The independent games calendar is overflowing with contrasting ideas this week: a high-speed Star Wars roguelite racer, a gentle photography sequel, a virtual-reality sheep-herding playground, an early-2000s road-trip RPG and a tactical escape story starring a robot dog. It is an especially broad selection for players looking beyond the season's biggest releases, and it also comes with several notable announcements for games arriving later in 2026 and into 2027.
The headline act is Star Wars: Galactic Racer, a project that occupies an unusual space. Its setting is one of entertainment's most recognizable properties, but publisher Secret Mode became independent from Sumo Group last year and developer Fuse Games is a newer team with veterans of racing series including Burnout and Need for Speed. That experience appears central to the game's appeal: Galactic Racer is built around loud crashes, aggressive speed and courses designed to keep a run feeling unpredictable.
It launches on October 6 for Steam on Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, priced at $60. Multiplayer is also planned as part of the package, though the single-player campaign already combines racing with roguelite progression and a pulpy space-adventure story.
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Galactic Racer turns Star Wars speed into a roguelite run
Rather than offering a huge collection of circuits from the outset, Star Wars: Galactic Racer uses a run-based structure. Crashing too often, or falling behind in eliminator events, can bring a campaign attempt to an end. Between attempts, players can purchase permanent statistical improvements, while each individual run presents opportunities to create a different machine through a large pool of upgrades.
For useful background on this topic, read Is the Nintendo 3DS Still Worth Buying in 2026?.
That framework is intended to keep the racing loop fresh despite a more limited selection of tracks and planets. A dual-boost system takes some practice to manage, and vehicle choice matters as well. Speeders are among the available options, with a speeder bike providing particularly sharp handling for tighter corners. Podracers enter the selection later.
The campaign layers random meetings with potential allies and adversaries over its races. Damage to ship components can impose negative effects that remain active until the racer reaches a mechanic, giving a run consequences beyond a single lost position. Environmental conditions can be just as disruptive: burning makes boosts tougher to use, while acid can temporarily corrupt abilities.
Course design is a major showcase for the game's Star Wars setting. Racers can send red minerals flying on Crait, obscuring the view of competitors behind them, or thread their way through the remains of enormous ships on Jakku. The emphasis is on impact and momentum, with spectacular wrecks forming a regular part of the experience. Fuse Games' racing pedigree seems especially visible in its effort to make the vehicles feel genuinely fast.
New games to play now
Toem 2
Toem 2 arrives as a calmer alternative to Galactic Racer's chaos. Developed and published by Something We Made, with Popagenda also publishing, this follow-up to 2021's Toem: A Photography Adventure is available on Steam for Windows, Mac and SteamOS/Linux, PlayStation 5, Switch and Switch 2. It normally costs $20, with a 15 percent discount available through October 13. The PlayStation 5 discount requires PlayStation Plus.
The black-and-white adventure again places a camera at the heart of its puzzles. This time it is an upgraded device with attachments that expand the ways players can interact with the world. There are new people to meet, requests to complete and photographs to capture from hidden routes and elevated vantage points. Completing jobs fills a stamp journal, which both records progress and opens routes to later regions. Light platforming further encourages players to explore every corner. The Steam edition is Steam Deck Verified, making this an appealing handheld option for a short, relaxed weekend journey.
Tiny Flock
No Brakes Games, the studio behind Human Fall Flat, has released Tiny Flock, a physics-driven VR game about guiding sheep across miniature, diorama-like environments. It is available on Steam as a VR-only release and on Meta Quest for $19, while Steam has a 21 percent launch discount through October 13.
Players herd a small flock by interacting directly with the scenery. Objects can be repositioned to form bridges, while destructible surroundings allow new paths to be smashed open. The Meta Quest version supports both hand tracking and passthrough.
"After the success of Human Fall Flat, and some early VR experiments along the way, we wanted to set ourselves a new challenge," No Brakes Games CEO and cofounder Tomas Sakalauskas said. "Selfishly, I also wanted to make a game my whole family could enjoy."
Sakalauskas also said his child contributed puzzle ideas and recorded voice lines during prototyping, a fitting detail for a game designed around playful, tactile problem-solving.
Keep Driving
Keep Driving is now on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and Switch following its earlier Steam release. Developed by YCJY Games and published by YCJY Games and Kepler Ghost, it costs $18. The Steam version also recently received mod support and is 30 percent off through October 8 as part of the Steam Autumn Sale.
This management RPG is set in the early 2000s and follows a trip across the country to reach a festival. Obstacles on the road, including a flock of sheep, are handled through a turn-based combat-like system. Along the way, the driver can pick up hitchhikers, accept odd jobs, repair and improve the car, and shape a journey that has multiple endings. Each ending is estimated to take between one and four hours to reach, making repeat runs part of the intended road-trip format.
Endless Rails and Dog in the Machine
Studio Monoblok's Endless Rails combines survivors-style action with tower defense. Available on Steam for Windows and playable on Steam Deck, it costs $7 before a 30 percent discount running through October 13. Players oversee auto-firing drones protecting a moving train. Every station provides a chance to improve the drones and train, including by merging train cars and their properties. A trip from one stop to the next lasts roughly 20 to 30 seconds, supporting quick sessions before the train's eventual permanent destruction ends the run. Persistent unlocks carry progress into future attempts.
Dog in the Machine, meanwhile, is a turn-based tactical roguelite from Studio Chahut and Goblinz Publishing. It is out on Steam for Windows and Mac for $18, with a 20 percent discount until October 13. Players control the AutoDog, a robot attempting to flee a dystopian mecha-city and return to its exiled humans. Its grid-based battles are constructed around setting off damaging chains of reactions, and moves can be previewed before they are committed. New tricks gathered during a run can be combined into more powerful attacks.
More indie games on the horizon
Seikyu Let's Go is due on Steam in Q4 2026. Ace Entertainment is developing the co-op spin-off to farming life sim Tales of Seikyu, with Logoi Games and Ace Entertainment publishing. Up to four friends can pile into a camper van to explore a folklore-inspired world, using proximity chat while tackling quests, minigames, puzzles, go-karting, pickup basketball and other activities. Difficult terrain may require players to leave the vehicle and push it, while snakes pose one of the few apparent hazards.
A Game About Digging A Hole Together brings multiplayer to a concept that has already proven popular, after the first game sold more than one million copies. The sequel supports up to four players as they dig beneath a beach, sell discoveries and upgrade their equipment. It is planned for Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox for PC and Switch 2, and will be included with Game Pass. Original creator Ben B., who built the first game in weeks as a side project using a voxel system originally made for Solarpunk, has passed development to Mi'pu'mi Games. The new team rebuilt the original code to support additions including cross-play.
For players in the mood for something more unsettling, Grave Seasons now has a March 9, 2027 release date on Steam, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and Switch. Perfect Garbage's farming sim doubles as a murder mystery: someone, or something, is killing local residents. Multiple campaigns will assign the killer role to different characters, potentially giving the investigation substantial replay value. Blumhouse Games and Solo Game are publishing.
Finally, Strange Scaffold and Frosty Pop are preparing Something Is Wrong With the Library for Steam in fall 2026. It initially resembles the recent wave of organizing games, but its premise is far darker. Players must sort thousands of real book titles with the Dewey Decimal System in a library haunted after a billionaire transformed a mountain town into a tech hub and hid the bodies of unhoused people within the building's walls. Each session uses a different selection of books, and Strange Scaffold has also teased a location called the Drowning Room. It is an unsettling twist on a normally soothing genre--and one of the more unusual concepts in an already inventive indie lineup.
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