With Game of the Year coverage out of the way, the gang sits down to finish it all off for a topical discussion of the year in games. Scott is joined by Spencer, Crystal, Elvie, and Lorelai to go over as many topics as they could in 12 20-40 minute segments.

Part 1: Friend-Type Games – Crystal
Part 2: Dynasty Warriors – Lorelai
Part 3: Silksong – Spencer
Part 4: Blue Prince – Scott
Part 5: The New Age of Handhelds – Crystal
Part 6: The Remastering of the Classics – Lorelai
Part 7: Final Fantasy Tactics asks us What is a remake? – Scott and Lorelai
Part 8: We have to talk about Rematch – Scott
Part 9: Unique Artstyles and Designs of 2025 – Elvie
Part 10: Nightreign – Scott
Part 11: Questions – Everyone
Finale: What do we want out of 2026? – Lorelai

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, Scott, Lorelai, Crystal, Spencer, and Elvie.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Lorelai and Produced by Lorelai, Crystal, Elvie, and Scott

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 81: Game of the Year Special Edition appeared first on Gamesline.

Please, if you read this, read other articles by our staff. Share posts and dig deeper into the author’s work. We have been around for a long time, and we have a body of work beyond what you see when you click on the article you got posted onto your Bluesky feed. That’s all I can ask of you, and that’s all I will say. Besides the following, which is my cool badass list of video games that I played and thought were good.

10. Digimon Story: Time Stranger

I told you I liked it!!!!! I told you there were aspects that I enjoyed!!! People on Reddit were freaks to me about this game but who cares. I don’t. Anyway dang, they made a Digimon game that you don’t have to be a JRPG pervert to like. I am a JRPG pervert and this was still easier to get through than the previous games. There were a few fun characters and the combat was enjoyable to interface with! I got to ride around on Diaboromon’s back! I feel more hopeful for the future of Digimon than truly in love with this game, but I still had a good time. The DLC is still a huge letdown so far though. 

9. Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army

I will always love interacting with the Shin Megami Tensei universe in all of its forms. A noir-esque detective story set in the Taisho era of Japan? With SMT’s coolest protag of all time (at least top three, Flynn and the Strange Journey Marine are up there)? I’m seated. The combat’s a bit of a mash-fest, but it’s far better than the original PS2 version’s, since it’s based on the updated form it took in the sequel.

Even though its gameplay is a bit lacking compared to other action games, Raidou stands out by telling a story about having pride in your country and not your nation, in which you believe in the people living around you. Going into this, I didn’t know that Raidou was a hero of the people, and that made me love him far more than seeing him in Nocturne and going “woah cool outfit” even though the outfit is REALLY cool. I’m hopeful for another remaster, but I truly want a sequel, to polish what’s here and to tell a new story about why community is worth protecting.

8. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

Speaking of community, the Trails series is famous for feeling so alive. I remember starting the demo for this remake of the original Trails game and speaking to an NPC. He was ruminating on asking his crush out, and when I returned to him after a bit of progress, he was in the process of proposing a date. I was able to chart their relationship blossoming and evolving as Estelle and Joshua begin their career as peacekeepers. The duo’s adventures across their home country of Liberl introduce them to a variety of people, and the writing supports that their lives continue to exist outside of their interactions with them. 

I enjoy softening up enemies with overworld combat before shifting into turn-based tactics! I love seeing how Estelle and Joshua mature in such a short time as heroes! I love the pacing of the plot that slowly expands the world for both the characters and the player. I need to finish this game completely still, and we need the remake of 2nd at the end of the year to put a bow on the story, but what’s here is strong and I can tell why so many people I know are obsessed with the Trails world. I’m on board now!

7. Donkey Kong Bananza

I have seen a lot of my fellow critics wrestling with their feelings on this game. It’s not deep in the slightest. It’s kinda dumb, honestly, when you think about it for a few minutes. You’re a big ol ape crushing rocks and punching things. You are jumping around and picking up bananas. There’s barely a plot, there’s a ton of nostalgia-bait, and it’s an exclusive on an overly-expensive console released right when America’s economy took a downturn that is only getting worse. Donkey Kong Bananza is a game of excess. But excess rules sometimes. I don’t want a world where people are harmed for the benefit of the elite. I do want a world where people can do dumb shit like buy a game like Bananza without worry. I want the people who make big games like Bananza to be compensated well for their efforts and not rushed. And I want to indulge in a lil nostalgia pandering here and there. JUST SOMETIMES!!!! 

Bananza feels good to play, that’s the long and short of it. Running, punching, digging, surfing, every movement option is a joy to use and a blast to master. What was established by Mario Odyssey is improved with Bananza. I know buying a Switch 2 is a hard ask at the moment, even if you have the money, due to lack of exclusives, but damn does this one make a great case for it. This should’ve been the pack-in instead of Mario Kart.

6. Umamusume: Pretty Derby

I am going to skip the diatribe about how evil gacha games are. I know it, you know it, I will still drink that garbage etc etc etc. There is also the layer on top of this that is horse racing, an often inhumane institution that is based around gambling. I would not blame you if you’re unable to divorce any of this from the goofy horse girl game, and it’s good to be aware of it all even if you are, but hey, I still love this game!

Umamusume has an overwhelming amount of personality. A problem with gacha games is how often you can miss out on a character’s writing and inclusion in the story beyond their introduction if you don’t pull them. Uma does a great job of weaving each character into multiple events and into the stories you actually do play so the cast feels consistently full. If you have a favorite, they will keep showing up, interacting with new additions and the original cast in unique ways. The raising sim gameplay is a nice reminder that we need more Monster Rancher in modern times, and I’ve been having a lovely time connecting further with my friends by cracking jokes about dumb things we imagine the horses doing. A gacha game is obviously carried by its cast, and Uma has one of the best in the business.

5. Blade Chimera

Team Ladybug has finally made a Metroidvania without an outside license, and they did a fantastic job. I wrote a whole dang review about this one, and I ate it up like I have every previous game they’ve released. The pixel art is gorgeous and emotive, there’s a ton of flavor in each gameplay interaction, and the weapons are slick and fun to use. There are a lot of mechanics, but they blend very well and don’t feel overwhelming. Blade Chimera is a new classic that I push everyone to check out. I feel a bit bad that I didn’t get around to Shadow Labyrinth this past year, but you all didn’t talk about Blade Chimera, so I’ll call that even. 

4. Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition

I only kinda enjoyed Xenoblade X for most of its runtime. I would’ve had it on this list, but we wouldn’t be talking about it in the top five if the new chapter wasn’t there. There’s a lot to love here that was in the Wii U version. Customizing your mech is a blast no matter what console you’re doing it on, and the evolving politics of the various alien races on planet Mira lead to thought-provoking, funny, and heartwarming events. By the end of the original story, there’s a slight feeling of emptiness, a feeling of “where does this story go, was the battle this group of people fought worth the effort?” Luckily, the new chapter answers that question in a big way, introducing a new character, Al, who pushes things forward in ways that feel similar to what I loved about Xenoblade 3. As I was playing X, I initially felt interested in a sequel for more mechanical reasons, but now I am truly excited to see what happens with the characters.

3. DELTARUNE Chapters 3+4

Deltarune is hitting the middle of the story, and normally stories can lack standout events in these sections. Deltarune bucks that trend, introducing characters and concepts that have recontextualized everything you’ve experienced so far. Toby Fox and co. made me feel emotions about a television set. One of the coolest characters this year is a Hammer Bro from Mario but old. The high quality Deltarune has set in the past was easily met with the new chapters, and the rest of the story is going to be difficult to wait for. 

2. of the Devil Episodes 0-2

I played episode 0 in 2025, and episode 2 released in 2025 technically. I am going to shout it all out together. Who cares….I do care about how flawless the worldbuilding is in of the Devil. There are articles spread through the environments, and usually these are created to give background to events that aren’t essential. of the Devil expects more from its readers, not only giving you extra points for picking up on the point of articles, but uses the articles actively in the main story. Current events affecting the day to day lives of citizens? It’s like real life!! 

I don’t think a single line of text is superfluous in of the Devil. Character beats are built on while exploring environments. Dumb references are used to humanize someone during stressful moments. I don’t want to claim this will 100% be an all-timer off of a half-released game, but so far I am…”all in”!!!!! Like cards. Because they have poker stuff in this one. 

1. Pokemon Legends: Z-A

I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SO SO SORRY THAT IT’S A MONSTER COLLECTOR I’M SORRY
What else could it have been? It’s always good when Pokemon does new things, and I think Z-A is the perfect experiment with the formula. More active combat with cooldowns instead of turns is a fun choice, especially for me as a Xenoblade fan. Similar to Xenoblade, I appreciate how well a sense of community is formed within Lumiose as time goes on. The player character’s rise up the ranks not only proves their worthiness to wield Mega Evolution, but also brings perhaps Pokemon’s best cast together. I adore that someone like Tarragon, the local game streamer’s construction worker grandpa, has interactions with the ex-criminal barista Grisham that make sense and add onto both of their characters. I will always, ALWAYS love a game that makes me feel at home with its cast, and Z-A does that every time I run into one of the main crew. It also helps that it retroactively patched up some (not all, you can’t fix everything wrong with X/Y without remaking them or going back in time and not cancelling Z) of gen 6’s story issues. Game Freak is getting better and better at making the Pokemon world feel less like a fake place that exists for RPG mechanics to happen in and more locations that human beings would live in lately, and Z-A is the best example of that.

The post John’s Top Ten Games of 2025 appeared first on Gamesline.

Thanks to all this shared lifting, I’ve been able to manage this last year honing Masters-level scholarship techniques and have found for you all today that there’s a new way of complaining that makes you sound really smart, and everyone is doing it. Instead of saying, “This gameplay sucks ass and I hate it” you can more constructively and insufferably say: “I see that the choices made in design are at Tension.” In sensemaking, Tension generally means that two concepts in conversation with one another may have a natural friction that can be negotiated with an experiment—or in our case: designed around within the bounds of a videogame. That frictional force between two or more aligned concepts is known as ‘tension’. There is tension inherent to any shooter game since the player can solve their problems with a well-aimed button press, thus every shooter will design weapons, armor, sightlines, tracking systems, enemy patterns, etc. that don’t “solve” this problem but negotiate these tensions inherent to being a game about shooting targets. And you can basically just throw that word ‘tension’ around anywhere and professors will give you an A. It’s a little cheat you can use to sound smart that should work well for all of us for the next year or so… At least until it becomes as overused as “Transformative”, “To what extent”, or “Subscribe to my Substack”.

With that explanation out of the way, welcome to Solon’s list of the Best Design Tensions of 2025:

Open World vs Narrative — Promise Mascot Agency

Can Kiryu Talk Too Much? 

Here is a tension as old as Adventure (its not a duck), but thanks to AI-slop this year we’ve gotten to see just how much both design schools are mercilessly shit on by executive ‘free-thinkers’ who believe narrative design and open world design are spun up by magical frustum culling programmer elves. One of my favorite memes from 2025, “Easy, M” Super Mario RTX – Unreal Engine 5, highlights this perfectly: 

I had no idea AAA Mario would be so popular. I had to make some more. 🍄
ft. @ArielHck as Peach https://t.co/p3YMlF5rEn pic.twitter.com/ggarxptMuZ

— Ryan Stewart (@RyanStewartVO) December 21, 2025

I’m imagining a games executive taking all the wrong lessons from this, but also hiring Ryan Stewart and Ariel Hack.

Open world designs require the designer to build scaffolding that guide a player or players to a destination—this is known as wayfinding. Playtonic redesigned Yooka-Replaylee this year in order to give the player more wayfinding tools and it made the original Yooka-Laylee go from being mocked mercilessly to merely misunderstood. A modern day miracle! Narrative designs can often align well with open world games as a wayfinding tool to very simply tell the player with words what the current state of the world is or where they should go to progress the plot. Everyone’s favorite fairy Navi, from Ocarina of Time, is a foremost example of this: the name being short for ‘navigator’ evokes a wayfinding tool. So much so, that I can summarize a major tension between open worlds and narrative by saying “Hey, Listen!” So the wider games audience knows all too well that when you use a character for game cues, that will reduce that character to being the player’s nanny. This takes the player (and even the character they are playing) out of the role they are playing within an adventure game.

