I love playing video games. What, are you surprised or something? My job is to write about games and tech and a million other things, but one of my hobbies is to play.
I’m nerd enough that I’m proud of the Excel spreadsheet I use to keep track of all my completions, my backlog, and even my wishlist. Since I started that, I’ve completed (and in many cases, 100% completed) 195 unique games, I have 197 games installed on my Xbox Series X to play, and there are dozens more that I either don’t own or haven’t released yet on my wishlist.
2025 has already been one heck of a year for gaming, too, so I thought I’d take a look back at the games that stood out to me so far, my current game-of-the-year contender, and the games on my backlog that I can’t wait to get to.
The honorable mentions
First, let’s get two honorable mentions out of the way. The first is Copycat, an indie game that I reviewed. It’s beautifully sad in its simplicity, and it definitely caught me in my feels — it was just a little too short-lived to have the impact on me these other games did.
Second is South of Midnight, one of this year’s first-party Xbox releases. We praised South of Midnight in our review, but I also agree with my colleague in that the art direction, worldbuilding, characters, and narrative of South of Midnight are all incredible — but it relies too much on gameplay that ultimately lacks depth and gets repetitive.
5. Avowed
The first entry on my list is one many have forgotten about, given its release at the beginning of the year. Yes, I’m talking about Avowed, the latest (for another couple of weeks, at least) title from Obsidian Entertainment.
I absolutely adored Avowed in my review and had a blast with this colorful fantasy RPG, which threaded dry humor into its morbid narrative to great effect. Why isn’t Avowed higher on this list, then?
Well, the game had technical issues at launch, with numerous bugs and flawed performance. On top of that, and despite Obsidian’s excellent worldbuilding, other games this year delivered a more meaningful narrative or more engaging gameplay.
4. Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Next is Assassin’s Creed Shadows, a divisive game for… well, mostly nonsense. Look, Ubisoft absolutely deserves your mistrust and even disdain for a variety of reasons, but I promise that AC Shadows is not the game to use as an example.
Ubisoft as a publisher has been on a downward trend for years, but Assassin’s Creed Shadows is easily its best game in a long while. It’s massive and ambitious, with a gorgeous world, addictive and diverse gameplay, and a story that — while basic — does draw you in.
I spent 112 hours in Assassin’s Creed Shadows for my review and came pretty close to 100% completing it, and no one forced me to — I was simply having a good time. The next three games affected me even more, though.
3. Blue Prince
One of the most surprising games of the year for me was Blue Prince, which I genuinely had never heard of until it suddenly became one of the highest-rated and most critically acclaimed video games of all time.
For the uninitiated, Blue Prince is a roguelike-meets-puzzle game in which you have inherited your mysterious uncle’s estate, with the stipulation being that you must find the 46th room in his constantly shifting 45-room manor.
Blue Prince is a stellar game, and it’s addictive enough that my colleague forced herself to uninstall it. I truly loved uncovering as many secrets as I could, but what makes the game so brilliant early on can also become tedious after dozens of hours — and that’s the randomness.
2. Citizen Sleeper: Starward Vector
In second place, we have a game that most of you probably haven’t heard of — and you should absolutely go play. That would be Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, the sequel to the game that prompted one of my most-read editorials of all time.
The Citizen Sleeper games are sci-fi RPGs inspired by dice-based tabletop games. You play as a Sleeper, the consciousness of a real human embedded in an artificial body to pay off a debt in distant star systems.
My Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector review heaps praise on this follow-up, which successfully captures lightning in a bottle twice. Gareth Damian Martin is one of my all-time favorite video game writers now, and I’ll take every opportunity to tell people to go play this game.
1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Last but certainly not least, we have the game that, in all honesty, feels like an unbeatable game of the year for 2025. What other game could I be speaking of if not Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?
The debut title from a smaller studio, Expedition 33, is a turn-based RPG — but it’s not like any other turn-based RPG you’ve ever played. The worldbuilding, the art direction, the soundtrack, the gameplay, the narrative — this game is pretty damn close to perfection.
I wrote an unserious article about how I didn’t love every part of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but I struggle to even imagine another game that could possibly best this masterpiece in the coming months.
The 2025 backlog, including what I’m playing now
I have a full-time job, a home to manage with a daughter and a cat to feed; I simply can’t play every game that I want to. There’s never enough time, and that means I’m already behind on the 2025 games I want to experience.
Right now, I’m playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, and it has taken me straight back to the hundreds of hours I spent playing Skyrim years ago. I’m already a couple of dozen hours in, and I see myself easily sinking many more before I set this game down (our review of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered agrees with me).
As for what’s next on the list, I still need to play The Alters, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Master Crafted Edition, Ruffy and the Riverside, Eternal Strands, DOOM: The Dark Ages, and Lost in Random: The Eternal Die (in that order, at least that’s the plan right now).
That’s not counting all the upcoming games that haven’t even been released yet, so 2025 is definitely keeping me busy — and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
