Man… video games. Am I right?

It feels like at the dusk of every year I come tumbling out into the dawn of another year curious how the hell we’ll top it. We’re not want for incredible video games, and 2025 was another one that left me shockingly optimistic even in the face of an absolute litany of issues in the game industry. Between mass job loss, studios being cleaved up, chewed on, and spit out by amorphous money monsters, and whatever the fuck incomprehensible trash GenAI bros continue to puke out, it feels like we have a lot of reason to be cynical every year when it comes to our favorite past time. As if the deck is being constantly stacked against our enjoyment, only for us to flip the cards over and find a winning hand regardless.

And win we sure did. I stand once again at the end of another year that blew my mind at what people are still capable of creating. Call it the abdunance of human spirit, the urge of the creator to spit in the face of what seems like unstoppable odds. Whatever it is, 2025 was, for lack of a fancier way to put it, fucking pretty cool.

So, I figured I’d use this humble little blog thing to think back on the highlights of 2025 for myself personally, while also poking my nose into the clouds of uncertainty and sniff out those little truffles of goodness that we may be feasting on in 2026.

This was a year that found me having a “Game Of The Year” pick crop up like three or four times throughout. Games that in any other given year would probably take that completely arbitrary and pointless title. Given I really only played 11 games that released in 2025, and most of those I didn’t necessarily finish, that’s pretty impressive. These are mostly presented in no apparent order, but my actual favorite game of the year will not come as any surprise. So, without further fluffing, let’s get balls deep in this thing, yeah?

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Do you remember the Nintendo Switch’s launch? It was roughly 23 years ago or so, if you count the rings under my eyes, but it felt like such an unsure moment in gaming history. This bizarre, yet intriguing, device coming off of such a tragic marketing failure in the Wii U. Was Nintendo going to come back to the light, or would they forever by stuck in gimmick hell, languishing as the once-was of game production? Thankfully, it turned out to be a, as the kids would say, banger of a console. And Nintendo decided that formula wasn’t one to mess with as they rolled out a Switch 2. Basically, the Switch, but it can actually run the games on it! Novel idea, I know.

While Nintendo’s output was fairly muted, all things considered, and nothing on their new rallying point console particularly set a new bar for me personally, I did sink entirely too many hours into the latest contentious much-maligned Pokemon game. And just like the last… what about fifteen or so?… games in the series, everyone hated it and also it sold millions and was highly successful. Continuing the franchise’s long-running existence as a money-printing monopoly on the hearts and souls of all of us who are extremely obsessive-compulsive about collecting cute digital animals, it satisfied as per usual. However, despite arguments about flat-textures and billion-dollar budgets, I found it to be the best pure video game Gamefreak has made since the 3DS era, and was enraptured by how actually fun and engaging everything was. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it as robust and imagination-capturing as say Pokemon Black? Of course not. Does it show a huge leap in the right direction for a franchise stagnating on the need to produce stuff as fast as possible? In my opinion, yes.

But also I mean, the DLC gave me Mega Glimmora, so I could care less about some flat buildings.

And while nothing Nintendo put out this year would breach my top five favorite games, between Pokemon and Kirby both releasing ridiculously dumb-fun games that bask in that childlike wonder I’ve been missing in my retail-induced adult-life coma state, I can’t say I haven’t been able to justify dumping money into “what if the Switch, but more?” this year.

I mean, I also played that Donkey Kong game which… I did not like. But hey, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad… and this year promises to deliver at least a few games I’ll pick up for the console. While Pokopia is going to, once again, be divesive because it’s a game what has Pokemon in the title, I am probably going to pick it up and continue to pretend I’m still of the age where my knees don’t protest when I pick something up off the floor which is about all I can really ask of Nintendo at this point.

There is also Mario Tennis and that Yoshi game that everyone forgot was announced up until this exact moment, and I can’t help but wonder what big console-mover Nintendo is brewing up for the future.

But again, Nintendo really wasn’t my major highlight this year. That came, as is usually the case these days, from the indie side of video games. And from games that made everyone argue what the hell the term “indie” actually means anymore too.

I’m going to take this moment to just address the French Elephant in the room. Expedition 33. A game I was rallying behind the absolute second it was announced. And one that far exceeded the success I thought it might have. Yes yes, I know about the GenAI bullcrap, and I’m not going to sit here and justify that. It’s a very sad black mark on what was an otherwise maelstrom of a release. Absolutely wiping the board clean of the corporate-shilled scribbles of what can and can’t be successful. A remarkable achievement harkening back to all my long-standing favorites in my go-to choice in genre: the over-indulgent Japanese-inspired roleplaying narrative feelings-fucker! Overly dramatic philosophizing cutscenes taking up large swathes of time between us standing in line waiting to punch each other? Sign me the fuck up. It’s got a FUCKING MAP SCREEN! Remember map screens?!