This isn’t a negative though, story is great at taking attention away from the player doing other tasks. This can be constructive for breaking up players’ various tasks, or for onboarding/offboarding quests. Of course, it can be a double-edged sword when the player is trying to do something and is suddenly being bombarded with information, which is essentially the joke of Mario (4K) over-explaining things the player is in the middle of doing. (This tension also comes up when presenting games for an audience like the old E3 stage demos—[show] & [tell] are literally in conflict with each other even though both must happen!) 

So what if I told you that we’ve solved this conflict that is so core to games? I know as scientists we’re not supposed to ‘solve’ tensions but rather explore what effects those tensions create but we’ll get to that later in the list! Kaizen Game Works really did SOLVE the Navi problem! Promise Mascot Agency is an open world game that uses a management simulator to bridge their story and their world. You play the role of Literally Kiryu from Yakuza, and you take care of misfit mascots in a haunted town by employing them all to serve the community and make it a better place. Every 30 minutes or so, new jobs open up and you can make money by sending the right mascots to each individual job, and while they work the jobs you collect power-ups for your car, items to keep your mascots hydrated, and chat with community members to find and enhance your relationships with clients. It is extremely similar to Kaizen’s previous game Paradise Killer. Except, instead of spilling tea with dying gods who have all the time in heaven, you have timers ticking in the background ushering you towards different parts of the town. Normally, this would add anxiety to a situation that is reliant on the player keeping many plates spinning at once, but I’m telling you They Solved It! It’s just Simpsons Hit & Run!

The secret is: the player always has to hit a button to swap between various narrative, management, and driving modes. The timers ticking can suggest increasingly urgent moves to make, but control is never taken away from the player until/unless they decide to change the mode themselves through button activation. It’s incredibly subtle, but whenever a mascot needs relief, they flash a big loud prompt on the UI that says “Please Help in 5 Minutes!” and then the player is granted agency to manage a stopping point from map exploration within that time frame—or you can just let your mascot drown and take the hit on the money, like a real boss. This turns what should be an annoying obligation into player agency! The only exception Promise Mascot Agency makes is when assassins call you on the phone to say “We will come kill you if you don’t send the family one million yen right now.”—which, fair. 

Kaizen Game Works has a deep respect for visual novel design and because of that Promise Mascot Agency is full of design blueprints like this that bridge pitfalls which other larger games constantly fall into. I believe the lessons from this game can be easily adapted to other projects that want to use varied storytelling techniques while navigating a player’s task and attention economy. It might not be as fun to others as it is to me, but I think Promise Mascot Agency is an incredible design textbook that everyone would be better for playing.

Rhythm Game vs Adventure — Unbeatable

High School Musical Needed Quick Time Events

The mad lads really went for it. It took eight years of incredibly tough grinding on a moonshot dream that I still believe might be impossible: and as Maverick explained in his task-taking review, it comes with a lot of asterisks!

Combining most anything with rhythm games is a nightmare. We’ve done this for decades and the hypnotic effects of rhythm games always manage to overtake all human body functions, leaving room for little else—they systemically hate sharing the stage with anything. Guitar Hero 6 used its dying breath to try to unravel just a few of these tensions, and barely eked out a bizarre one-of-a-kind rhythm/resource management game. I’ve seen countless indie games die at this altar, and even after a miracle Dungeon Crawler/Rhythm hybrid in Crypt of the NecroDancer, Brace Yourself Games still went for the impossible dream of a story/rhythm hybrid in Rift of the NecroDancer to mixed success. Outside of that, 2025 saw Everhood 2 and Rhythm Doctor continue to aim for the very specific dream of telling a story through a rhythm game. But it’s Unbeatable that slams its shin into more lessons than anyone, and the way it bleeds out on stage is both undeniably punk as fuck and extremely fucking useful for studying.

Unbeatable puts you in story mode for fifteen minutes, and then you fail a rhythm game for two minutes before being thrust into fifteen more minutes of story that seems a bit pissed that you interrupted it. It did successfully feel like I’d gotten beaten up by cops when this happened, and it also felt awful and annoying! This is exemplary of how fast-twitch rhythm sections are in deep design strife with much slower-digesting storyweaving in so many ways. And Unbeatable tries nearly everything: interrupting songs with story beat cutscenes, intertwining rhythm game modes between charts and Rhythm Heaven-type minigames as a ludic leitmotif, making full freeplay charts for ambient background music moments, massive 3D action setpieces inspired by 3D Sonic games where you grind and parkour to the beat, even explaining the rhythm game’s diegesis like a musical explaining why everyone is singing and dancing—nothing was taken for granted or left aside other than PaRappa the Rapper style sounds-as-button input—and I’m SURE that got tested (and discarded) at some point!

There is a cost to this kind of everything-goes shotgun approach, and it shows up in the finale of the game when the game has to very briefly stop mid-song to load up and unload various sections and mini-games. It chooses to have as little on-board and off-load as possible, leading to the player kinda just guessing whenever a mode switch happens. Guitar Hero 6 ran into this cost and their solution was splitting Rush’s 2116 into six distinct rhythm tracks which allowed them the freedom to make distinct ‘levels’ for each section to help tell the story. These aren’t ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ choices, they are results to experiments that we can record. I don’t think Unbeatable is the best rhythm/story game of this year (Rhythm Doctor is made by powerful percussion perverts with applied math degrees), but I do think everyone should play it if they want to see a veritable buffet of functional ways to develop the Rhythm Game/Adventure Game hybrid. This is going to sound weird, but it’s for the dream: I don’t want a sequel to the story of Unbeatable, those kids should take a well-earned rest. What I need is a sequel to the ENGINE of Unbeatable. 2-button rhythm game with full 3D environments and a multi-format story engine?? That truly is the road to being Unbeatable. 

