Video games feel like they went through a subtle transition in 2025. At least, that’s what I see reflected in my list. Major publishers are good for maybe a couple of great, moving releases. But even those games aren’t supposed to be the ones that end up on a Game of the Year list (for the most part). This continues to be where I’m at with my relationship to games: I worry, and then I look around and realize I’m surrounded by experiences that I love.
That worry, of course, is that the corporations that own everything will lose interest in making games for someone like me. People who are into this hobby are often whiny, entitled babies – I know because I’m whiny and entitled. I’ve been playing games every day since I was five, so I take it pretty seriously, and I think I know what’s best. But as a collective, we’re so loud and so demanding that I do not envy anyone who tries to make a game for us.
The good news is that I don’t think we need to go in search of some solution. If the major publishers disappeared tomorrow, my top ten list would look remarkably similar. And I don't need international conglomerates spending $200 million to make the lowest-common denominator content anymore. So if some suit thinks spending their budget on broad slop for everyone is a better opportunity cost, then 2025 proved that is fine. If corporations don’t need me anymore, I certainly don’t need them.
And the serendipity of the situation is that I think this puts Giant Bomb and our community in a strong position. Corporations decided in the last few years that they don’t need games media anymore as well. And would you look at that: we are better off without them.
10. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
I got my hands on an early preview build of Expedition 33 a few months before it came out, and I remember thinking that everyone was going to love it. Everything integrates into everything else so well, and every action pops off the screen. The menus pop, the parries pop, the music pops. It’s an easy game to fall in love with, which is a difficult feeling to produce.
Oh, and I liked the ending. I don’t know if I loved it while it was happening, but I enjoy thinking back on its meaning and implications – and I think that’s more important to me.
9. LEGO Party!
No matter how many young people this world produces, they’ll never be able to kill the legacy of the Nintendo 64. It’s probably challenging to appreciate the possibilities that opened up when we got our first console with four controller ports built into the system. But that created a world where we could get something like Mario Party. Now, I don’t think it’s the N64’s fault that it took until Lego Party to really refine that formula into something respectable, but it did. Lego Party takes Mario Party and improves it in every way, and I find myself constantly craving to play it more. I can’t go back to being a kid in my basement with my friends constantly coming over to the house to play, but Lego Party recaptures that feeling better than anything else.
8. Dispatch
The greatest thing a game has working for it is not its graphics or even its gameplay; it's the player’s imagination. They have no budget. They have no time limit. And if you can get into that space, they can play your game all day. The problem for Telltale games (which is the legacy that Dispatch comes from) is that developers need to do quite a bit of work to trick players into using their imagination. Dispatch accomplishes that by giving players a basic-yet-satisfying core gameplay system of literally dispatching superheroes to various emergencies. And that seemed to be enough to let players give themselves over to the visual novel side of Dispatch’s gameplay. The characters and writing are so good that it then becomes easy to internalize their feelings and emotions, and that’s when Dispatch becomes something that you never stop playing.
7. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4
You know that meme about the person who is sad that they’ll have to kill Tony Hawk when the race war starts? I never thought that was very funny. First, it was a stolen joke where Tony Hawk replaced the original punchline of Michael Cera. But also… of course, everyone loves Tony Hawk. Like, everyone played his games and watched his shit on ESPN 2 during the latter part of the nineteen hundreds. Tony Hawk isn’t even white – he’s clear.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 calls back to a time when these games (and the man) were a cultural institution.
6. Donkey Kong Bananza
Nintendo has a couple of tools in its belt that it always goes to. One of the most worn out tools is the “successful game + new gimmick” – Ocarina of Time, but now with a weird time system, Ocarina of Time, but now you can turn into a wolf, Ocarina of Time, but now you’re a cartoon in a boat. Donkey Kong Bananza is Super Mario Odyssey, but now you can destroy everything, including the terrain. And as usual, that works. Nintendo then turns to one of its more recent, oft-used tools: the great big finale. Bananza is a great game that really goes over the top thanks to its excellent ending sequence.
5. Despelote
When I was eight, I lived in Quito, Ecuador with my family. My whole world revolved around Team Ecuador qualifying for the World Cup, but I also remember hushed conversations between my parents that I didn’t understand about the dollarization of the Ecuadorian economy and what that would mean for their jobs. As with any memory, the strong emotions stand out. I remember getting in trouble, or my mother’s hand, but everything else is fuzzy and ill-formed.
And while these memories aren’t my own, they might as well be. Roger Ebert used to call movies “empathy machines,” but that term is even more appropriate for Despelote.
4. Hollow Knight: Silksong
There is a platform in Silksong that is at the bottom of a chasm of gears and cogs. It’s difficult to get there, and it’s difficult to get out of there. And if you keep pressing on, the game gets even more punishing. But the sense of place of that platform was so strong to me because of everything the game does. The challenge makes everything feel like an accomplishment. The audio makes everything feel alive. A great Metroidvania needs a lot of elements to work, but atmosphere might be the most important, and Silksong is the pinnacle of the genre for that.
3. Blue Prince
I was watching Wake Up Dead Man over the holidays. A good mystery movie is one where every detail matters. The same is true for a Metroidbrainia. And in Blue Prince, everything you look at and interact with is a clue for something else. This leads to a game that never stops unfurling into something new. Blue Prince is staggering and does the thing of making you feel like a genius – and occasionally it may actually require you to be one.
2. Sektori
Dual-stick shooters are so pure. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved is maybe my favorite game of the Xbox 360 generation, and Sektori is the brilliant follow-up that builds on that. What it really does, though, is provide me with that religious experience of ascending into the realm of pure reaction. At a high level (I was No. 17 in the world at one point), your eyes unfocus, and you begin to see all of the enemies and their behaviors simultaneously. This enables you to guide your ship and your shot through danger in a way that feels like aliens could come down and recruit you as a pilot for their secret space war.
Sektori also does the smart thing of offering different modes that require less of your time than its main campaign, but I know I love this game because the 30-minute runs for that primary mode did not bother me.
1. Baby Steps
Back in 2008, I played a game called Minotaur China Shop. It was a web game that used the Unity plugin to run in your browser. You played as a minotaur who has a passion for fine china. But, of course, you’re a minotaur – a literal bull in a china shop. The idea was to sell your dining ware while trying to avoid destroying as much of the product as possible.
For various reasons that I won’t get into, I’ve always felt clumsy and a bit disconnected from my own nervous system. So, Minotaur China Shop was an emotional game for me.
I had the same experience with Octodad: Dadliest Catch. This was a character ill-suited to the job of being a human father, but he was a dad because he acted like one.
My list is full of my bullshit. Metroidvanias and dual-stick shooters, but nothing is more my bullshit than a game that explores metaphors and emotions through mechanics.
That’s Baby Steps.
In Baby Steps, the player character, Nate, can barely walk. He can barely do anything. So it’s absurd that the goal of the game is to get him to the top of a mountain. It’s basically impossible, right? Well, how do we do anything in life? The same way that we’re going to get Nate to his destination: put one step in front of the other.
I don’t feel capable. My footing is unsure. And like Nate, my self-worth is often so low that the idea of bothering other people with my needs is its own mountain to climb. So what do I do? Well, I have no choice – in my life, my job, and with my family – I put one foot in front of the other. And eventually, I look back, and I can’t believe how far I’ve come.
Will I do the truly difficult thing of learning to love myself and learning to ask for help? Well, if Nate can do it.