The Best Video Games of 2025
Hello everyone. We're coming at you early this week with a roundup of the top video games of the year. I'd want to wish you a nice holiday season and an amazing new year as Game On won't be back until January. I appreciate your continued help.
The year's best
I've been compiling lists of my top ten games of the year every year for over ten years, and 2025 might have been the most difficult to complete. It was an exciting year for video games, ranging from inventive puzzlers to demanding action-platformers, and I had a terrible time selecting my favorites.
It's telling that only one of the ten submissions I chose for this year is a conventional big-budget game. The majority of innovative new concepts originate from independent creators, who have the luxury of creating targeted games that don't require millions of players to break even.
I also chose not to include remakes or remasters — with apologies to the excellent The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky and Final Fantasy Tactics re-releases — so that proper new games could have their due.
Now, presented in no particular order…
BLUE PRINCE
Developer: Dogubomb
Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Mac
Here’s a video game that will stick with me for the rest of my life. Blue Prince is a strategy game hiding a puzzle game hiding one of the best novels of the year. The premise is appealing enough — you’re sent to explore a mansion where the rooms change every day — but the real joy of Blue Prince is what’s under the surface. Slick, marbled foyers and ballrooms mask a world of fascist turmoil, political zealots, giant turtles, secret royalty and learning how to let go. As one hand-scribbled note in the manor wonders: “Does it never end?”
THE ROOTTREES ARE DEAD
Creator: Evil Trout
Platforms: Mac, PC
I couldn't stop playing The Roottrees Are Dead once I started since I love logic puzzles so much. The Roottrees, a wealthy family behind a candy empire whose president and his family perished in an airplane tragedy, require you to put together a family tree in this game. You must look for hints online and make logical deductions from everything you discover, including conspiracy theory blogs and magazine articles, in order to determine who is who. Never was genealogy more enjoyable.
HOLLOW KNIGHT: SILKSONG
Developer: Team Cherry
Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch
The principal makers of Silksong, Ari Gibson and William Pellen, told me in August that it took them seven years to develop the game, in part, because they were having a blast imagining the game’s complex, interlocking world and weird little bugs, and they didn’t want to stop. You can tell. This is a punishing game, but it’s also a joyful one, full of incredible little details that could have only emerged from a team of people at the top of their craft. For example, if you kill a giant warrior ant and then stick around, you’ll see a trail of smaller ants pick up and carry away its body. This has no impact on gameplay; it’s just there to help make you feel like you’re exploring a dangerous, unforgiving, beautiful foreign world that exists with or without you.
DISPATCH
Developer: Adhoc Studio
Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Switch (January)
A business named Telltale Games made a name for itself as one of the top creators of poignant narrative experiences in the early 2010s. After Telltale closed its doors in 2018 (the brand name has since been restored), a group of former employees are continuing the tradition with Dispatch, a video game about a bunch of supervillains who change their ways and end up caring for one another. Although there are a few gameplay elements that are incidental to the plot, the majority of the experience in Dispatch consists of watching events develop; yet, the writing is so astute and the directing is so certain that there aren't many complaints.
AVOWED
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Platforms: PC, Xbox
I love everything about this fantasy role-playing game: the branching narrative, the evocative world, the crunchy combat. But it’s the exploration that really stands out. Each of the game’s zones is dense and windy, full of hidden pathways and circuitous routes. And, most importantly, your character is a natural acrobat, with the ability to parkour and leap over obstacles in their way like some sort of supernatural circus freak with an unidentified god stuck in their head. It’s good stuff.
THE HUNDRED LINE: LAST DEFENSE ACADEMY
Developer: Too Kyo Games
Platforms: PC, Switch
I'm not sure how to respond when someone asks if The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is decent. Is this a decent game? Is it a terrible thing? Amazing? Uninteresting? Indeed. I spent 166 hours playing all 100 of the game's endings. Along the process, there were many moments of both success and boredom, as well as ups and downs. There are some exciting paths. Some are boring. However, in terms of its narrative scope and ambition, it is unlike any other video game ever produced. Playing it is similar to reading twenty epic science fiction books all at once. How it exists is beyond me.
NURIKABE WORLD
Developer: Hemisquare
Platforms: PC, Mac
If you want to relax after a stressful day, this is the game for you — a serene combination of Minesweeper and Sudoku that tasks you with carving out islands into specific shapes based on predetermined conditions. It’s challenging enough to not be boring but easy enough to remain soothing through all 300-something puzzles.
THE SEANCE OF BLAKE MANOR
Developer: Spooky Doorway
Platforms: PC
The Seance of Blake Manor, which tells a mystery-horror story in 1897 Ireland with a distinctive comic-book art style, is one of those games that are worth playing primarily for the atmosphere. You take on the role of an investigator dispatched to a group of psychics in order to unravel the enigmatic disappearance of Evelyn Deane. You have three days to look into the mansion, question suspects, and determine everyone's motivations. The mystery is compelling enough to make this game difficult to put down, and the time constraint is more lenient than it first appears. Additionally, you learn a great deal about Irish mythology and lore. (Prepare to encounter the Tuatha Dé Danann.)
STRANGE JIGSAWS
Developer: FLEB
Platforms: PC
Don’t read anything about this game — just play it. It’s a short, surreal journey into the mind of a mad genius, and it broke my brain several times.
FANTASY LIFE I: THE GIRL WHO STEALS TIME
Developer: Level 5
Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox, PlayStation
Sometimes all you want is a colorful, endearing video game with simple activities (see Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, etc.). Fantasy Life has grown to be one of my favorite busywork games. From the typical combat fare (Paladin, Magician) to gatherers (Miner, Woodcutter) and craftspeople (Blacksmith, Carpenter), you can select one of 14 jobs (or "Lives"). You chop down trees, dig for ore, battle monsters, explore the environment, make new weapons, design your home, and assist in resolving everyone's issues. I found its grindy but addictive cycle to be ideal for playing on my Steam Deck while watching TV. Multitaskers, rejoice.