Videogames vs Nonfiction — Despelote 

That Footwerk Was Factual

I have great news for all the Despelote fans. Not only is Soccer real, but Ecuador is as well.

gained some insight today into why gamers never seem to know what they're talking about

[image or embed]

— Punchy (@punchystream.bsky.social) January 13, 2026 at 6:27 PM

I was going to leave this entry as just this post because it really does speak volumes, but I think it’s actually fair to think through why a gamer would think Nioh is “nonfiction” and it’ll explain the uphill battle that Despelote has—this isn’t systemic tension or genre-tension or mechanic tension or narrative tension, this is something rooted in videogames as media classification. If we are making play spaces with rules guiding the play, how do we capture historical play? We emulate it into a spoken or written form of broadcast and that is our substitute for play. In order for developer and main-character Julián Cordero to make Despelote, a second round of emulation has to happen on top of the broadcasted soccer footage heavily used for the game. You have to emulate the feeling of soccer, the feeling of Quito, the feeling of being a kid, everything. Is Madden nonfiction? Possibly! Players can obviously use the game to simulate classic football games play-for-play, but that doesn’t mean the game itself is nonfiction. And Breaking Madden did happen in real life, we all saw it. The N64’s Quarterback Club franchise has a game mode that simulates each individual Super Bowl’s most dire moment and asks “what would you do?”, which is solid historical fiction. But to BE a nonfiction game is to create play spaces that also allow space for real events to happen around you that you probably can’t directly play with because they need to stay static.

The Cat and the Coup uses NYT headlines to outline the assassination of the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, and juxtaposes those with metaphorical puzzles based on Iranian art where you play as a rather aggressive cat. One way I read this is as a depiction of Iranians’ lack of agency over their political situation. That Dragon, Cancer is an autobiographical game that also depicts a lack of agency over the death of a son. Of course, compared to those examples, Despelote is much lighter, but it takes the hardest road possible to capture the feeling of Ecuador qualifying for the 2002 World Cup. By letting the player participate in various childhood life events, we gain insight into how these events were impacted by World Cup Fever taking hold in Quito. In young Julián’s world, a bottle is a ball, a stick is a ball-grabbing tool, a dog is a goalie, and you are the greatest soccer player in history booting balls into orbit with your mega-foot. This kind of magical realism seems well-suited for nonfiction games, despite how ironic that is, but that’s the magic of games. All three of these examples of nonfiction games prove how worthwhile it is to capture a historical period in games, because playing videogames can make that thing overwhelmingly important. And to a kid? What’s more important than your country in the World Cup??

Kaizo vs Adventure Games — Baby Steps

Wanna Play QWOP For Thirteen Hours?

Oh! Hard game vs Easy game, one of play’s favorite tensions! No. Grow up. Fall over right now. Ignore these reactionary subjectivities, we are talking about two things that are fundamentally similar: every Kaizo game is an adventure in skill acquisition and every Adventure game is deeply in touch with failure affordance. One is always born in conversation to the other like the two sides of a funhouse mirror, and Baby Steps tries to impossibly combine those mirror dimensions into one place, so we should be precise and delicate about discussing its design.

How long can you withstand a game taking the piss? How much piss will you afford to have taken from you? Can you last pissless for ten hours of adventure gaming? It’s easy to be ridiculed when it’s a shell-jump into a damage-boosted spin jump section. But this is Walking. We are walking. We are struggling to walk. With legs. Like a baby. You are a grown baby for over ten hours. I Wanna Be The Guy is a kaizo game that is about the length of a Naughty Dog or Insomniac-esque adventure game, but it constantly mixes up its tone and styling to keep the player feeling like some authorial hand is out there urging them on. Lego Star Wars is an adventure game that takes the piss, lampooning anything it can for up to forty hours, but it can so easily afford that because it’s grounded within the structure of a hearty sci-fi franchise made unserious for children.

Baby Steps has one single giggle before putting an hour of abstracted climbing in front of you; you are alone with only the stone-faced mountain and your waning sanity for company. And the reward for not giving up and advancing against adversity? One giggle, more mountain. You have to love the mountain. So there’s this tension in tone that Baby Steps explores that makes most game development styles cringe in discomfort, but especially Kaizo/Adventure games: just leaving the player alone. No power-ups, no Collectible Get, and very few narrative check-ins to help orient the player—which for an adventure game is unthinkable. And because of this it can afford some novel level design flourishes: paths that guide the player in circles, towers of no-regard, and dozens of remarkably unremarkable unmapped vistas commonly found by stopping climbing and turning around.

I’d argue the largest design difference between Kaizos and Adventure games is the scale at which short term and long term goals are presented. An hour spent trying to master one single section within the context of a three-or-four minute long level is a similar kind of progression to an hour spent tackling a large set-piece within an adventure game, after which it will tell you where your next objective lies. Celeste is a soft example of a Kaizo/Adventure hybrid approaching this tension in how it uses strawberries as an icon for reliably resetting a player’s short-term goals, and then cordons off distinct zones to re-evaluate the player’s progress up the mountain. Baby Steps similarly uses a level-structure with short opening and closing cutscenes to transition the player to various stages up the mountain. But instead of a map or UI tool to allow the player to reorient themselves, it solely relies on long mountainous sightlines to show the player how close or far they are from the next checkpoint. The player must trust that the mountain will guide them where they need to go as long as they remain vigilant and observant, which helps reinforce themes of self-sufficiency. But what about the Kaizo-sized micro goals and self-improvement? Well, baby steps now. I’m sure you can find how this part of the tension was explored on your own.

Myst vs Roguelike — Blue Prince

Draw Five Red Pages, Do Not Draw Five Blue Pages

I think this is the last of these five ‘complex games with extremely long dev timelines and very few people working on it that leads to experimental answers to brilliant questions’—this is exactly why we Indie. I already know Balatro works. I already know Vampire Survivors works. I know that Ball x Pit and CloverPit and Nubby’s Number Factory and all these fucking Roguelikes+classic game work. In 2026 some Dig Dug Roguelike will do insane numbers. Blue Prince doesn’t work! It obviously can’t work! I’ve uninstalled and re-installed this game three times this year and it still doesn’t work! I fucking despise every run I’ve ever done in Blue Prince, advancing nothing, gaining nothing, learning nothing. Resetting days as I draw three L-turns into another dead end for the fifth time in a row. It’s infuriating! So anyways, I did my PAX panel on librarianship about Blue Prince and I’m gonna write more words about Blue Prince right now! I can’t stop thinking about what is effectively a very plain game. 

goes to re-install Blue Prince… you know, for screenshot

And who writes about games they LIKED in 2025 anyways? Why would you want to remember what was good about that year? We should be remembering the pain so that we never come back here again! Right? Am I right?? Alright enough bluster, let’s get into it.

