Steam page and demo
Those adventurers who keep wandering into dungeons and helping themselves to everything? They’re your problem now.
Underground Security Inc puts you in charge of the dungeon they’re trying to rob, with a treasure chest to protect and a workforce of minions to organize. This is our first genre detour: it’s a dungeon-defense roguelite with autobattler combat.
The interesting part is how your minions work. They’re represented by cards and can be assigned to mining, construction, or fighting, then return to your hand when their tasks are finished. You expand the dungeon at night and defend it during the day, adjusting paths, traps, spells, and unit placement to handle incoming heroes.
That leaves you making fairly understandable decisions: do you put someone on the front line now, or use them to gather resources for better defenses? Perks, equipment, and recruitment choices give you further ways to develop the dungeon across each run.
Mythical Whalers
- Developer: Kleen Fleet
- Release Date: December 2026 – Early Access
- Platforms: PC
- Steam page
I’m immediately interested when an RPG gives me a ship and a strange world to explore. Mythical Whalers adds a crew of mythical beings, turn-based tactical encounters, and enormous sea creatures whose remains can make that crew more powerful.
You sail through a procedurally generated world, visit islands, recruit new companions, and trade with factions that have their own interests. It sounds like a voyage where stopping somewhere unfamiliar could be as important as reaching your original destination.
Your crew also changes during the journey. Traits can develop for better or worse, while the gem horns taken from slain whales can be used to brew elixirs that grant new abilities.
Faction relationships add another layer of complexity, since you can cooperate with rival crews or fight them. I like the idea of returning from an expedition with a crew that has changed in ways I didn’t entirely plan.
Dead Underworld
- Developers: Manmachina and juicy.games
- Release Date: To be announced
- Platforms: PC
- Steam page and demo
Don’t get too attached to your first character in Dead Underworld. This turn-based dungeon-crawling roguelike allows you to continue with a replacement when someone dies, which probably tells you quite a bit about the kind of journey you’re signing up for.
You can travel alone or recruit a companion, scavenging through a procedurally generated realm where radiation clouds and old defense towers can be as troublesome as the creatures you encounter.
Battles require attention to weapon ranges, status effects, and the equipment you’ve managed to find. You improve skills and perks, gain or lose traits through your actions, and seek the support of one of three major factions.
I’m interested in that connection between fighting and surviving the trip itself. A powerful weapon is useful, certainly, but choosing a manageable route and knowing when to avoid trouble could be what keeps its owner alive long enough to use it.
FUMEHEAD
- Developer: Team Fumehead
- Release Date: To be announced
- Platforms: PC
- Steam page and demo
FUMEHEAD is a welcome option for anyone who could use a break from castles and enchanted forests. Its setting is an abandoned underground world; its protagonists are Jack and Ami, and their problem is an alien disease called Slither.
There’s also worm hunting, which seems like a perfectly unpleasant occupation for this particular place. The science-fiction setting already gives it a different personality from most of the games here.
The two protagonists each have 40 skills, so a small cast doesn’t necessarily mean a small selection of abilities. Combat follows a phase-based structure with a mechanic the developers call Window of Opportunity, intended to discourage relying on the same approach throughout every encounter.
I’m curious to see how much room that leaves for the two characters to support each other and develop different fighting styles. It’s also a two-person development project, with one member handling the art and the other responsible for programming, design, writing, and the custom engine.
Umbratica Tactics
- Developer: The Atomic Life
- Release Date: To be announced
- Platforms: PC
- Steam page and combat demo
The developers name Into the Breach and Slay the Spire as reference points for Umbratica Tactics, which is a fairly effective way to get my attention.
You lead a squad of vampire hunters through grid-based battles, with their attacks and abilities determined by the cards in your deck. Choosing the hunters therefore also influences the cards you can collect and the tactics available to the group.
No random hit rolls, so the uncertainty comes from things such as the cards and encounters a run gives you. Cards can be upgraded, relics affect the whole squad, and individual items can improve some stats while weakening others. That gives you several decisions to work through between fights as well as during them.
