I’m going to say this straight off the bat – in a year where so many other people had a clear-cut front-runner for Game of the Year for much of the year – this was a TOUGH one for me personally.
But no one wants to read an intro, so let’s get straight into it. Welcome to another Game of the Year list. No refunds.

10. Soulstone Survivors

Soulstone Survivors is yet another Vampire Survivors clone among the many that have spawned following that game’s success. This one, however, I found to be particularly good. It looks very pretty, it plays well, the power-ups are fun, and there is an absolute abundance of unlocks and skill-trees. So if you liked Vampire Survivors, you’ll probably like this. If haven’t played Vampire Survivors… I dunno, go watch the trailer or something. I can’t do everything for you.

9. The Trolley Solution

Most of you have probably heard about ‘the trolley problem’ before. In case you haven’t though, it’s essentially a thought experiment that asks ‘if a trolley (train/tram) is heading down the tracks towards 5 people, but you are at a switching station and can divert the trolley to another track where it will instead run over 1 person, should/would you do it?’ I’m probably explaining that terribly, but here’s the exact scenario laid out by the game itself.

It’s serious stuff, bringing into question ethics, morality, responsibility, and all sorts of good philosophical stuff.
However, if I’m making it sound like this is a serious game about big philosophical questions, then I have led you astray, because this game is actually hilarious. I very much want to give examples of the often absurbist and usually silly trolley problems presented by this game, but to give any spoilers away would be a diservice to you. You should just go play this game. It’s the most I’ve laughed at a game in years.
I will however leave you with this very small sneak peak as an example:

8. Hitman: World of Assassination – VR Upgrade

Let me preface this by saying that I have never played a Hitman game prior to this version of the game. Certainly there are easier ways to experience the immense world offered up by the entire World of Assassination (which is essentially the entire trilogy of games) than in VR, and it would certainly help to have some idea of what you’re doing before you enter the game in VR.
And now, with that excuse out of the way, of all the games I am bad at, it’s hard to think of a game I am worse at than this.
Hitman is a serious game about… being a Hitman. Being a very cool, mysterious figure who kills people for a living in cool, clever and secretive ways. That’s what this game is on paper anyway. When -I- play this game, it’s closer to this:

Allow me to give you 3 examples from my time playing this game.

1. In the first tutorial mission, I managed to sneak aboard a guarded ship and get to the target. I was hiding around a corner from the target and someone else, waiting for them to finish a conversation and for the other person to hopefully leave. While I waited, I got my gun out. While I waited, I got a distracted and let go of my gun. This isn’t something that could ever happen outside of VR, but I just plain got distracted and dropped my own handgun at my feet. The sound of the gun hitting the floor alerted the two men, who came running around the corner to find me standing there, now unarmed.
2. At a high profile fashion show, I managed to sneak into the designer/change rooms and found someone who was talking on the phone in a section that no one else was in, with his back turned to me. Perfect, I could kill him and steal his ID to get around the rest of the show! So I grabbed him from behind and started strangling him, as you do, but with such ferocity that I threw his head forward through a glass pane, shattering it and alerting all ~20 occupants of the room to the violence taking place right near them. This did not end well.
3. At the same event, I decided to sneak into a garden shed before even heading into the main event, just to see what was there. A guard spotted me doing it, and in a panic, for some reason I unscrewed the top of a giant gas cannister. The guard walked into the shed, shot at me, and the entire shed exploded killing us both.

I am not good at this game. Not in the slightest. But my failures are very amusing and mechanically the game is very good with an enormous amount of content.

7. The Alters

The Alters is 50% The Moon (the film), 30% Death Stranding (the walking/connectivity game) and 20% base-builder like Fallout Shelter, with maybe a splash of This War Of Mine thrown in for having to make tough choices where sometimes everyone loses.
This game is not without its flaws (for example, I had an issue where I had to keep reloading saves further and further back because I had failed to do something in time that made the game physically impossible unless I went far enough back to correct it, which was quite frustrating) but it’s certainly an interesting idea and for the most part, it’s executed well and had me quite entralled. It also looks pretty good and is very atmospheric. And when you start running out of time, it can be quite tense too. Not a game to play if you just want to have a chill time. However conversely it is a game to play if you want to have a rowdy sing-along with several clones of yourself.

6. Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked

I haven’t actually gone through to verify this, but I am fairly confident in saying that Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked is the most convoluted name of any game in any of my Game of the Year lists to date. For those unfamiliar, Demeo is a popular VR game where you play a tabletop RPG game complete with minis. Dungeons and Dragons is… well hopefully I don’t need to explain that. But you can kind of see why they wanted to ensure that both IPs were in the title. I don’t see why they needed to add ‘Battlemarked’ in there but sure.
Anyway, this game is a VR game where you stand around a table with cool terrain moving and fighting with little minis in one of two DnD campaigns. It’s very good. It looks great, it plays great, and it really leans into the fact that you’re playing with minis in a fake world. As someone who isn’t a big fan of playing games in Tabletop Simulator, I found this to be vastly more appealing due to a million touches made to ensure this game feels right to play.
Oh and you also CAN play a flat (non-VR) version of this game. But don’t do that. It’d be weird. Wait til you can play it in VR or play something else. Like real DnD.

5. Baby Steps

This is a dumb game. This is a stupid, dumb game. A stupid, dumb, frustrating game. I hate this game.
This is the fifth best game of 2025.

4. Dying Light: The Beast

It’s no secret that the original Dying Light is one of my favourite games of the past decade. I consider it the greatest zombie game ever, and a shining example of how to implement co op into a primarily single player game. It’s also no secret that I was incredibly disappointed in Dying Light 2, winning my ‘most disappointing’ award in 2022 after having predicted it would be my Game of the Year. And while I understand that many of my complaints about Dying Light 2 have been fixed or improved upon post-release, I’ll never actually know, because if I’m ever going to go back and play another Dying Light game again, I’m just going to play the first one again since it’s already perfect. OR – I might play Dying Light: The Beast again instead.
Because I am thrilled to reveal that literally everything I hated about Dying Light 2 has been fixed in Dying Light: The Beast, a game that really should be just called Dying Light 3. The parkour is fun. The drop kick and head stomps are once again satisfying. The story is… well, still terrible, as always. But most importantly they actually remembered that night time is supposed to be scary. This game leans more into the ‘horror’ part of action-survival horror than either of the two games before it. I got hit with jump scares multiple times which is new, and the night time is actually way worse than the first game. Even after finishing the game, the idea of taking on volatiles seems ridiculous. If anything, they went too hard in this direction. I much, much, rather this though. Playing in co op is still incredibly well executed, and when you’re running through farms or a forest with literally no light source in pitch back as dozens of volatiles chase you both – it’s chaotic fun at its best.
It is the smallest game so far, which makes sense since it began its life as DLC for Dying Light 2, but it’s also way bigger than any DLC should be and deserves its place as a standalone game. Techland is back, and I’m so, so, relieved.

3. Dispatch

You probably know what Dispatch is by now, because it has been nominated for all sorts of awards and has Aaron Paul voicing the main character. It also kind of came out of nowhere.
And it’s great.
The gameplay is… fine. Nothing I’d call amazing. Where it shines however is excellent animation, and giving us an original superhero story that doesn’t totally suck. And… um… there’s also… a Man Bat and some cool semi-meaningful choices? Okay fine I admit it – it’s mainly my third best game of the year for that song. If you’ve played it, you know the one. If you haven’t – you will.

2. Ghost of Yotei

Ghost of Tsushima was my 2020 Game of the Year, so it was a pretty safe bet that I was going to like its sequel, Ghost of Yotei. And look… it was incredibly hard not to give this my Game of the Year nod as well.
To start with, Ghost of Yotei is even better than Ghost of Tsushima. It’s even more stunningly beautiful than the last game, the gameplay is even sharper and more satisfying (now, with guns, that you’ll barely use), and while the story may not be better than the first game, it’s still good (if not a bit overdone) and importantly has a cast of side characters who for the most part are worth caring about. And the reason I cared is because the acting (both facial expressions in what I assume was mocap and voice acting) was phenomenal here. I actually think Erika Ishii was slightly robbed for not winning Best Performance at the Game Awards for her role as Atsu – a character that I came to really enjoy playing, even moreso than the original game’s Jin.
This game doesn’t really reinvent the wheel in any aspect, but it perfects basically everthing it sets out to do. The game looks stunning, the music is fantastic, the story is solid, the acting is great, the combat is fun, the open world isn’t too daunting or tedious, the side missions are often meaningful. Plus, you have a freakin’ wolf companion. Come on!
The game is great, and if they released the multiplayer update in time then there’s a good chance this would have been my Game of the Year.

1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

I can hear the responses now from across the screen – a mix of ‘oh how predictable’ and ‘well, obviously’. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has, after all, won basically every award available to it. But let me tell you something – it very nearly wasn’t my Game of the Year. I had to sit with this one long and hard because quite frankly, it’s not the game I enjoyed the most this year. And in fact, if I did decide to base the rankings purely on enjoyment, E33 wouldn’t have even made the top 2. Largely because I’ve realised that JRPGs with turn based combat(or games of that style) simply aren’t for me.
So having said that, why IS it my number 1 game of the year? How can I justify putting it at the top of my list if I didn’t enjoy it more than Ghost of Yotei or probably even Dispatch or Dying Light: The Beast?
Because… I think, in 10 years time, I’ll still remember parts of this game quite vividly, and I can’t be sure the same can be said for those others. This game pulls no punches and does things differently from any game I’ve ever played.
Let me be clear here – the story of this game is fantastic. One of the best, and certainly most original, I’ve ever experienced. Utterly different in a way that I dare not speak about to avoid giving any spoilers away. I may have found myself rushing past combat for the last third of the game partly because the gameplay was boring me, but also because I was so keen to see what was next.
And look, I know I’m making the gameplay sound terrible – but I assure you that’s a ‘me’ thing. It actually implements the turn-based combat in an exceptionally good way. The dodging and parrying mechanics meant that it didn’t feel like I was just sitting back and waiting for my turn, and while I was TERRIBLE at dodging to start with, I really felt myself getting much better at it the more I played and enjoying it to some extent. But still, for me, it was very much in the way of the story. I needed to get to the ending because that’s what this game is about. Oh and also, the MUSIC is tremendous, and while it’s not as pretty as Ghost of Yotei, the art direction is something else. One of the early underwater/but not underwater levels blew my mind.
So look, this may not be the most compelling argument for a game to by the best game of the year, but if a game can defy the odds to such a degree where I am clearly not the target audience and yet STILL award it my Game of the Year award, that has to count for something.

Random other awards!

Best looking game: Ghost of Yotei. It’s very rare that I bother using photo mode or taking screenshots in games, but I found myself doing it several times with this game.
The Rocket League Award (Best ‘ongoing’ game): Walkabout Mini Golf. It’s going to be hard to dethrone this given how often they release new content.
Game(s) that I probably should have played before making this list: Outer Worlds 2. I’m about to play it as soon as I’m finished this, in fact. And just for the love of the game, without worrying about how good it is. Refreshing!
Weirdest game that I wish I could find a spot for on my list: Heroes of Hammerwatch 2. It was 11th! It’s not even that weird, but it was certainly unique, and fun in co op.
Most disappointing game of the year: Split Fiction. It Takes Two was already quite bad, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by this, but I found the gameplay so painfully basic. If it wasn’t for the joy of playing couch co op, I would have given up after 10 minutes. As it is, my partner and I are several hours in but the end is nowhere in sight.
Worst game of the year: N/A. There IS a game that’s at the bottom of the list, but it’s not actually a bad game because I didn’t play any truly bad games this year, so it feels unfair to throw a game under the bus here.
Most anticipated game of 2025: GTA 6 is an easy answer, but it’s my answer last year so that seems a bit cheap. Instead, I’ll say Grounded 2, if that comes out of early access this year. I’ll also give a shoutout to Kena: Scars of Kosmora. I didn’t play the first game but judging by the trailer, this one looks fantastic.

Every 2025 game I played, chronologically:

Heroes of Hammerwatch II
The Roottrees Are Dead
Hitman: World of Assassination (VR Upgrade)
Blue Prince
Smash Drums
The Alters
Badminton VR
Wizard Tower
Primal Planet
Soulstone Survivors
The Trolley Solution
Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots
Dying Light: The Beast
Baby Steps
Arken Age
Ghost of Yotei
Ball X Pit
ARC Raiders
Split Fiction
V Racer Hoverbike
Rush: Apex Edition
Dispatch
Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked
Hades 2
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33