Blue Prince is such a good pun. I hope the amount of ink that the shambling corpse of games journalism spilled for Blue Prince commented enough on how great a name it is. It’s exquisite.

You can not put Myst and Roguelikes together! There are so many tensions you have to account for! The play-cycles are different—BP chose the somewhat more obvious Roguelike structure in a Myst super-structure, but the opposite would be wild too. The goal setting is different—BP eased this tension by Roguelike runs being a constant primary goal with the wider mystery being an ever-radiating secondary goal in the background to be approached once the Roguelike parts are fully settled. I think the story is the only element where both genres can find purchase together as the Roguelike cycles obscure the Myst-style puzzle components, but easing that tension comes at the cost that puzzle pieces show up in randomized pools, meaning a player could possibly just never see a crucial puzzle piece if they never draw a certain room (or if they think a certain room is ‘bad’ and avoid ever using it over all other pieces). All of these tensions come with giant game-killing chasms. Unlike other Roguelikes where progress is predictably progressive, you can have a run that regresses your states if you use materials that you stocked on previous runs in places that end up not gaining you forward progress like you’d hoped. That is just not a design consideration that Slots & Daggers, a somehow comparatively normal game, ever had to make. 

The most fascinating design tension Blue Prince weighed its soul on is how to show interactable and important objects. They don’t! Most information-load goes towards the Myst side of leaving all objects undecorated within a naturally lit style wherever they lie, and the player is left to figure out if they are important, or of what use they are. This is the opposite of contemporary Roguelike stylings which are extremely verbose or build iconography to lead the player through wholly knowing that a thing exists and what it will do. While this leads to the moment-to-moment frustration of searching every room for known objects, it also leverages all of the Roguelike strengths of needing every little advantage towards a player’s general ‘observation palette’. New room: Do I have exits? Does this room have an immediate function? Anything hidden in a usual spot? Has anything I’ve done so far affected other rooms? Has any information in here developed for me? Go to next room? That’s all Roguelike stuff feeding directly into the observational tendencies of a Myst-styled game, and it just works! Blue Prince actually works?? This is the exact feeling that got this concept beyond prototyping and I’m so grateful for it—this is why we Indie!

Franchising Katamari — Once Upon A Katamari 

Can Katamari Slop?

Up to this point, one of videogames’ greatest contributions to humanity, Katamari Damacy, has periodically gotten new releases to keep up with new console generations before transitioning to simply remaking older releases so that they exist on PC. This was all we ever needed and not a drop more was ever necessary, however, the money printing machine marches onward. Katamari puts food on our tables and clothes on our children—before quickly rolling it up from our tables, heading to the wardrobe, and rolling up the children of course. But there’s a component to this that will naturally affect the design of an entire game: if there is now an expectation for new, future Katamari, what shape can that take? We already roll up everything in the universe in every game and we always will—how can you expand on Everything? In a word: Curation.

[gets real close to the microphone to make sure the people in the back can hear the single most important word a librarian can give you as panacea for our overwhelming information age]

C U R A T I O N

We can curate everything into eras. Once Upon A Katamari curates all of its levels into different eras of civilization. A future game can curate all of its levels into art histories, or Malaysian islands and cultures, folk festivals of North America, frames of velocity, the life of John Candy, ocean tides, chemical properties (imagine a vinegar level where you start your roll with a antacid tab), multiverses, Getting Over It with My FoddyMari,

We do deserve an ode-to-videogames inspired Katamari game. 9-Volt Katamari.

Wait, an open source Katamari could do this…

Once Upon a Katamari made some wise and specific design choices to set them up for further successful franchising in ways that I would have thought Katamari was heavily resistant to. I know it’s annoying to take a game of pure whimsy and be like: wanna see how the meat is made? But check out the king’s meat.

Solon Katamari Safety Tip: In case you are ever in a real-life Katamari attack, always keep kids around you as they will be your last possible sign to activate one of these new fancy mid-level cutscenes to get the hell outta there. Also get on a shelf! Katamaris always struggle with things on the second or third shelf of a cabinet. 

The biggest change they made to the core of Katamari was adding powerups that can be rolled over and activated to make your Katamari move faster or hoover up objects really quickly. It’s delightfully Namco to default your design’s tertiary objectives to ZOOOOM BUTTON, but hey it’s a classic device for a reason. Katamari has previously been a very ‘pure’ experience; lacking in any distraction from the primary objective of any given level. But this classic kart-racer design tool always works to give the player moments of control and power that purposefully break up the flow of rolling. Equally classic ‘Namco’ design is the addition of collectible crown-shaped tokens in each level which serve two very practical purposes: get players to explore the level at various sizes, and give players a metaprogression tool that feeds them into a bunch of customization menus. The other core change to how the game is played is simplifying the controls so that you no longer need to hold both sticks to move the Katamari in a direction, and so that The Prince’s dash is simply on the trigger instead of alternating the sticks. These are very clinical design choices that remove friction and take away from the whimsy, but after 20 years of Katamari, it is kinda nice to see it grow up and put on the suit and tie.

Further professionalizing Katamari is the addition of a few new modes. Online multiplayer mode KatamariBall is designed about as subtly as a brick, and it combines with surprisingly robust Cousin customization to make the bedrock of what will become staples of all future Katamari games. It’s good to see them keeping this ‘simple’ and not overthinking or getting cute with things that feel less ‘inspired’ and more ‘the union has negotiated this into their contract to secure the bag for upcoming sequels’—which, oh shit! We can talk about that now!

Shouts to all the union workers now in the games industry, the incredible organizing of GWU has been bearing fruit all year and currently half of all games industry workers are looking to unionize in 2026. They are securing contracts with health care, parental leave, reducing crunch—and we can start talking about phase two: modality initiatives to secure the bag for asset artists and networking teams. Once you’ve got online modes and character customization? You gotta have it in the sequel too! Systems that make a game stronger and more franchisable can absolutely be a part of these union negotiations! It legitimately helps companies see past a release and into their next decade. So look forward to some strangely specific games system becoming a political battleground in 2026—probably a relationship system, as admins try and fail to get the labor offloaded onto AI practices. And when that inevitably crashes because people hate dating the robot lady in the self-checkout line, we’ll need great union-strong games writers to pick up that slack!

