A fresh batch of indie games hits the internet annually, and without fail, one of them captures the collective imagination of gamers everywhere. With its hilarious and exhilarating gameplay, Peak is the game that has done just that for 2025. 

Steam classifies Peak as an adventure, survival and horror game. The indie genre is crowded, so how did it break through? The publishers, Aggro Crab and Landfall, committed to a month-long game jam in Seoul. Transforming their residence into a studio, they used the event’s intense, collaborative energy to refine their vision. The creators of the game borrowed humor and concepts from fellow participants to create something uniquely polished and hilarious.  

Peak is a cooperative climbing game where you play as a lost nature scout scaling a mountain on a massive, ever-changing island. You brave the ascent solo or with a team, but the journey is never predictable. The mountain terrain, from shores to snow to magma, cycles every 24 hours through five biomes to ensure no two climbs are identical. The publishers’ August 11 update announcement introduced a new scavenging terrain: a map called the Mesa. To survive the many biomes, you must manage your stamina, which drains from climbing, hunger and the weight of an overstuffed backpack. 

What happens when your stamina hits zero? In Peak, you die–but the climb continues. You return as a ghost, haunting your party and scouting ahead until a living teammate can revive you at a campsite altar at the biome’s summit. At each summit, players will find campfires alongside the altars. Here, they can cook marshmallows to boost morale and recover from hunger. 

Reaching the summit of all five terrains on the default difficulty grants two prizes: a prestigious cosmetic sash and access to a new tier of punishingly hard modes. But the greatest reward is the realization that the journey does not end at the peak; there is always more to discover. This is why Peak continues to stand out, growing richer with every action-packed update.