3 Nintendo Switch 2 indie games I can’t stop playing in 2026
Like its predecessor, the Switch 2 is the perfect platform for indies
The original Nintendo Switch instantly cemented itself as the home of indie gaming. Its hybrid form factor and pick-up-and-play immediacy made it the perfect host for the inventiveness and originality that many indies pride themselves on.
And given that Nintendo wisely decided not to mess with a winning formula, the Switch 2 has unsurprisingly picked up the baton. So, while it only turned one at the start of the summer, the new and improved console has already amassed a killer library of indie games. Here are three you need to play before the year is out.
Denshattack!
Just when you were starting to worry that the well of video game ideas must surely be close to running dry, someone comes up with this: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, but you’re a train.
Comfortably the most vibrant and relentlessly exciting indie game I’ve played this year, Denshattack! is a (mostly literally) on-rails 3D platformer... of sorts. You play as a ramen delivery driver in a colourful post-apocalyptic Japan.
While Emi’s job is to make food deliveries, she quickly becomes far more interested in competing against other drivers in an underground sport where they perform familiar skateboarding tricks with their trains.
It’s truly as bonkers as it sounds, combining twisty-turny, Sonic-esque 3D level design with Tony Hawk’s combos and street culture trappings that are decidedly Jet Set Radio in vibe.
Despite how breathlessly fast and frantic it is, Denshattack! is a joy to play, even if the game throws so many new mechanics at you throughout its runtime that you won’t feel like you’ve mastered any level until you’ve replayed them all several times. But that’s kind of the point.
The one-more-level nature of the game makes it a perfect fit for a handheld device, and it runs near perfectly on Switch 2 to boot.
Wax Heads
Wax Heads is essentially High Fidelity’s romanticisation of the independent record store in video game form, letting you play tastemaker for an eccentric collection of customers who walk through the door.
Described by its developer as a cosy-punk narrative life simulation, the game drops you onto the staff at Repeater Records, a store struggling to keep the lights on but determined not to abandon its quirky music-loving clientele.
Wax Heads is ostensibly a puzzle game, but here the brain-teasers are trying to work out which record a customer is looking for based on their slightly confused descriptions.
The game has crafted its own fictional musical universe, complete with an original soundtrack, so as you rifle through the genre- and era-spanning assortment of albums that line the store shelves, you’ll also learn about the artists who made them.
I was amazed at how invested I quickly became in the career of the enigmatic popstar Mimi, and the wild rumours about the chaotic metal outfit Jarhead. Wax Heads’ comic book-style visuals are the perfect fit for its wacky cast of characters, and the Switch 2 version’s intuitive touch controls mean you could hand the game to just about anyone who enjoys good music and guarantee them a good time.
Sektori
However ambitious and technically astounding video games continue to get, you just can’t beat the raw gameplay purity of a twin-stick shooter – a genre that has been around since the early ‘80s.
Sektori came out quite a bit later than that, specifically in 2025, with the Switch 2 version arriving earlier this year, but it’s a shmup that can go toe-to-toe with any of the classics.
Like all the best twin-stick shooters, the basics are easy to pick up. You control your little ship on a top-down battlefield with the left stick, and shoot gradually increasing waves of enemies with the right. You also have an invincible dash strike move in your arsenal on a cooldown (though there are ways to instantly reset it) which is key to racking up your score.
It sounds simple enough, but Sektori adds extra layers of complexity with dynamically shifting arena boundaries that make positioning as important as your aim, as well as an ingenious deck-building element that lets you further upgrade your ship’s various attributes throughout the course of a run.
The game is a spectacular audiovisual feast, hypnotising you with its trippy patterns and thumping techno score. It’s overwhelming in the best way, and once you’ve worked out what it wants from you you’ll have a very hard time putting it down.