Look, I’m so excited to be writing anything about a Katamari game and that means you get me at my worst behavior. We’re going to dig into some really fucking nerdy design minutae—the stuff I think about when the lights are off and nobody is around to hear me… Did you notice the loading screens are there, but they are super fast and it’s kinda weird? The quirky loading screen behaviors synonymous with Namco-Bandai’s PS2 era are quickly becoming vestigial. Where are they going? Something has gotta get loaded, right? Well kinda, they are getting hidden into the various onboarding devices after level-selection. So when the player goes to see the King of the Cosmos, the computer is spinning that initial state of the level up (segmented by size-based gates that make the world larger as you progress) and when you are Royal Rainbow-ing at the end of levels the system begins streaming the level results section and queues up the main overworld. These are primary concerns of a game’s flow that developers are constantly thinking about even though they are something the player very rarely has to think about unless something has gone wrong (or in the case of Final Fantasy XVI, way too right) I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a rash of fake load-times/loading screens coming up in games just to give the player better buffer between modes. So Katamari is now in a position where it might have to rethink its overall menu flow in ‘future releases’ (again, a phrase that we couldn’t really say a year ago). The default order of level select -> King’s debrief -> loading screen -> level explanation is becoming more cruff than substance as computers have gotten really good at object proliferation. We have to re-balance player onboarding and the cognitive load that comes with it alongside these absurdly fast loading times, not that The King Of The Cosmos has any interest in these things—but brother you ARE on the chopping block! You know who else has this problem? The king of this very specific shit: Masahiro Sakurai. I’ve only gotten to see and play a tiny bit of Kirby Air Riders, but the king of menus and load-flow is back, and some of those menus are super chunky. Friction-filled gnarly character and vehicle select menus that are hiding a lot of fun processing in the background. If you are interested in this field of menu flow, Sakurai’s the guy to look at, especially Kid Icarus: Uprising.

I believe this is the only time I’ve published any thoughts around Katamari, so it’s about time for the full monty. There is this peculiar structural problem with Katamari games that some day I dream of fixing complicating. You know how your Katamari gets ranked by what it is made up of? The results screen gleefully tells you your ball is quite ‘Partition-y’ or some such nonsense. I’ve always found this so unsatisfying, when you could really easily be getting into the meat of summarizing what all was rolled up! It’s 2026 now and I demand Katamari Classification systems! I know I’m the only person who has ever dug into the full item glossary that every game has, but they could be so much more robust with stronger object tagging behaviors. That’s right, I’m suggesting a taxonomy audit of objects in Katamari games. Real sicko librarian shit. We know objects have mass and size, sometimes they have other properties in certain modes like making the Katamari more ‘hot’ or ‘sweet’ depending on the level requirements. But they only have a single level classification system where objects are only collocated by genre. Each object could have various tags that help better describe each rolling journey the player undergoes. The resulting planet’s Core could be an object genre based on the quality of what was rolled up in the first half of a level and then the Crust could be a descriptor genre based on the second half of the level. In the saloon level you start by rolling up small beverages, and by the end you are rolling up large tumbleweeds and cowboys—call that planet Dusty Sipper and there you go! Yep, that looks dusty alright! But it goes further than just making more fitting descriptions. Once tagged, objects can exhibit behaviors based on reading the tags of proximal objects and boom! Now you’ve got semantic triples! The Katamari can exhibit life mid-rolling as objects can now sense one another on the ball. If you want 22nd century Katamari today, send in a data scientist to inject linked data structure and theory into this children’s video game franchise. The possibilities are endless, and it starts with giving reverence to the object classification system. It’s just curation!

We’ve got more modern design trends to try to twist our brains on, but it felt so nice this year to see Katamari growing up alongside me. It was this strange PS2 cult hit for such a long time that I didn’t think it would break out of that status, and even if it did that it would be stripped of its soul along the way. Once Upon a Katamari does make some sacrifice, but this entry permanently enshrines The Prince as one of the canonical game characters of all time now that he’s gotten to shine for a new generation of players.

My son is rolling up underwater creatures in Katamari and he found a mollusk and was confused by it and he said “maybe it’s a ghost in the shell” and now I’m extremely confused and trying to figure out where that came from. Who is exposing my child to anime???

— Jeff Gerstmann (@jeffgerstmann.com) October 22, 2025 at 7:39 PM

LucasArts vs The 21st Century — The Drifter

This Shit’ll Turn Your DNA Australian

So you want to be nostalgic and modern at the same time, huh? In art we’re always synthesizing our inspirations in a way that walks this line trying to find out how much ‘homage’ you can get away with before you are seen as fraudulent. This is magnified in videogames where systemic expression often has so much developmental distance from aesthetic expression, despite how much they inform each other throughout development. Because of how much technical heavy lifting this all is, the LucasArts styled Point-and-click has seen very little development since Grim Fandango in 1998. This effect is most notable within Ron Gilbert’s Thimbleweed Park, a very well crafted story that is nevertheless held back by the trappings inherent to the style: Clunky interface, world is too large, overwhelming options. And none of these make Thimbleweed Park bad, I heartily recommend it actually (the DLC is still the best dollar you can spend on Steam) but it always felt like we were so close to seeing a new generation of point-and-click games on the horizon and nostalgia has felt like the only thing holding it back.

But that’s not really the whole story here, because we’ve had loads of point-and-click games over the last fifteen years, building from distinctly non-LucasArts traditions.  These are built inside of engines capable of creating a wide array of point-and-click styles, but inevitably they’ve all run into the same tensions: the more action/verbiage your game uses, the harder it is for players to keep up. The more beautifully ornamented your graphics are, the harder it is for players to find what to click on. Unique abstractions can surprise the player and push them to think wider (oh, I guess I trade peanut butter for 500 ants, sure), but it can also confuse and frustrate just as many other players. These are all things that The Drifter has taken a novel approach towards: By developing new controller support options, it is much easier to play on controller than any other P&C I’ve played. This does mean there aren’t any designed pixel hunts (which have long been a pariah of the genre, but they can have a place). This also lets them get away with making much more robust and ornamented screens—but still not too ornamented because The Drifter realizes some people are still using a normal mouse-and-keyboard interface.

