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At the start of the year, Grand Theft Auto VI looked to be a shoe-in for Game of the Year. Publishers jostled around their release calendars to ensure titles wouldn’t be completely ignored in the wake of what could possibly be the biggest gaming release of all time. Then GTA VI got delayed into 2026. Twice.
That made the 2025 GOTY race a wide open one, especially with some hotly anticipated sequels like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Borderlands 4 meeting with particularly muted responses from critics and fans alike. So in a year of games where the frontrunner bowed out early and other contenders turned out to be pretenders, which titles reigned supreme? Read on to find out the best games of 2025.
15. Blue Prince
There’s never been a game quite like Blue Prince before. Part roguelike, part puzzler, you play the role of a man who’s inherited a constantly shifting estate from his recently deceased uncle. The late relation has also tasked you with the goal of finding a hidden 46th room on the grounds by drafting new rooms in the mansion every day.
Blue Prince will put even the most experienced gamer through their paces. The game doesn’t give up its many secrets easily, and even after several hours, it can be tricky to figure out just how to place each room. Even then some bad luck can end a run early. This definitely isn’t a game for everyone, but it’s worth checking out for anyone looking for something truly innovative.
14. Doom: The Dark Ages
The remarkable thing about id Software’s most recent Doom trilogy, which began with 2016’s Doom and was capped off this year with The Dark Ages, is how each game took a very different approach to combat. The Dark Ages slows things down dramatically, basically turning the Doom Slayer into a walking tank with a shield.
This opens up a whole new way to play an FPS, focusing more on blocking and parrying. And the addition of some really cool new weapons like a flail and a gun that fires bone fragments made The Dark Ages a stand out title in a very crowded genre.
13. Elden Ring: Nightreign
On paper the idea of adding battle royale and roguelike elements to Elden Ring sounds highly questionable. It’s a testament to the abilities of the team at FromSoftware that it actually works really well. Elden Ring: Nightreign never quite reaches the heights of its 2022 single player predecessor but it’s damn addicting, particularly if you team up with two other players who know what they’re doing.
The core gameplay of the first game is still present, but now you’re much more reliant on lucky drops each run, adding a whole new layer of strategy. But even with good equipment and an experienced team, defeating the eight Nightlords is no simple feat.
12. Mario Kart World
Mario Kart 8 was always going to be a tough act to follow. After all, it’s one of the best selling video games of all time for good reason. But launching aside the hotly anticipated Switch 2, Mario Kart World quickly proved up to the task.
No, Mario Kart World doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Its new features like an open-world, Grand Prix races that link four tracks together, and a Knockout Tour are more iterative than revolutionary. But at the end of the day, it’s just a really fun racing game that most of us who picked up a Switch 2 at launch are still playing six months later.
11. South of Midnight
Between multiple canceled projects and flagging console sales, it’s no secret that 2025 was a rough year for the Xbox brand. In fact, you wouldn’t be blamed for not even knowing about South of Midnight, one of Microsoft’s best releases in years.
Admittedly South of Midnight’s gameplay isn’t particularly novel. You’ve likely played games with similar platforming and combat, but it’s a game that wholeheartedly embraces the culture and folklore of the American South in ways that few other titles have, with a stop-motion aesthetic that sets it apart. South of Midnight is proof that even during these troubled times, Xbox is capable of putting out surprisingly great artistic games.
10. Ball x Pit
You’d think that after the past few years, roguelikes would have run their course. This is even the third roguelike on this list, and there were dozens of others released this year. And yet, Ball x Pit proves that there’s still plenty of untapped potential in the crowded genre. This time Ball x Pit added the randomization of roguelikes to the timeless block breaking gameplay of titles like Arkanoid.
And holy hell is it addicting. Ball x Pit features more than a dozen playable characters, each with their own unique abilities. Additionally during runs, there are numerous combinations and evolutions, plus a whole village building gameplay loop to round things out. Ball x Pit creator Kenny Sun told Bloomberg earlier this year that he felt the response to the game was “a bit too positive,” but it absolutely deserves all the praise it’s received for its addictive gameplay.
9. Split Fiction
Hazelight Studios has spent the better part of the last decade redefining what’s possible in co-op gaming. If you liked their previous titles A Way Out and It Takes Two, you’re going to absolutely love Split Fiction, the culmination of everything the studio has been working toward.
While a lot of similar games get stale fairly quickly, Split Fiction never wears out its welcome, regularly adding new gameplay styles in its tale about a sci-fi and fantasy author, then moving on to the next one almost as quickly. It’s an absolute blast to play. The only downside, of course, is that you have to have someone else around to play with.
8. Ninja Gaiden 4
In modern gaming, it’s common for supposedly single player games from major publishers to be burdened with annoying online or multiplayer functions, or expensive DLC tokens and costumes just so companies can make just a few extra bucks. Ninja Gaiden 4 is one of the rare titles that thankfully bucks that trend, and it’s the better for it.
