I'm tired of needing to start this way every year.
Hey, this year sucks and everything is awful but at least the games are good right?
The industry continues to be rotten with layoffs, consolidation, AI integration, remakes and sequels. All of which are in service of making the numbers go up at the expense of the wellbeing of the humans who make the games. The games being made are worse for this as well. There's room for remaking old games that are hard to access and/or held back by the technical limitations of their time, but it feels like the pendulum has swing way too far in that direction. Yes, I appreciate some sequels and remakes, but I treasure the times when I play something new I didn't know I wanted. A lot of games feel like they exist because someone pored over spreadsheets and graphs and said "we are guaranteed this profit margin if we leverage this IP in this way" and that makes me want to go live in a hole in the ground somewhere far from all of this.
Granted, it's low on the list of things that make me feel that way. But still.
I played a lot of sequels this year. Like, a LOT.
Hades 2 Silksong Power Wash Simulator 2 Slime Rancher 2 Citizen Sleeper 2 Monster Train 2 Strange Antiquities Death Stranding 2 Outer Worlds 2
A lot of twos. It's really hard for a sequel to light me up the way a new game can. All of these have some degree of "Oh, it's that thing I liked before, again." Sometimes I can still enjoy the thing, but often it feels like "Okay this is good and all, but I've already played this game."
In larger scheme of things, videogames are pretty low on the list of why 2025 was bad. It's been a difficult year personally, for my family and several close friends, and it generally feels like our world is sliding into hell. We've slowly climbing the track on the rollercoaster for years, and now we're on the steep descent. I know many, many people have it much harder than myself.
Find your people and take care of one another, everyone.
This year sucks and everything is awful but at least the games are good right?
In some timeline Blue Prince is probably number 2 on this list. It's a timeline where I relish puzzle solving rather than tolerate it. It is not this one. I wish it was.
Blue Prince is part boardgame, part puzzle game. You've inherited your uncle's estate on one condition: you need to find the 46th room in his 45-room home. Oh, and the rooms seem to rearrange themselves at the start of each day. This is portrayed by giving you 3 rooms to choose from whenever you open a door. The pool of possible rooms slowly grows over time. Entering a new room costs 1 stamina, so running out of stamina will end your day. Far more often though, you'll end a day when you paint yourself into a corner in the map because you're out of keys, or your choice of rooms doesn't have a door in the right place. This could be frustrating, but it wasn't for me. I like the challenge of planning ahead and leaving myself options and seeing how far I can get. The RNG is gonna get you, but there are ways to mitigate its effects.
I love the aesthetics of the game. The house is beautiful and lonely, and full of puzzles both in the "here's a thing in this room to be solved right now" sense and the larger "I need to piece different pieces of information together across several hours of gameplay" sense. There's a larger mystery at play that I won't get into here, but you're learning about the nature of your family and their place within the world.
It's a game where you get out what you put in. It's a good idea to have a notebook and take screenshots. Things that seem innocuous will turn out to be important to you later.
My issue is that I do not enjoy banging my head against a puzzle until I sort it out - particularly when I'm not 100 certain that I have everything I need. There are puzzles with levers and power boxes and water levels and at some point you can't ass your way through them. You have to really engage and figure them out, but these usually feel like Work to me (not just in Blue Prince, speaking of puzzles in general).
I admire the hell out of Blue Prince and it was one of the best experiences I had this year. I'm not sure I've ever played a game like this, and it's not often I can say that. I feel like I failed the game, not the other way around.
9. Octopath Traveler 0
I generally try to finish a game if it's going to be on my top 10. I didn't do that a lot this year. If a game is very difficult, I'm okay with putting on a list like this. If I fell off a game for other reasons, it's hard for me to justify marking at one of the best. I didn't finish Octopath Traveler 0, but it's a 100 hour JRPG that released in December. So there's a chance it shits the bed in the back half and I regretting putting it here.
It's an old-ass turn based RPG in the best way. It has the requisite twist on combat by way of the brave system that lets your characters store up bonus actions and spend them on multiple / more powerful attacks when the time is right. Every enemy has armor that can be broken by repeated attacks from specific attack types (an enemy might have 8 armor and be vulnerable to daggers, axes, and wind magic for example). This lends combat a tactical puzzle element that I really love.
Where it differs from previous Octopath games is that it allows up to 8 party members, and a roster of many more to choose from. Characters can fight in the front line, and swap into the back to heal. Also, Octopath Traveler 0's predecessors system of "here are 8 characters each with their own story and they will converge at some point" always worked better on paper than in practice for me. It felt like I didn't have a single character to latch onto, and your characters would travel and fight together but you'd choose which character's storyline to pursue at any given time, making the experience feel disjointed.
This game lets you design a character, and you add party members as you meet them in the world. It feels more organic, and that has mattered a lot to me.
