Our 2025 Games of the Year

For my money, 2025 is the best year for new video game releases since 2013. Games that were released this year will be some of the defining titles of the ninth console generation. From brilliant new properties to expectation-shattering sequels, here are my picks for the 2025 Games of the Year.

Honorable Mention: Bye, Sweet Carole

It’s a jank-ridden mess. Its puzzles feel like they were designed while on a lot of cold medicine, and don’t even get me started on the combat sequences. However, few games have the vision that Bye, Sweet Carole does, and I’m so glad I slogged through it.

The game aims to be a video game version of a Don Bluth film, featuring stunning traditional animation and incredible voice acting that made me feel like I was on my childhood sofa re-watching The Secret of NIMH. In many ways, it’s the perfect mid-point between the classic Dragon’s Lair arcade game and its abysmal 16-bit side-scroller adaptations. Just being in this meticulously created world was magical, even if actually navigating it as a game made my head hurt.

Writer and creator Chris Darril has something special in him, which he proved on Remothered. What I would love to see is some company putting high-quality gamemakers at his command to turn the next project like Bye, Sweet Carole into the classic it can be.

Hades II

Following up the greatest game of 2020 is no easy task, but Hades II accomplishes it nicely. It took me a while to really appreciate it. Melinoë’s zoning-heavy combat style is a lot less fun than the frantic dashing her brother Zagreus used in the first game, but it’s still a blast once you get used to it.

As with the first game, Melinoë has to try dozens or hundreds of times to escape the underworld, this time to avenge her family who has been kidnapped by the titan of time Cronos, her grandfather. Doing so involves her battling or acquiring the aid of many Greek mythological figures. Hades has always excelled by its incredibly deep narrative, especially for a roguelite were story is often an afterthought to mechanics. Like the first game, uncovering bits and pieces of the lore through its large cast of characters takes the sting out of failed runs, and I never got repeated dialogue out of 50 hours of play.

Is Hades II better than Hades? I’m going to say no, but it’s a hair’s breadth between them.

Hollow Knight: Silksong

As long as we’re talking about sequels, Silksong everything I hoped it would be, murderous difficulty and all. Right after I finished it, I went back to play Hollow Knight, and the whole time I did I realized I would rather be playing Silksong again instead. To me, that’s the mark of a great sequel.

Hornet is a better protagonist than her sibling, full of personality and fun little quirks. Her combat is is smoother than melted butter, making boss battles feel like choreographed dances when you’re running on all cylinders.

The thing that stuck in my mind the most was just how alive Pharloom felt as I wandered through its gigantic map. Developer Team Cherry outdid themselves on creating an immersive world of color and light and shadow and sorrow. Everything is so lovingly detailed that it feels far more real than the most photo-realistic game. Silksong is now, unquestionably, the greatest Metroidvania ever made.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage

This is probably my most controversial pick, but Dontnod’s spiritual sequel to Life is Strange was impossible for me to put down. There were so many original ideas implemented perfectly that the game may represent the greatest evolution in the adventure genre in quite a while. The switches between first and third person to differentiate between present and past and the use of a camcorder to create mini-films around collectibles turned an otherwise standard coming-of-age game into a mechanically brilliant entry.

To say nothing of the story. Look, either you’re going to be into queer teen girls fighting against rural small-mindedness or you’re not, but I was here for it. Like Life is Strange, the plot mixes petty moments like a fight over high school drama with cosmic weirdness in a way that puts Stranger Things to shame. When I finally got to the end, I felt like all the separate evolutions in adventure games from Gone Home to Firewatch all re-united for this wonderful little game.

Blue Prince

Playing Blue Prince for the first 30 hours or so was the most fun I had all year in a video game. Making my way through Mount Holly Estate searching for clues put me into a network with friends all discovering different things at different times thanks to the way the house resets every day. Every new thing I figured out on my own was celebrated by the people in my group chat, and every time I was able to give them a hint for their own unsolved mysteries I felt like the King of Video Games.

I will admit that many of the puzzles were beyond me, and the lack of a colorblind mode added unnecessary frustration to an otherwise flawless title. That said, I recognize that play-testing a constantly-shifting puzzle mystery game must be a nightmare, and it’s a miracle the game is as good as it is. While I may have quibble with specific riddles, the overall package is exquisite. Few titles use the medium of games itself so perfectly in tandem with telling a story, and Blue Prince is likely the game all other house mystery games will aspire to for a decade to come.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur is the game JRPG fans have been waiting for. It’s an old-school turn-based adventure that is an enthusiastic homage to Final Fantasy, but does that series one better in every way. The parry mechanic restored dynamism to the turn-based formula, transforming battles into cinematic spectacles in ways that Final Fantasy VII Remake/Rebirth wishes they could.

And that story. My heart has still not recovered from wandering the doomed, French-inspired fantasy world and meeting its quirky cast of characters. Every twist in the tale caught me by surprise, and every choice felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders.

My only complaint against the game is that the final dungeon is a just a remix of all the previous ones, but that’s a reasonable flaw considering that Clair Obscur is a Double A game trying very hard to appear Triple A. Developer Sandfall used every part of the buffalo making it, and it shows.

Modern JRPGs have been trapped in a weird limbo. Final Fantasy increasingly caters to an MMORPG audience, leaving the old turn-based system to rot. Xenoblade Chronicles is the single best JRPG franchise right now, but its combat is still far-removed from the classic systems. Most games that do cater to those systems are graphical throwbacks like Sea of Stars and Octopath Traveler.

Clair Obscur dared to be a graphically intense, turn-based JRPG and the result was marvelous. The game just gets what fans have been missing, and it delivers it with style and panache.

This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.