Xalavier Nelson Jr. is a writer on Borderlands 4, Hypnospace Outlaws, and more. He is also voicing the lead character in the upcoming Hellraiser: Revival. Oh, and he also runs Strange Scaffold, a studio that released three games THIS YEAR. Yeah, we don't know when he sleeps either.
Friend--can I call us friends? I don't want to be presumptuous. It seems like we're in a good place, right? We enjoy each other's company. We can be honest and vulnerable. We even buried that dead guy last year. That was fun! That was bonding.
Anyway, if I find out that you haven't played these games from 2025, all of that is forgotten, and I will see your bloodline pursued to the horrible end it deserves.
Absolum
I love the idea of beat-em-ups. The coolest people you know knock evil dudes through lavishly decorated setpieces? I'm sold. The thing is, high-level play in a lot of beat-em-ups isn't really about combat, in the same way that high-level play in a survival horror game isn't about fighting zombies anymore (it's about route-planning and resource management). Ascending skill in a beat-em-up is often tied to memorization - knowing when an enemy comes in and what type it will be ahead of time so you can react accordingly. I'm not interested in that flow, so I pick up a new title and usually stop after a couple levels, when the game demands more from me than I want to give.
Because Absolum ties the beat-em-up into a more traditional roguelike--a genre where run appeal is often based on variety--memorization is less of a useful tool, and the entire beautiful machine instead focuses on a simple but expressive combat engine I've sunk tens of hours into. I adore this game, would recommend it to people who don't even like the genre, and I'm desperately hoping it gets a sequel in spirit if not name.
Promise Mascot Agency
Aside from being a deeply satisfying blend of open world exploration and personnel management, Promise Mascot Agency features one of the best characters gaming has ever seen. I'm not exaggerating. Pinky, your companion and foil throughout the project, is a severed finger with giant anime eyes that manages to go from slapstick comedy, to pathos, to a sincere exploration of what it means to heal without once feeling forced or artificial. Her depth puts a lot of games with more po-faced, traditional aesthetics for drama to shame.
Play this game, get to know Pinky, and become more human in the process.
Sultan's Game
When a game can teach you the rules and moral code of a society so effectively that you are able to maneuver within that digital space and anticipate the consequences of an interaction without a single tutorial? You've got something really special on your hands. Sultan's Game is a cruel, nuanced, and intentional exploration of the debauchery and hierarchy of a Thousand Nights-styled world of myth, and court intrigue. It's a deckbuilder where you quite literally use people. You must commit at least one great sin or significant act every seven days, or you and the people you love will be put to death. It's a queasy, compelling triumph.
Lies of P: Overture
I'll be honest: I didn't play this DLC. But, the Overture expansion came out this year, and gives me another chance to shout that Lies of P is maybe the one Soulslike I've played that manages to stand next to From Software's own work, with brilliant lore and impactful combat, and they did it all using public domain character Pinocchio. Wonderful.
If you don't manage to finish the game, look up the ending tease for the next project because it is galaxy-brained and excellent.
Once Upon a Katamari
After years of disappointments and remakes (and that one time they decided to give the King of All Cosmos a fleshy human face on the PS Vita), Bandai Namco Entertainment has put together an honest to God delight of a sequel to the first two Katamari games--and I will be damned before I see the series disappear again because people didn't show up to support it.
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
This game came out of nowhere for me. After almost 13 years of development and the departure of its creative director, the crew at Level-5 takes three incredibly disparate games (a Breath of the Wild-styled open world, a dungeon-crawling action-RPG, and a material-hunting crafter) and smashes them together... and it somehow isn't a giant mess. It's a charming, well-written train of endless progression and a constant dripfeed of meaningful things to do. In a world of giant games that don't seem to respect your time, Fantasy Life i is a giant game that does.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2
Five years from now, there will be a bunch of video essays about how this was an unappreciated masterpiece of vampire storytelling and punchy, chaotic action, approaching an impossibly cursed project legacy to build something genuinely powerful--if you approach it on its own terms. Get in early so you can say you had the right opinion all along.
Mario Kart World
I love Mario Kart. I despise Rainbow Road. The version of Rainbow Road in Mario Kart World is such a transcendent human experience I literally cried. It's worth the price of admission for a Nintendo Switch 2 on its own, which is something I never could have predicted coming into this roller coaster of a fuckin' year.
Also, the battle royale mode is pretty good.
Borderlands 4
I'm a little biased because I worked on this one as a writer, but as someone who's been a fan of Borderlands from the first installment, I adored what this game put down. Gearbox successfully transferred the magic of the series to an open-world setting, and the cohesion of that world--the tonal consistency between a dick joke and watching a human rights violation--feels unified in a way I think the series has never quite achieved before.
When my newborn son came home from the hospital with us, between delirious wake cycles and feedings and diaper changes, I sprinted through the game with him sleeping in my arms, and it's one of my favorite gaming memories of the year.
Warframe
Speaking of games that respect your time--did you play Warframe years ago and not connect with it for one reason or another? I did. I've tried to jump in three times now, from the PS4 launch to today, each time never connecting with the game or its structure enough to stick with it more than a couple hours.
This year, it clicked, though--and it clicked HARD. After 12 years of gradually building with their community, the team at Digital Extremes actually feels like they're hitting their stride more than ever. They have so much content they can afford to be generous with it, doling out a smorgasbord of interesting storylines and game modes and cool new tools, all for free, without excessive grinding. The onboarding has been much improved, showing you why you should care about the Tenno at a much faster pace. It's just... a very good game. You deserve something good in your life. Play some Warframe.