Does this mean they ‘fixed’ the Point-and-Click? Why don’t we always do it like this? Well, let’s look at a tradeoff. So if controller becomes faster and easier (in a genre we currently call ‘Point and Click’), could there be a pacing issue between interfaces? Could that pacing difference be seen as controller being ‘easy mode’? These types of design questions are way more ‘figured out’ in how we see pacing in other game genres, like Visual Novels, Gachas, and SHMUPs, but this is a genre that gets to be run largely by narrative design pacing like a mystery author would use.

(Design Tangent: pacing design becomes a very practical P&C issue in Escape Room style P&Cs like those from the Flash era because the player can focus on operating each little puzzle box. Anyways, go play every Rusty Lake game and every Amanita Design game. They are all so good. It will not take long, I promise!)

So with all this Point-and-Click design theory in mind, imagine with me: what if Maniac Mansion on the NES used a cursor that locks on to hotspots instead of a mouse-style cursor? This entire genre would be incredibly different-shaped from that design decision. That’s why, while it might be easy to say “The Drifter fixed pixel hunting in P&Cs”, we should recognize there’s something lost from this design methodology. 

But also… THE DRIFTER FIXED THAT SHIT! IT’S INCREDIBLE! The pacing is generally controlled by the episodic design. The UI for controller support is intuitive and even helpful for mouse controls. The divide between items and conversation topics is clear and helps guide the player instead of overwhelming them. And even aside from that, all of the fundamentals come so easy to The Drifter, it’s unfair. I’m playing this game and just thinking about how cracked out Australia’s design fundamentals are. How are they like this? How is the ANZ region more popular on this list than anywhere else in the world? I’m realizing that y’all have won a very peculiar award by landing right here as the most tension-exploring games region, but thank you and please keep doing whatever the hell y’all are doing! The Drifter is exploring new futures for how we design P&Cs and I hope a lot of people are taking notes.

Supergiant Games vs Sequels — Hades II

Two torches are not a weapon. They are a cry for help.

C’mon guys… Guys… Com—no like come on though? We know you don’t make sequels but like, when you make a sequel it doesn’t have to be Exactly The Same as the previous one but with more steps. 555-COME-ON-NOW this is a copy-paste. I’m sorry. That’s a damning design criticism but like, the signs are all there: I do not have to play this game any differently from the last. There are no choices within Hades II’s rooms or boons that would affect the outcomes of my runs any differently, but there sure are More choices! A God from Mount Olympus has bequeathed upon me +5% charge speed? Well Zeus better kept that fuggin receipt, I gain +5% charge speed whenever I clench my butt. I know this is a copy-paste because instead of building myth and telling tale, every character just talks about mechanics of the game. I don’t CARE how much the scythe of stankonia’s faster hit arc reminds you of my quest to “kill Chronos”, Odysseus! Get a hobby! No wonder Melinoë needed to run away, she’s trying to get away from all of you talking about whatever weird powers she is manifesting. God forbid a witch do anything around here without having to read through three levels of tool-tips to understand what things do.

Melinoë’s cool though. 

Anyways, there isn’t a cool design tension to learn about here, if there was I wouldn’t be this mad. They made a perfectly balanced and tensionless sequel to their previous huge breakthrough game, isn’t. that.. 😀 😀  justtsofucking,,. 😀 great?.?. D: D:< itsCozy EVEN!.f,1ad -aaaanyways, I just wanted to rant a bit before making my main point that Supergiant Games should not make any more sequels ever again … unless it is Transistor 2 of course, obvious exemption—or Pyre 2 cuz that’s GOTTA go somewhere. Yeah no okay ok or Bastion 2? but like if it was inspired by Hades?? That would fuck though. Fine fine you’re totally right, hey Supergiant? You cool. Do what you do. I’m still a little miffed by the blandest barely hand-holdey yuri that I’ve ever seen in my life not that it matters since your Greek Easy-Pass to classics-approved bisexual horny town got hella scooped by a much hornier superhero coworker romance novel game, but like, hey—already bygones—we know you aren’t usually Mr. Play It Safe but, look… the numbers? The numbers were way too good to pass up. I hear that’s what playing with the devil will get ya’. Make that Hades 3 money if you gotta, brother. We’ll see you at the crossroads either way~

Anyways, we’ve learned nothing here, but even still I can’t say the time was wasted, it was just spent playing videogames.

Failure To Plan vs Plan That Fails — Metal Gear Solid V

Doesn’t Matter If We Suck, Because Huey Sucks More!

All rise for our favorite online pastime: discussing the spectacle of hypermasculinity. Watch as these boys self-destruct under their own futile self-glorification and myth building while missionrotting under the desert sun. I desperately wish for a Diamond Dogs situation to happen to every libertarian in the white house and every ICE officer ever employed. The ultimate glory of Big Boss is a story about a bunch of gay bitches who think they are putting together a new world order but end up building a suicide cult out of prisoners of war… Well, that would be the story… Except they do fight over an absurdly super-sized robot with sexy thighs, they do have multiple global-level health infestations, their enemies do have freaky psychic powers, and so they are technically saving the world actually. At every turn, this game bends over backwards just to justify what the Diamond Dogs fight for, even though watching them simply destroy themselves in cutscenes styled after 00s TV drama 24 is more rewarding and justified.

The core themes around severed limbs and dopplegangers are wholly undercut when we can point to the very real pain in all of our asses that is Huey. The game overall doesn’t have a fraction of the guts it takes to commit. If only there was some simple and convenient way to delegitimize everything that happens inside of it as if it were non-canon. Oh perfect, Big Boss isn’t the real Venom Snake, he’s out having other adventures while we rot for PMC clout. The jarhead sucker who the player plays as is supposed to be holding the mirror up to the player, but that trick only really works if the player is a jarhead-shaped dude? There’s very little point to discuss what it would be like if this game were finished, or what Kojima’s contributions to it really were, because it’s just overall too non-committal for anything to stick, and too embarrassingly bare-bones to try to advocate for the things that do land. (Rooting through every soldier profile to eliminate soldiers speaking a specific language would be interesting as a critique on military administration, if it had any impact at all on your forces impact or morale.) And the most frustrating part is that, that’s what Metal Gear Solid V is proud to be! It does not strive for anything greater than having the player replay the opening mission again hoping that they come to some new conclusion seeing everything again. It’s not nihilism, it’s just empty. And to replace fantasy with a redundant gritty realism as an excuse to justify all this vaguely retro-aesthetic paramilitary global conflict packed inside of a generic glossy spy thriller reminds me of when Daniel Craig did it in Quantum of Solace.