To say the ending left me reflective would be selling things short, and I had every intention of turning just one singular character glance into it’s own entire essay, but I’m incapable of putting those feelings to words in a way that would be coherent, and I can’t think of a better compliment to give a story’s finale.

And somehow, a game that shook me to my core on more than one occasion simply couldn’t hold a candle to Bug Game. But look, we’ll get to that later, ok?

After Expedition 33 went from sweeping the Game Awards like the perfect angel prince of your dreams to being dumped like a bad boyfriend you just found out is really into feet, the discussion swirled back to some slightly lesser talked about indie darlings that very much deserved to be brought up. And because they deserve to be brought up, I’m going to fucking bring them up now!

Yes, I played Blue Prince. No, I have not finished Blue Prince. Yes, I am WAY way too stupid to finish Blue Prince. God what a game. I haven’t even bloody well gotten into the antechamber yet. Which by my understanding is like… when the game starts. And yet, at almost every turn, Blue Prince managed to rattle my understanding of what can be accomplished with a physical space in a game to it’s foundation. Never has a game had me studying every nook and cranny of seemingly pointless rooms only to find all my tinfoil hat, Charlie Day meme-ass behaviors were proven right and than some. It feels like every polygon in this game has a puzzle attached to it, and the obsessive need to create multi-tab google docs to keep all of it fresh in my brain scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had.

As someone that isn’t all that keen on the current-day obsession with having two low-ABV craft IPAs and going to some piddly mindless puzzlebox escape room with the most bare-bones definition of “mystery”, I couldn’t believe how many times the game caused me to audibly tell it to “fuck directly off sideways” as I smoothbrained my way into another solution. Only to find that solution just gave me six more enigmas to unravel. It’s genuinely one of the most tightly created games I’ve ever seen, and I haven’t even scratched the dang surface yet!

And this isn’t even the only “one of those” roguelites that kicked my shit in this year. There was also the criminally under-discussed Ball x Pit as well. While the idea of blending block breaking, base building, and bullet hell (that’s almost a tongue-twister) seems like a no-brainer, it was amazing to see it pulled off with such frantic energy and creative gusto. Calling a game that is such white-knuckle butthole-clench inducing “this year’s Balatro” seems absurd, but here we are. The true definition of “just one more run” turning into “I COULD just call in sick to work tomorrow”. I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but hear me you shall: play this game. You won’t regret it. Well, you will. Because it’ll devour your free time without remorse and you’ll love it for that!

Fuck wait, didn’t Death Stranding 2 come out this year?!

Before I get to that whole can of cryptobiotes, let me talk a bit about some more games coming up I’m looking forward to. Pragmata looks pretty cool in that high-budget action game I’ll probably suck at kind of way. I’m supposedly getting another friggin’ A Plague Tale game which already has my stomach churning in equal parts anticipation and bile-boiling disgust. There is a non-zero chance I’m going to play Ys X again ’cause Falcom couldn’t help but go full Atlus and I’m just the kind of sucker to give them money for it. There is that 3D platformer where you play as a train that looks pretty sick. There is also that unexpected Bloodstained sequel coming out that’ll probably be kinda mid but I’ll love it anyway. And that’s only the little drippings we’ve been given so far for announcements.

God help us if we get Okami 2 news this year, I’ll probably throw my desk chair out the window.

But enough about sequels to favorite games of all time! Let’s talk about a sequel to one of my favorite games of all time. Wait…

Yeah, ok, look… Death Stranding 2 is weird. Like, even for Hideo Kojima. While the central gameplay loop remains ever-addicting and expands a ridiculous amount on the already robust feature-filled first game, the second game went in directions I couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t imagine those directions because I am not deranged and unhinged, but thank GOD Kojima is. I loved every second of Death Stranding 2, and I can say that knowing full well that not only is the game not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s not even a cup of tea, it’s a barrel of straight absinthe at times.

Before I go into full spoiler territory, because I can’t get my full point across without blowing the lid off whatever the fuck the last hour of that game is, I’m going to sum up why this game hit so hard with one screenshot I took.

All I had to do is scale one of the largest mountains in the game, build a massive series of ziplines to make traversing it easier, and then later in the game find THIS waiting for me. Simply one of the most astonishing vistas I’ve ever had the pleasure of coming to in a video game. There are so many moments this game just melts into you like some shapeless extra-terrestrial being looking to overwhelm your system and take over from the inside out. And I did absolutely nothing to fight it off, letting it sweep over me like so many river rapids washing away my fucking cargo because GOD DAMMIT NORMAN REEDUS WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO WALK YOU STUPID IDIOT NOW WE’RE GOING TO FAIL THE DELIVERY AND LEA SEYDOUX IS GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED IN US YOU HAD ONE j…ahem, sorry what was I talking about again?

