Another game, another year. This is one of the hardest decisions I have to make ever year on this website and 2025 was easily one of the best years for gaming in a long time.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur just does everything right in a genre that has been falling off over the last decade. Taking Wester RPG elements and fusing then with Japanese RPG gameplay makes for a really fun and interesting game. A story that gripping all way until the end and characters that are memorable and fun.

Runner-Ups

Silent Hill f

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Kingdom Come Deliverance II

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

The Alters

Ghost of Yotei

Donkey Kong Bananza

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

Hollow Knight: Silksong

Split Fiction

Dispatch

Sword of the Sea

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

Doom: The Dark Ages

Blue Prince

Every year we get new characters that we either love or hate and at least one more is added to the pantheon of fantastic video game characters. This year was not exception.

Atsu – Ghost of Yotei

Atsu isn’t just a great new character she helps push the stereotypical envelope of female video game protagonists a bit further with an interesting story and someone who grows, understands her limits, and makes mistakes. This gives Atsu something that the player can relate to and fall in love with. Atsu is another fantastic character to add the PlayStation lineup.

Runner-Ups

Hinako Shimizu – Silent Hill f

The Traveler – Cronos: The New Dawn

Maelle – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Mio and Zoe – Split Fiction

Sequelitis is a real problem in the game industry and it’s more prevalent now than ever before. Some sequels can take some time off and become great reinventing their respective series or even becoming revolutionary in some form.

Silent Hill f

Silent Hill f not only reboots the series into a modern gameplay style, but also keeps what makes Silent Hill special to fans. The exploration of psychological horror, haunting music, and fantastic visuals make for an unforgettable experience.

Runner-Ups

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Kingdom Come Deliverance II

Hollow Knight: Silksong

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

Music can literally drive a game forward emotionally for many gamers. I personally have a huge game soundtrack CD collection that I listen to regularly. Some of the best music ever written comes from video games.

Silent Hill f

Akira Yamaoka isn’t just a genius, but is a master of dark and moody sounds. Silent Hill has some of the most memorable music and style ever created. SHf is no exception, giving players a unique blend of traditional Japanese folk music with Western horror sounds.

Runner-Ups

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Sword of the Sea

Undying Flower

Hades II

Indie games have kept the game industry alive and that’s a fact. Some of the best video games ever made are created with fractions of the budget of a AAA title. These continue to be the light at the end of the tunnel for many gamers.

Dispatch

Dispatch isn’t just a good superhero game, but a good adventure game. Without the ties of licensed comic book characters the developers had free license to do as they please and it’s a breath of fresh air. We really need more of these. Not since Freedom Force has a unique superhero game been so memorable.

Runner-Ups

Blue Prince

The Midnight Walk

Sword of the Sea

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

Some sequels can be good or mediocre, but that can also be okay. A game may be considered “fine”, but sequelitis is a huge problem in the game industry. While there were many “fine” sequels this year many just didn’t evolve that much and played things to safe.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7

Call of Duty is the epitome of “fine”. The campaigns get more boring and ridiculous every single year and Black Ops 7 feels no different than Black Ops game from a decade ago minus some balancing tweaks here and there. Far removed from gritty and realistic, Black Ops 7’s campaign is an awful excuse for weird, but not in a good way. Only the most hardcore fans can stomach the series at this point.

Runner-Ups

Sniper Elite: Resistance

Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Borderlands 4

The Outer Worlds 2

Games can be dormant for years and a new announcement, and an actual release, can garner huge amounts of excitement for gamers. This year saw the return of many long dead franchises or delayed sequels come back to life.

Silent Hill f

Silent Hill isn’t just an exciting new reboot for the series, but one that’s actually good is a miracle. The late 2000’s was followed up with mediocre to terrible sequels and spin-offs. The series went off the deep end including bad ports and updates. SHf is fantastic with good combat, an interesting story, and an incredibly intense atmosphere with fantastic music. I can’t believe the series is back for good.

Runner-Ups

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

Mario Kart World

Donkey Kong Banaza

Hollow Knight: Silksong

This year wasn’t a small year for disappointing games. From poor launches to terrible content and buggy and glitches releases from the start 2025 was one of the worst. Games just keep getting bigger and buggier and harder to develop and it just seems like a never ending cycle. Instead of picking outright terrible games I wanted to go back to the actual disappointing part. Games that were decent, but didn’t live up to their hype, potential, or pedigree.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2

Bloodlines 2 is probably one of the most disappointing games ever released. Not only was it in a decade long development hell cycle, but it just didn’t capture anything that made the first game charming and well regarded today. The boring combat, buggy and glitchy mess, uninteresting story and characters, and the awful paywall issue leading up to launch didn’t help. Here’s to hoping another game in the series can fix things up.

Runner-Ups

Atomfall

The Outer Worlds 2

Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII

Story is some of the reasons why games are memorable. You can have great gameplay, but without a good story in certain genres it means nothing. Some of the best stories are in the RPG and action-adventure genres and this year didn’t disappoint. We’ve had quite a few anemic years in terms of story recently. It’s good to see them come back.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur doesn’t just have a good story but it feels like it cares about the world and characters they are in. The world building is fantastic and everything feels organic. The setting feels foreign and confusing, but intriguing at the beginning of the game and slowly opens itself up to the player. It’s one of the best video game stories told, and very memorable at that.

Runner-Ups

Silent Hill f

Split Fiction

The Alters

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach