M.H. Williams is a former games journalist (Fanbyte, PCMag, USgamer) and now works in marketing at Digital Extremes.
It’s that time of year again. That time where journalists and content creators alike — burned out from the endless treadmill of gaming news and releases — try desperately to remember what they played throughout the year. According to SteamDB, over 19,000 games released on Steam in 2025, and that’s not even really covering console or mobile games.
The truth is, the best games aren’t always the ones that consume everyone’s attention for the whole year. (I’m not special. I have a number of those games: Fortnite, World of Warcraft, Marvel Rivals, and Final Fantasy XIV.) Instead, some games burn bright for a weekend or a few weeks, leaving a mark on your soul, but not necessarily your brain. So, this is my attempt to highlight the games that captivated me, but probably aren’t front-and-center in many Game of the Year lists. Because that’s how you know I’m really cool.
Skin Deep
The magic of the immersive sim is being given a bunch of tools and then let free into a sandbox where you can play around with those tools. In Skin Deep, you take on the role of Insurance Commando Nina Pasadena, who finds herself frozen on cargo ships as a weapon of last resort. Assuming the crew gets attacked by pirates, Nina is there to stop the theft and save the crew. And for some reason, the crew are cats in this odd future.
Skin Deep wears its goofy humor proudly, but it backs it up with some fantastic stealth immersive sim play. Yes, there’s a lot of sneaking around and subduing pirates, but the sauce is in having to come up with plans on the fly. The pirates are amazingly reactive, setting up traps to kill you or flush you out. In contrast, you’re armed with tools like the Duper — a weapon that lets you duplicate items — that provide odd solutions to problems. Skin Deep also has a unique mechanic for its pirates: their heads pop off, and you need to dispose of them by ejecting them from the ship, lest the pirate pirates respawn. Nothing like shoving a man’s head down a toilet into the vacuum of space.
It’s a deeply weird game, but if you’re hungry for something like IO Interactive’s Hitman games with a vibe that recalls the classic No One Lives Forever, Skin Deep is here for you.
PowerWash Simulator 2
I’m one of those people who likes busywork in games. Sometimes, you can just put on a podcast, start up the game, and zone out for a bit. PowerWash Simulator 2 gives me what I need.
Not much has changed with the core of this game: you’re unleashed on an absolutely filthy location with several cleaning tools at your disposal. Developer FuturLab added some new tools and it’s much easier to find that last bit of dirt that needs to be washed away, but otherwise, this is more PowerWash Simulator. Great times.
Ambrosia Sky: Act One
What’s this? Another immersive sim? Somewhere in between a classic immersive sim like Arkane’s Prey and PowerWash Simulator is Ambrosia Sky. Dalia is part-cleaner and part-archeologist, sent back to her home to discover what caused the death of everyone she knew.
Ambrosia Sky delivers on the methodical, calming vibes of cleaning up a mess, but in this case, the “mess” is living fungus creeping over the corpses of people your character once knew. The game delivers heavily on atmosphere: it’s haunting, walking through the halls of the dead as hostile, unthinking alien life tries to consume everything in its path.
This is only the first part of the entire tale, but developer Soft Rains is off to a fantastic start.
The Drifter
The Drifter is another throwback to a genre we don’t get a lot of in mainstream spaces these days. This point-and-click adventure sees alcoholic asshole Mick Carter returning home to attend a funeral. Unfortunately for Mick, he witnesses a murder that thrusts him into a world of conspiracy on the edges of life itself. What follows is a classic adventure game: click around the environment to find items and curios, use those items to solve puzzles.
What makes it work is a story underpinned by fun characters and a bunch of sci-fi weirdness. My major hit against The Drifter is that Mick's internal monologue is sometimes a bit… over-the-top, like he’s more like a noir character rather than a real person. Regardless, the writing is fantastic overall, and the entire experience will run you around 10 hours tops.
Tavern Keeper
The second Early Access game on my list. As the name suggests, Tavern Keeper is a little management sim, putting you in control of a struggling tavern. Where it excels is in charm and customization. It starts with the very English narrator and continues down through the staff and patrons that’ll fill your tavern.
The game is also pretty heavy on player expression in its tavern layout layer. When it comes to customization, it’s one of those games where you can spend hours setting up your bar counter or a table with the right knick-knacks. It’s early days for Tavern Keeper, but I had a barrel-full of fun with it.
Town to City
Likewise, Town to City is also a haven of customization and player expression, but on a larger scale. The city management mechanics aren’t amazing if you’re a simhead, but you can lay out your little voxel town as you see fit. In some other city builders, the strength is creating a well-oiled machine, but here it’s about creating a work of art, a stunning little town where you’ll stand back hours later and marvel at what you’ve made.
The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-
You Kazutaka Kodaka sickos know who you are. The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- is a collaboration between the Danganronpa director and Zero Escape series director Kotaro Uchikoshi. Together, the pair created a tactical strategy game where our anime school boy hero has 100 days to get to know his classmates and prevent the death of humanity. Ender’s Game, but with a cadre of bizarre characters to bounce off of. The number 100 also plays into the number of story routes in the game, so if you’re going to lock in, be prepared.
Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & The White Guardian
Similar to the more-visible Octopath Traveler 0, Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & The White Guardian is a mobile game that has been reworked into a single-player title. The Atelier series has long been a brick-standard series of RPGs, but I felt like the last entry, Atelier Yumia, went a little far afield in its changes.
Atelier Resleriana delivers a little more of what I’m looking for from the series: turn-based combat, resource gathering, alchemy, and a bunch of decently fun party members. It’s not going to save the industry, but Resleriana knows what it is, and it does that well. And sometimes, that’s all I need y’all.
Labyrinth of the Demon King
Look at those crunchy visuals! Labyrinth Of The Demon King is one of the many throwbacks to FromSoftware’s King’s Field that have popped up in recent years. (Check out Lunacid or Dread Delusion if that’s your poison.) It looks like a game for the original PlayStation, complete with low-poly models and low-res textures. Combat feels like you’re wandering through molasses.
The atmosphere is top-notch, though. It’s creepy as hell and evokes the terror of things hiding just a space beyond your vision, like Silent Hill. You’re weak as hell, always on the back foot. If you want to use a ranged weapon, you have to put down the torch that allows you to see in ever-present darkness. Combined with some fantastic monster design, Labyrinth Of The Demon King is a winner… if you’re up for the challenge.
Look Outside
I’ll end my list with another horror title. Look Outside is a survival horror RPG with a 16-bit aesthetic. Some event outside has turned anyone who looks to the sky into monsters. If you can hold out for 15 days, the evil that has plunged the world into darkness will abate. Survival means scrounging up supplies from the rest of your apartment building, now haunted by unearthly beings.
Look Outside is a turn-based gem. You could waste your time counting down the days inside your apartment, but the real zest is in exploring beyond your door. What awaits you are your fellow apartment residents, many of whom have been irreversibly altered by whatever’s happening outside. Who do you trust? Who do you kill? Is it best to use these resources now, or save them for later? If an RPG is really about your choices, then Look Outside is littered with meaningful ones.
Like Labyrinth Of The Demon King, Look Outside is a tall order with a great deal of difficulty, both in the combat itself and the horrific situations you’ll face.