Oh right, shirtless one on one fighting game duals with Troy Baker where we both are using guitars and then he gets eaten by a giant fetus while our ship, currently attached to the head of a giant kaiju, is fist-fighting another giant kaiju in the background and our daughter, who is literally the end of humanity, is just kinda floatin’ there. Right. Normal stuff like that. And yes, that is patently stupid and crazy to put in the climax of your video game about grieving and loss. It wouldn’t work in literally anything else, and yet… I was shaking with the kind of excitement that every game executive in the world wishes they could manufacture. The game is just so silly and stupid and awesome and earnest in a way that only works if you quit fighting it and let it take you fully.

I laughed (a lot, the game is hilarious), I cried (a lot, the game is depressing), and I physically jumped out of my chair (a lot, the game is exciting as hell), all while playing a video game that’s primary source of tension is accidentally killing an emu you were transporting to the band Chvrches ’cause you couldn’t resist jumping your motorcycle of a mountain. For a sequel I literally didn’t want or need, I sure found myself desperately in love with it this year.

But little did I, or just about anyone else, know that that would not be the sequel that would define 2025. Strap in, friends. It’s finally time to talk about the fuckin’ Bug Game.

Oh my sweet baby Sherma: FUCKING. BUG. GAME.

Behold, my favorite video game character of 2025.

How the HELL did Silksong come out? It feels like it was a shitpost for so long, a fever dream, an impossibility that existed right on the peripheral of our minds. Hollow Knight redefined an entire genre and set a standard in game development as a whole, and it’s creators just sorta fucked off into a cave somewhere for nearly 8 years making a sequel? They did almost no marketing, shared almost no details, and then just kinda teleported into view, dropped a sizzling, scorching masterpiece in our laps, went “TAH DAH!” and then fucked off again?! HOW?!

I was one of them. The idiots reposting the same clown-nose memes every video game announcement showcase. The ones that couldn’t help but get Silksong trending on social media even when it had zero chance of being shown off. But even I couldn’t have anticipated exactly what was going to happen when it became a real, tangible piece of media.

Could it live up to the near-limitless amount of hype? Would a wait that long for a game in a tired, over-filled genre really be worth it? Did it languish in development hell or was it actually being slow-roasted to meaty perfection? There is no way it could be THAT good, right?

Team Cherry does not care about your expectations. They do not need your money. They’re coming for your fucking HEART AND SOUL and they delivered one of the most remarkable video games I’ve ever played. A game that kicked my ass up, down, and sideways. A game that continued to surprise, expand, and twist the very understanding I had of what they could achieve with simple side-scrolling bug-on-bug violence. Every new biome, every NPC, every boss, every one of the absolutely stupidly beautiful music tracks, left me astonished. The game didn’t exceed expectations so much as it completely and utterly obliterated them. Every time I thought it was done with me, it looks at me with a sheepish grin, as if to say we haven’t even begun.

Yeah, this is all as hyperbolic as you can get, but the game brought something out of me I thought to be long dead. Taking a brush to the piles of ash and dust that years and years of bitter adulthood lets lay upon you, to reveal something long buried: childlike wonder and joy. I spent the entire time (well, when I wasn’t swearing and considering throwing my controller through my monitor) just slack-jawed and wide eyed, like seeing the world anew. Flying through a breathtaking world, slashing through challenging yet meticulously designed fights, basking in lore and story bits that left me laughing, crying, shaking, thinking. There just haven’t been many games that have gripped me this hard for this long (giggity) in my life. It took it’s rightful place in my top three, a holy Trinity I thought would remain untouched for the rest of my life.

Will I look back at it years from now with that same fervent love? Who knows. But as of right now, it’s easily far and away my game of 2025. And my third favorite video game of all time. Perhaps someday that confirmation bias, that recency bias, that Sherma bias, will fade and I’ll reassess it as “just another excellent Metroidvania”, but for now, it left me feeling reinvigerated and excited for what video games will do next.

Coming out of a year that provided not one, not even a couple, but SEVERAL of my favorite gaming moments of all time, it’s hard to say if 2026 will be a continuation or a step down. But I’m going to continue to approach this year like I did the last: ready and willing to have everything I thought I knew dropped on it’s head. The people that make video games, THE PEOPLE that fucking making video games, are not done with us yet. The medium is still exciting, still growing, still twisting and turning and morphing into things we have yet to begin to imagine.

And that’s pretty damn exciting, if you ask me.