World of Anterra
- Developer: 81monkeys
- Release Date: 2026, according to the current Steam listing
- Platforms: PC; console versions have also been announced
- Steam page
Here’s one for anyone who has a habit of walking past the main quest to investigate something in the distance.
World of Anterra is a handcrafted open-world RPG with branching quests, explorable buildings, caves, books, hidden objects, and NPCs who follow daily routines. Its dialogue system even lets you type questions. Those are the details that make me curious: I’d like to know what happens when I ask about something unusual or start searching a building I wasn’t specifically told to visit.
There’s an important combat distinction, though. Anterra uses grid-based strategy alongside quick-time actions and skill-based attacking and defending, so it shouldn’t be described as a straightforward, fully turn-based RPG.
Spells, special abilities, and crafted items all contribute to encounters. Whether that approach appeals to you will depend partly on how you feel about timing-based mechanics, but the exploration and party customization are enough to keep me interested in seeing more.
Wayward Shadows
- Developer: Turbulent Minds
- Release Date: Coming soon; no specific date announced
- Platforms: PC — Windows, macOS, and Linux
- Steam page
A monster-hunting road trip sounds like a good use of a turn-based RPG. In Wayward Shadows, you choose two hunters and a vehicle, then travel through rural America investigating mysterious deaths and dealing with the creatures responsible.
Cases are procedurally generated, and solving them earns experience, equipment, and new skills. There’s a larger threat approaching, though, so you can’t spend forever preparing for every possible encounter.
Different monsters have different weaknesses, and your hunting journal helps you keep track of the weapons and damage types needed to deal with them. You can visit pawn shops and hidden hunter bazaars to improve your equipment before heading into another fight.
That’s the part I like: learning what you’re hunting should help determine what you bring. Failed runs also award legacy points for permanent improvements, giving subsequent teams a better starting position.
BECKONED
- Developer: Zade Studios
- Release Date: Coming Soon
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page: Steam – Prototype Demo Available
BECKONED is one of those games where reading “turn-based JRPG” doesn’t really tell you the whole story.
Zade Studios is experimenting with what it calls an Active-Turn combat system, in which several attacks can be made against different targets in the same turn. The defending character isn’t simply waiting for everything to finish either, as attacks can be blocked with the right timing, potentially triggering counter-combos known as TURNBREAKs.
You control three protagonists, Taujh, Leign, and Enelh, who fill different roles in battle, but those roles aren’t completely fixed. Magic comes from crystals called Lodens, which can be combined into Amulets that essentially work as spell loadouts.
Both Lodens and Amulets can be switched during combat, giving you some freedom to change how each character contributes when a fight starts going badly. There are also elemental interactions and field effects to experiment with.
I also like that fighting everything isn’t necessarily the only solution. The world contains animals that can become hostile, but you can learn what they eat, use food as bait, and even pacify them during an encounter. Exploration includes gathering plants, hunting, crafting, and moving through different towns and dungeons, with the developers currently planning an adventure of roughly 12–20 hours.
It looks pretty unusual visually too, thanks to its hand-animated presentation. There’s already a prototype demo on Steam if you want to see how all these ideas actually work together.
Instruments of Power
- Developer: Iron Loop Games
- Release Date: First quarter of 2027
- Platforms: PC
- Steam page and demo
I saved Instruments of Power for last because creating your own spells sounds like something I could spend far too much time doing.
Each spell starts with a catalyst that has its own affinity, energy budget, and upgrade tree. You then add effects and shape modifiers to determine what it does and which parts of the battlefield it affects. The spell editor is therefore directly connected to the tactical decisions you make once a fight begins.
Especially interesting is the fact that elemental spells change the terrain: fire spreads, ice creates barriers, and thorns obstruct passages, while ritual spells consume those effects to summon avatars or produce other results.
Those avatars carry your customized spells and can even be sacrificed for a powerful burst. Summoning also spends tether, the resource that connects your soul to the world, so deploying more bodies comes at a cost. The terrain you create becomes a resource for another spell, and that spell can give you another unit to command, and that’s a genius idea.