OH also, this game first existed as mobile game? Somehow? I don't feel any lingering tendrils of that though. It's weird. It's all weird.
Do you want some Geometry Wars for that ass? Sektori has some Geometry Wars for that ass.
It feels immediately familiar but isn't just a clone of the 2003 classic. The playing field rearranges itself every 30 seconds or so. There's a powerup system where you bank upgrade points and decide how to spend them between speed, shields, missiles, and so on. There's also an explosive close-range dash on a short cooldown, so this all lends the game a bit of customization and "play your way". Sektori gives you tiny things to think about in the midst of the frantic, non-stop action which is a fun brand of dangerous.
It's a tough game, but I felt myself slowly improving as I continued to play it. It's the sort of game I'd sit down to play a run or two at the start of a gaming session and sometimes 1 run would turn into 12.
Sektori is a brain off game (positive) where it's a distraction because I have to play in a mindful way, I have to stay focused and cannot afford to let my mind wander for even a moment.
7. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
This game lets you play as longtime series frenemy Goro Majima. He's got amnesia and it's set in modern day and he's a pirate? Fuck it, the game strikes the usual balance between goofy and serious and it all works.
You gather a crew, upgrade your ship, and engage in naval battles to go along with the usual beat 'em up gameplay and offering of minigames. The game is more silly than serious, but it can hit the occasional touching story beat when it is called for. It doesn't reach the emotional levels of fellow Yakuza side story The Man who Erased his Name, but I'm not really looking for that here. Majima is an unhinged character, and much of the game embraces that while still giving him human moments here and there.
Everything RGG Studios makes these days is gold.
I thought these management sims were another genre of game I used to like, but would never engage with again. I tried Two Point Museum when it came to game pass, then bought it on Steam (so I could play it on the Steam Deck and get the devs a sale).
The game retains the British silliness of the old Bullfrog games from the 90's with the announcer making frequent quips like "Disinterested guests are reminded that not everything has to be a party, okay?" (when the entertainment level is low) or "There's no one in the camera room. this is your chance" (when the security guard on duty leaves the surveillance rom). Exhibits and guests all have a lighthearted cartoonish air about them.
The gameplay threads the needle between challenging and laid back. There are plenty of carrots for the stick with lots of expedition area to unlock, exhibits to be completed, goals to be met, and new museums to be unlocked. The game never puts you on a schedule, so you can ignore the objectives and focus on whatever has your attention at a given time. This made for a really nice "brain half on" game this year.
Absolum is a run-based beat 'em up with really great visuals and music. And gameplay.
And it's tough. It's one of those games where you slowly unlock boosts and improvements that make future runs easier, but your skill also grows the more you play. It goes from "I'll never be able to beat this boss" to "I expect to get past this boss on every run" which is a satisfying feeling.
There are plenty of hidden goodies to find, and there are multiple branching paths to keep runs from getting too samey. You'll find a thing or defeat a miniboss in one part of the world and that will open something up on another path. The runs often feel similar, but crucially not the same from one to the next. The game feels like the modern evolution of the old games I grew up on like Streets of Rage or Golden Axe.
I haven't beaten the game yet, but I've gotten to the end boss. It's a great game to pick up a couple of times a week and throw myself at.
I sure don't know how to pin down my feelings on Hades 2. I feel like a teacher giving my best student's project a C+ because I know they're capable of doing better.
Hades 2 is a terrific game. Like its predecessor, it feels great to play. This time you're playing as Zagreus' sister Melinoe, with each run either making your way back down to the house of Hades or up to Mount Olympus. Your home base is the Crossroads, where your mentor resides along with a crew of chatty weirdoes as you'd expect. Your grandfather Chronos has taken over the House of Hades and is keeping your father prisoner. He is also using big ugly monster Typhon to assault Mount Olympus.
The gods are a mix of holdovers from the first game and new ones. There are new weapons, and pets that tag along and chip in a bit, and an arcana system for buffs and debuffs. The voice acting is, as always, top notch. The music is very good, but easily the most forgettable of SuperGiant's catalog. The gameplay is as good or better than Hades, and that's saying something.
I'll admit I was disappointed when Hades 2 was announced. The original Hades is one of the best games I've ever played. I couldn't wait to see what the studio was going to make next. Every game they've made has been a lovely surprise. Bastion, Transistor, Pyre, and Hades - none of them felt like they were by the numbers. Not every element of each game landed, but they all felt inspired. And I'll take "inspired and flawed" over "competent but not memorable" 10 times out of 10.
So when they announced that they were making Hades again it was a major letdown for me. I told myself that I wanted them to make the game that they wanted to make, and if that's Hades 2 then I'm with them. After finishing Hades 2, I'm not sure why they wanted to make it. The ending was such a wet fart of a thing, it doesn't feel like they had a burning passion to tell more stories in this world.
