Despite what The Game Awards might suggest, 2025 was filled with an eclectic array of games that provided deeply resonant experiences. And while mainstream titles may not have been as overtly provocative as other years, I think I've managed to cultivate a list of standout blockbusters and indies.
My only hope is that one of these resonates with you as much as it did for me.
10
Rematch
I spent many weeks believing that Rematch was going to be the game of the year this year. Its tight mechanics and demanding skill floor not only make the game feel like it can compete with franchise giant EA FC, they feel revolutionary in the soccer genre.
Unfortunately, sporadic bugs and semi-frequent spikes in network instability hold it back. Fortunately, these problems are each fixable with enough time and resources – and not something that is at the heart of the game. It's a testament to the game's design that the ultimate experience, even with its share of hassles, still feels supremely rewarding. When Rematch works, it makes me feel like I can fly. Now if I could only get my player customized to look like he's wearing this year's Liverpool home kit…
9
Blue Prince
There is something compelling about Blue Prince that is hard to place. A sense of deep melancholy you have to immerse yourself completely to try to piece together the mystery of room 46. While I don't find the game as disturbing as others have suggested, its investigative premise makes it instantly compelling from the moment it starts.
Admittedly, most of Blue Prince's self-inflicted friction is due to its design being roguelite first, puzzle second – and being at the whim of the RNG it can suck. But having an empathetic gothic central to the game's goal makes both the cycles of building rooms in the mansion so efficient and the puzzle solving itself so damn worthwhile.
8
Top
Peak is one of the standout multiplayer experiences of the year precisely because it harnesses friction through its challenging levels and obfuscated survival system, while maintaining its laid-back aesthetic. Which is a roundabout way of saying: sometimes you just want to giggle as you watch your friends fall to their deaths down a mountain as their diegetic screams echo off the rocks and fade into oblivion.
Sometimes that's what games are really about.
7
The Seance of Blake Manor
There are few gothic games that feel as immediately poignant as The Seance of Blake Manor. From its hellish setting to the haunted mansion itself, every step taken to solve Evelyn Dean's disappearance works to immerse you in the atmosphere of the ominous occult.
And submit to the phantasmagoria you must. Entering a paranoid macabre you cannot look away from, but lie to rest one deduction at a time.
6
Sector
Enter Sector. A kaleidoscopic overload of dopamine synapses in the form of a top-down twin-stick shooter, with an original soundtrack so pulsatingly electric it's guaranteed to improve your mile time.
Be warned, Sektori is not for the faint of heart. It works exclusively on overstimulation of neurotransmissions: a digital trance of swelling score-chasing and crunchy explosions solely intended to destroy you endlessly. Overcome, and you're in for the quintessential arcade experience of the year.
When I die, bury me in Sektori, I would arise as a ghost of my own zero state. If only for one more run.
Honorable mentions
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Heroes of Hammerwatch 2
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Megabank
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Fire Ring Nightreign
5
Arc Raiders
There's a certain romance in the way Arc Raiders deals with its apocalypse that makes it one of the most memorable multiplayer experiences this generation. Running minor chords of arpeggio synthesizers from the menu points in the direction of a hopeful recovery, even if the use of generative text-to-speech undermines its own framing. But it's the very human interaction in each raid that takes command to ultimately define the core experience.
When the entire player base buys in and commits to serious interactions and proxy-chat communication, the story told through emergent gameplay feels unforgettably limitless. I don't think these Arc Raiders moments will dry up anytime soon.
4
Silent Hill b
The best horror stories often involve inevitable recursions and inescapable traumas. Silent Hill f exceeds these requirements and fills itself with layered, insidious observations of our natural tendencies toward human cruelty. It's a scream into the inferno of adolescence and hearing something unrecognizable scream back.
There's an obvious complexity that makes this one of the stronger horror stories in recent memory, not for its explicit horror, but for the way it weaponizes a justified rage locked inside the innermost self. During the opening hours of Silent Hill f you will be reminded that it is not only the violence that leaves us shaken, but the sadness that always accompanies it.
3
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
Citizen Sleeper 2 is a game about windows – a look into the countless fragile worlds entangled in the spirals of economic desperation. A meditative journey of solemn synths and tender conversations floating in the interstellar miasma. It pierces us with gentle prose, made behind routine rolls of the dice as we form rhizomatic strings of unwavering relationships.
At the far end of the star belt is the prescient reminder that we are not just remnants of rampant corporatocracy – but that we exist – and rage against the interpellation of a silent disease. After all, we are all capable of creating meaning despite the constant drumbeat of crushing modernity. This is exactly the kind of game we need in our lives.
2
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Kojima games are always more than just games, serving as didactic stories to say something about our contemporary human condition. This time around, Death Stranding 2 is less a game as much as it is a feeling – the interactive equivalent of a folk album designed to evoke an aesthetic effect that focuses on grief and our inherent propensity for care. It's unlike anything you've ever played.
Even in its most reductive form, going from one place to another, DS2 continuously serves as one of the most necessary reminders of life's inherent beauty. It also happens to have an 11-minute cutscene in the back half of the game that almost made me pass out.
1
Hollow Knight: Silk Song
Under its constant tension, Silksong leads a journey of radical individuality that single-handedly makes it the most amazing experience I've had all year—Bilewater and all. Which is my way of reminding us that to focus the rhetorical framework of this game's experience largely on its difficulty would be to do a massive disservice to how beautifully the story ultimately shakes out, especially under a feminist lens.
It's abundantly clear that, in addition to the expected masterful design elements found in the original Hollow Knight, Team Cherry lifted Silksong to convey a message of emotional restoration. This is what resonates above all.
- Released
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September 4, 2025
- ESRB
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All 10+ / Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood
- Developer
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Team Cherry
- Publisher
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Team Cherry