In many ways, this is a throwback to action games of the PS2 era when the original 3D Ninja Gaiden was released, focusing more on linear levels and smooth combat that requires quick reflexes. Replacing Ryu Hayabusa with newcomer Yakumo for most of the game was a daring choice, but by the end of the game, Yakumo proves himself as a worthy successor to the Ninja Gaiden throne. Hopefully, this is a new beginning for the storied series and not just a one off.
7. Donkey Kong Bananza
While Donkey Kong was one of Nintendo’s first gaming characters, he’s mostly played in recent years the part of a cameo character in Mario games, with the occasional side scroller throwback. Nintendo just hasn’t really seemed to know what to do with the big ape until Donkey Kong Bananza came around.
Far from just a retread of the team’s prior effort, Super Mario Odyssey, Bananza reinvents Donkey Kong with the simple premise of letting a gorilla wreck everything around him. Sure, the platforming challenges to collect Banandium Gems are great, but it’s just as easy to get distracted smashing up a level and collecting whatever you dig up. Bananza is not only the first must-have for the Switch 2, but it also provides a solid blueprint for where future Donkey Kong titles could go from here.
6. ARC Raiders
ARC Raiders wasn’t on many gamers’ radars at the start of the year, but since its release at the end of October, it’s quickly gained traction as one of the biggest sleeper hits of the year. At its core, ARC Raiders is an extraction shooter similar to Helldivers II, but with more open-endedness and a focus on PvPvE encounters.
And to be fair, that can make ARC Raiders a frustrating experience, as running afoul of the wrong enemies can mean losing quite a bit of progress. But that less linear gameplay also allows for endless possibilities in its world. And the polished gunplay makes it an absolute joy to play, regardless of how successful each run is. If you’ve been waiting to check out an extraction shooter, ARC Raiders is the perfect jumping on point.
5. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
The response to the original Death Stranding in 2019 was largely positive, although many gamers who grew up on Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid titles were a little confused by a game both praised and derided as an advanced walking simulator set in a sci-fi world radically different from anything else seen before. It was a good game, just a little muddled. Then again, that’s always been a criticism of Kojima’s direction.
With Death Stranding 2, at least we had a better idea of what we were getting into, and On the Beach definitely took the criticism to heart with more refined gameplay and a story that’s a little less convoluted, though still very much classic Kojima. On the Beach isn’t going to win any converts who disliked the first game but for the faithful, this is another Kojima masterpiece.
4. Hades II
Yes, it’s another roguelike on the list, but Hades II isn’t just any roguelike. It’s the sequel to one of the very best in the genre and it actually improves on the first game in every conceivable way. Hades II puts you in the role of Melinoë, the sister of Zagreus, the protagonist of the original game. This time there are two different paths to take as you face the Titan Chronos. You’re free to either head downward into Tartarus to go after Chronos or go upward to break a siege on Mount Olympus.
There’s more variety, more weapons too, and more characters from Greek mythology, again expertly written by Supergiant Games. Hades II is quite simply everything you could want in a sequel, and the new undisputed king of roguelikes.
3. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
The first Kingdom Come: Deliverance was an incredibly ambitious RPG that aimed for a realistic depiction of 15th century Bohemia. It fell a little short due to jankiness, but for those who got into it, clearly the foundation of something great was there. And thankfully, the sequel delivers on all of that potential.
You still play as Henry, a simple man caught in a much wider conflict, and eating and sleeping are still just as important as sword fighting (if not more so). There’s no magic or dragons in this world, just harsh medieval reality. It may not sound like much fun, but if you’ve ever wanted to play something along the lines of The Elder Scrolls without the fantasy elements, it’s an amazing RPG.
2. Hollow Knight: Silksong
When games take more than half a decade to develop and start making major changes, fans understandably get nervous. Historically, it’s much more likely that games stuck in development hell end up as legendary disappointments, like Duke Nukem Forever, rather than all time classics. Thankfully, after six years of development that saw it expand from DLC to a standalone sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong is more than worth the wait.
This is an expertly crafted Metroidvania with a bigger map, much more to do, and faster, smoother combat, yet it still retains the excellent moody sound design and art style of the original. The only downside (for some) is the difficulty. The first Hollow Knight was tough, but some of the enemies in Silksong will push you to the absolute limits.
1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
If you had said at the beginning of the year that the undisputed game of the year would be an unapologetically French turn-based RPG by a small development team making their first game together, not many people would have taken you seriously. There were just too many impressive looking triple A games on the calendar. But no one is laughing at Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 at the end of 2025. It’s already won a pile of GOTY awards, and it absolutely deserves another.
This is a game that takes all of the best parts of RPGs like Persona, Final Fantasy, and Paper Mario to craft a brand new fantasy world unlike anything else in gaming. The sound and visuals are leagues above anything else that came out this year. Already the soundtrack is being praised as one of the best to ever grace a video game. And the story, about the quest to defeat an entity called the Paintress that wipes out more and more people every year as she paints a new age on a rock, is one of the most fascinating to come along in years. This is the type of game that will inspire RPGs for years to come, and that is an absolute must play for any gamer.
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