Microsoft has revealed its XBOX Indie Selects for October 2026, highlighting six games that range from brutal dark fantasy adventures to relaxing puzzles and tropical island exploration. Mortal Shell II, Mewgenics, and The Sinking City 2 lead a lineup that embraces Halloween without making everything about jump scares.
The monthly picks come from the ID@XBOX team, with this batch focusing on memorable worlds, discovery, and progression. These are curated recommendations—not a XBOX Game Pass announcement or a schedule of upcoming releases.
October’s six XBOX Indie Selects
The October 7 XBOX Wire post highlights the following games. Prices below are those displayed in the announcement and may change.
| Game | What to expect | Listed price |
|---|---|---|
| Mortal Shell II | Challenging dark fantasy combat and interconnected exploration | $49.99 |
| Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game | A 2D tag-team fighter featuring Avatar and Korra characters | $29.99 |
| Mewgenics | Tactical roguelike battles and mutant-cat breeding | $39.99 |
| The Sinking City 2 | Lovecraftian survival horror in a flooded Arkham | $49.99 |
| Woodo | Cozy puzzles built around wooden dioramas | $19.99 |
| Lou’s Lagoon | Island exploration, crafting, and seaplane travel | $24.99 |
Game descriptions and listed prices: XBOX Wire.
Mortal Shell II speeds things up
Mortal Shell II keeps the demanding combat of its predecessor but changes how fights flow. The traditional stamina gauge is gone, letting players combine melee attacks, sidearms, abilities, and executions without constantly waiting for a bar to refill. ID@XBOX’s Steven Allen describes the result as faster, more aggressive combat.
Exploration also plays a bigger role. The game features a compact, interconnected open world with hidden areas, dungeons, weapons, and upgrades. Discovering another Shell can change your approach to combat, while weapon upgrade paths give you more room to shape your playstyle.
That makes this one of the darker picks in October’s selection. The appeal isn’t an easy win—it’s gradually learning how to survive a world that seems determined to flatten you.
Team battles and mutant cats
Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game brings characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra into a 2D tag-team fighter. Elemental bending, special moves, assists, and team combinations are central to the action.
In her spotlight, Jessica Ronnell points to the distinct feel of each fighter and the satisfaction of finding characters whose abilities work well together. She compares that team-building appeal to games such as Dragon Ball FighterZ, Marvel vs. Capcom, and Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid.
Mewgenics takes strategy in a much stranger direction. The tactical turn-based roguelike comes from Edmund McMillen, whose previous work includes The Binding of Isaac, Super Meat Boy, and The End Is Nigh. Here, you manage a house full of mutated cats and send them into grid-based dungeon battles.
Randomized items, skills, and attributes shake up each run. Surviving cats return with scars and mutations that can pass to future generations, making breeding part of your long-term strategy. Oscar Polanco’s write-up also flags its dark, sometimes graphic humor and relentless difficulty, so don’t mistake the cartoon cats for a gentle pet simulator.
Horror meets cozy exploration
The Sinking City 2 is October’s most straightforward Halloween pick. The third-person survival horror game takes place in a flooded 1929 Arkham, where Calvin Rafferty searches for a way to save his fiancée, Faye, after a ritual leaves her in a supernatural slumber.
Boat travel connects the city’s districts, while investigation, puzzles, and scarce supplies keep exploration tense. One particularly nasty enemy mechanic involves parasitic worms called Slither: after their host dies, they can crawl into nearby corpses and reanimate them. Taking down an enemy doesn’t necessarily mean the fight is finished. The announcement also lists a free trial.
Woodo offers a much calmer alternative. Players assemble handcrafted wooden dioramas, placing objects into scenes that gradually fill with color, detail, and animation. Its story follows Foxy, a city girl spending the summer in the countryside, and her friendship with Ben the Frog.
The puzzles involve rotating and examining the 3D scenes to uncover hidden pieces. Glenn Gregory’s spotlight emphasizes the game’s gentle pacing, narration, and sense of discovery rather than complicated systems or punishing challenges.
Lou’s Lagoon rounds out the selection with a cozy exploration-and-crafting adventure across storm-damaged tropical islands. You gather resources, help residents rebuild, upgrade gadgets, and investigate the disappearance of Uncle Lou.
Its standout feature is a small seaplane you can pilot between islands. There’s also a glider, fishing, hidden chests, and a two-way vacuum-style tool called the Swirler. Repairing radio towers restores communications and unlocks fast travel, giving you another way to move around when you don’t feel like flying.
Where to find Indie Selects
The Indie Select Hub is available in the XBOX Store and through XBOX’s Indie Selects page. Microsoft says the hub refreshes every Wednesday with a curated indie collection and four rotating themed spotlights.
October’s picks leave plenty of room to choose your own pace. Mortal Shell II and The Sinking City 2 lean into danger and atmosphere, while Woodo and Lou’s Lagoon offer a quieter escape. And for anyone who wants their strategy games a little weird, Mewgenics brings the mutant cats.
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