The Best Video Games of 2025 (So Far)

Gamers, while I’m sorry to say that everyone was right about Grand Theft Auto 6 not arriving in 2025, I’m also happy to announce that 2025’s slate of video games has easily made up for it. Who needs to steal a car and whip it around Vice City when Mario Kart World has rail grinding now? I’d like to see GTA 6 include Cow as a playable character, or maybe Wario dressed in a bumblebee costume. We don’t even need GTA 6 in 2025 now. We have the Nintendo Switch 2. Good riddance, I say.

We’ve spent our time this year ripping apart monsters in Doom: The Dark Ages, finally beating (a version of) Elden Ring with help from our friends in Elden Ring: Nightreign, and testing out the first major home video game console to come out in five years. Spoiler alert: We had a lot of fun. Plus, there are still some amazing titles coming our way later this year. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater are almost here. We’ll also see sequels galore for Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding, The Outer Worlds, and Pokémon Legends. Until then, we put together a list of the ten best video games of 2025 that we’ve played so far.

Split Fiction

Split Fiction is the latest incredible co-op adventure from the team behind It Takes Two and A Way Out. The two playable characters are each aspiring genre writers who fight against a tech company trying to steal their ideas. Their virtual world splits sci-fi and fantasy into distinct adventures, with clever gameplay twists that force players to work together in ways we haven’t seen before. Don’t forget to make it to the mind-blowing final level. —Bryn Gelbart

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

Citizen Sleeper was one of my favorite titles in 2022, so I’m happy to say that the sequel’s efforts to make the game a bit more complicated didn’t completely ruin the magic of this indie strategy game. In fact, Citizen Sleeper 2’s more advanced dice-rolling mechanics only made everything about this Dungeons and Dragons–inspired space adventure that much more enjoyable. —Josh Rosenberg

South of Midnight

In April, a piece of entertainment released that was deeply Black, deeply southern Gothic, and a blast from start to finish. I’m not talking about Ryan Coogler’s Sinners—I’m talking about South of Midnight. Even so, the vampire film does have a bit in common with South of Midnight’s stunning, musically rich journey as the player follows Hazel’s quest to find her lost mother. Both are in debt to folklore, and the swamp of South of Midnight is rife with haints and other creatures both friendly and deadly. The gameplay is refreshingly simple, but it’s the story and atmosphere that make this one stand out. —B.G.

Mario Kart World

Mario Kart World is without a doubt the best Mario Kart game yet. The Nintendo Switch 2 launch title features 24 drivers at the same time, new mechanics such as grinding and wall jumping, and a whole interconnected world to explore outside of races. Players can also select new characters such as Penguin, Wiggler, and Cow—to the delight of many Nintendo fans. World might not reinvent Mario Kart’s wheels, but it’s still as chaotically fun as ever. —J.R.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

Just when you think the Yakuza franchise couldn’t possibly achieve anything wackier, the studio announces a game titled Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. And true to its word, this action-adventure game is about a former yakuza boss who is shipwrecked with amnesia before resorting to a life of piracy. In this spin-off game, you form a ragtag crew and control your ship in lively naval battles. If you’re not turned off yet, then hear me out: Pirate Yakuza is the swashbuckling adventure you never knew you needed. —J.R.

Lost Records

With Lost Records, Don’t Nod released its best teen drama since the original Life Is Strange. The premise is a bit like Yellowjackets. Lost Records follows a group of women who were teens in the ’90s and adults in the modern day … and yes, some messed-up weird stuff happened when they were teens. The episodic adventure game was released in two parts, and while Bloom has a meandering start, Rage amps up the stakes. It’s a wonderful ’90s throwback in more ways than one. —B.G.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

The debut title from Sandfall Interactive is an ambitious RPG that is already turning heads for Game of the Year consideration. The game contains turn-based, party-based combat with light real-time elements (think closer to Earthbound than Final Fantasy VII Remake) and a dark-fantasy setting inspired by French Revolutionary imagery. An impressive voice cast includes Andy Serkis and Daredevil’s Charlie Cox. Plus, it reminds us of those classic Nintendo RPGs—like Paper Mario for adults. —J.R.

Doom: The Dark Ages

Doom: The Dark Ages is a whole new take on the classic Doom formula, with all-new guns, a shield, and various flail-type weapons for getting up close. There’s also a mech. And a mech dragon. —B.G.

Blue Prince

In some gamer circles, Blue Prince is called a “Metroidbrainia.” I have no idea what the hell that means, but I have played enough of Blue Prince to understand it’s one of those games where you don’t necessarily “unlock” new “abilities.” Instead, you gain knowledge and write it down in a notebook if you don’t want to forget it. On its face, Blue Prince is a first-person game about exploring a procedurally generated house, making blueprints (clever), and solving environmental puzzles. In reality, it’s a game that turns everyone who plays it into a deranged lunatic with 70 pages of notes. —B.G.

Elden Ring: Nightreign

Before the 2024 Game Awards trailer, I could have sworn that FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki told IGN that we wouldn’t see an Elden Ring sequel. And yet, Elden Ring: Nightreign arrived to make the hellish trials of dying a million times to the same boss a shared experience. The cooperative spin-off is less a full-blown sequel and more like FromSoft made everyone’s illegal multiplayer mods an official product. It has a bit of everything that’s popular right now—battle royale, rogue-like—and, of course, it’s still a Souls game at its core. —J.R.