Zagreus' story felt personal and immediate. The stakes are lower than in Hades 2, but they are personal. Zagreus learns that his mother is alive and out there, and his father wants to keep him from her and from the truth. It's a fantastic motivator.
In Hades 2, Melinoe lives in the Crossroads. Her former home has been taken over, but she doesn't seem to have much connection to it. Likewise, Mount Olympus is in danger, but that threat never really feels urgent. It doesn't help that the protagonist doesn't really grow or change. Melinoe's personality is that she's nice. Stoic. Dutiful. She feels like a pawn being moved on a Chess board.
The ending and the conceit for continuing to play the game after the credits were deeply disappointing. My understanding is that SuperGiant has since patched the ending to the game. It's a testament to my feelings on Hades 2 that I haven't bothered to check it out yet. The ending of a game doesn't feel like something that gets addressed via a patch. To be clear, I do plan on revisiting it. But I've replayed the original Hades multiple times, and I don't feel any pull to replay Hades 2. Not yet at least.
And GOSH, this makes it sound like Hades 2 is a bad game. It isn't! It's a GREAT game! I really enjoyed my time with it. Had it been put out by a different studio and was a standalone thing, I'd hold it in a lot higher regard. But it wasn't made by another studio, it was made by SuperGiant. They normally do story and worldbuilding better than anyone. And I know they can do better.
Yes Billy, your report got a C+ and it IS better than Sally's A- paper. But you're not Sally, you're fucking BILLY and I KNOW that you're capable of doing better than this!
I've seen people say that the title screen hints that Hades 2 is the second of a three-game trilogy and fuck me I hope that isn't true. That feels like a team winning a championship then spending the next decade losing in the playoffs.
Anyway, Hades 2 is still the 4th-best game I played this year.
Some sequels DO land for me.
The original Monster Train is possibly my most-played game, ever. Most run-based games I will play until I have unlocked everything in the game, and that's usually the end. Original Monster Train I can just load up and play and play, anytime. There is so much variety that the game is endlessly replayable for me. There are 5 factions in the game, each with their own unique playstyle and pool of cards, and on each run you will choose 2 of them. You get the champion of one of these factions (a powerful unit, each faction has 2 with several variations of each). There are relics that offer boosts and drawbacks, and random events.
Monster train gives you a box of assorted goodies and says "Here, go figure out how to win with this stuff" and that is catnip for my brain.
Monster Train 2 gives you five new factions and retains the original five, so the pool is twice as large. There are some other tweaks like room modifiers and gear that can be attached to your units, but it's largely the same game. But more.
Monster Train 2 got me through some times this summer (along with Stardew Valley). I just needed anything to keep my brain occupied, and this game does that in a way that can cross over into the "Oh no, I spent 8 hours playing this game today" way where I enjoyed my time, but there were no peaks or valleys. Just a flat line.
I love it but, as with all comfort food, I have to be careful not to gorge myself on it.
I wrote about Dispatch here.
It's a terrific choices-matter style game that punches far above its weight. I don't generally care about superhero stories, especially ones trying to be adult.
Dispatch feels more like a workplace dramedy* that happens to revolve around superheroes. Top notch voice acting and interesting characters drove this game home, and it gave me a couple of memorable moments that are going to stay with me.
I'm very glad I got to play it on its 2 episodes per week release cadence.
1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Clair Obscur was all but locked in as my game of year by the time I was done with it (I wrote about it here). Not 100% of course, but in a "If something better than this comes along this year I will be shocked" way.
It brought me to tears more than once in its opening hours. The combat challenged me (I'm a lifelong turn-based RPG fan, but also a lifelong Oh-GOD-don't-ask-me-to-parry-PLEASE person). The mystery is good. The endings are just about perfect. It's visually arresting. The score is wonderful.
For some reason I decided I'd get through game by parrying rather than dodging - dodging is easier, but you don't get the counterattacks that come with a parry. Looking back on it now, it may have been because a parry system (from action games) coming into my house (turn-based RPG's) felt like a personal challenge to me. I'm good at turn-based combat and bad at parries, so melding them is a weird unstoppable force/immovable object situation. And the parries and counters feel so incredibly satisfying. A big fucker takes a swing at you, and you get to say No fuck YOU accompanied by a big dramatic clash on the screen.
I was deeply invested in the characters early on, and the story did not disappoint. Turn-based RPG's don't always end in a satisfying way, but this one very much does. And it proved that an RPG doesn't have to be a 100-hour grindfest. Expedition 33 does what it needs to do in about 30 hours. It's a game about grief and escapism. A lot of people didn't like the endings, but I think they're perfect.
I just couldn't ask for more. Clair Obscur Expedition 33 will go down as one of my all-time favorites.