I spent all of 2025 playing every Metal Gear game, and while I trudged through some real stinkers for the first time—we abandoned Metal Gear PoOps as soon as Superman Snake fought his second Regular Tank with hundreds of bazookas and grenades—there were wonderful little moments at the periphery of the main MGS1+2+3+4 lineup that I really enjoyed! Metal Gear 2 still manages to command a lot of power through its simple and effective interface while establishing tons of charming set pieces that become mainstays for the franchise. Even Peace Walker earns a truly insane climax that I didn’t expect. But then I finally hit the game I’d spent a decade avoiding: Venom Snake Horse Adventures. And let me tell ya, Venom Snake Horse Adventures makes a lot less sense outside of the context of 2015. To make an open world game in the MGS universe for the PS3 meant punting at every possible design conflict: won’t the player recognize that every African outpost is just individual ‘levels’ strung together by lonely desert paths they can skip by helicopter? Should the player have a constant companion that can’t be harmed and generally makes the player more comfortable? Sure. Whatever’s most fun. And thank goodness for that because it is the one thing that this game believes in above anything else: the Venom Snake Horse Adventure section should be Fun!

The best part of MGSV is choosing the giant robot fight again, sticking your own mix-tape into Snake’s ears, getting on your horse, and running away from Sahelanthropus while giggling as MGS‘s soundscape interrupts Sabrina Carpenter break up songs. Or whatever you want to imagine Snake’s guilty pleasures would be. It’s even worth going back to—the way it has been cared for post launch has been substantial! It helps that MGSV‘s entirety takes up 12GB less space than this year’s Dragon Quest 1+2 and 3 HD-2D remakes combined. (WHY ARE THEY 20GB EACH?) It is very easy to play this game without having to interact with any of the story, narrative, or characters mucking up your Afghani Cowboy Fulton Funtime. 

I can’t claim to know anything about what happens in Konami as an organization, however like everyone else I’m incredibly tempted to divine meaning from their relationship with this game. It feels like so much craft and care was put into the multiplayer and in the photograph system in the cockpit of your travel helicopter. The farther you get from any parts with voice acting, the more beautiful the game gets, and so I am left struggling with these crumbling pieces trying to figure out if Konami Can’t Cook or if Konami Won’t Cook. It’s the same authorial struggle that happens when watching WWE wrestling where you’re like: I know this performer doesn’t suck, but they sure do suck here! And it’s not a death by committee type thing or a Kojima left the project thing or an overwhelmed-by-open-world design type thing because all of these systems were thoroughly pre-tested within Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes. The entire process to make da game juices good was thoroughly undertaken. I’ve seen Konami’s dev teams when they phone it in and this wasn’t that. At the end of the day, all I can really point to is that this game was made by Diamond Dogs: they can deny any failure by pointing at their plan’s fail points and say “see, all according to our specsheet” as they continue to devour their own. 

Some day these AAA video games are gonna recognize that their ‘long tail’ is actually the players’ ‘long tail’. But it starts with recognizing that Konami’s best design decision for MGSV was when they got Duran Duran to release Invisible for MGSV. Source: it’s pinned on my Bsky.

Stupid Friends vs Stupid Games — Peak

If All Your Friends Jumped Off A Bridge, Was It For Content?

Alright, enough op-ed posting, lets get back to science. Twenty Twenty Five was the year of Friendslop, which is a classification category so robust that we here at The Institution That Names Genres (A place I do genuinely work at right now) had to have major discussions about it between lectures. Usually we ignore the discourse because it comes up with weird things like “hypercasual” or “survivorslike” which are clearly not settled design phenomena (although Horde Survival is pretty solid). But Friendslop! Oooh man what a can of taxonomical worms that is! So we know that games are just better across the board with friends and we also know that you can basically give players a tin can of beans and some string and if two players are in the space together they’ll just make up a game about it themselves. You don’t have to DO all that much as a designer to keep jingling keys when the players can bounce things off of one another and generally enjoy themselves. Does that make multiplayer gaming its own genre? Does that make multiplayer games their own form of expression separate from single player gaming? Is multiplayer gaming a different medium altogether? In the same way that improv and stand-up are entirely different mediums even though improv is just multiplayer stand-up? These are the things that have kept designers up at night for decades. Ever since those British bastards at Rare exposed the whole game by saying they slapped Goldeneye multiplayer together as an ‘afterthought’. Like, YEAH but you don’t have to SAY IT like that!

Peak came out real fast from Aggro Crab and it’s not like it is better or worse than R.E.P.O. or Lethal Company or Content Warning, but it has a lot more design constraints than those. Rather than throwing players in randomized rooms with toys and monsters, Peak says: here’s the mountain we generated for you today, can you and your friends climb it? Much of the easy low-hanging fruit of friendslop comes from how easy it is to subvert a game’s limitations or expectations by getting goofy, since play is so easy to come by when you have friends. Conversely, Peak’s design is centered around keeping all the players contained as much as possible. Everyone has to color inside the lines together for the best outcome. So this is one of the tensions when designing friendslop: Should the systems of a multiplayer game get more rigid as play progresses, or should it start rigid and then loosen up? Should the game be stupid so your friends can be smart, or should the game be smart so your friends can be stupid?

When you start up Peak you are in an airport terminal waiting to set the stage and rules for your group’s ascent—it’s a loading zone for you and your friends. It’s a fantastic place to get all the silliez out and is full of toys to mess around with that help everyone practice the mechanics. This zone is the scaffolding for what I call ‘The Board Game Paradox’: you wanna play games with friends so you buy a new board game but then when your friends come over you find out they have no interest in learning a new board game. This happened all year this year where people were like: “wanna play [friendslop] with me?” “I don’t have that” “Well I’ll get it for you” “Okay but I’ll probably only play it once” “That’s fine, it’s cheap!” and then I only play it once and now it just sits there on the shelf… The purpose of the game is for making memories with friends, yet my main memory of the game becomes ‘I think I played that once?’ And that’s a really tough thing because getting friends together for a game night can be very difficult! Add on mods and versioning differences and all the other quirks of modern computer gaming and it can be a much rougher experience than expected—thus Peak’s hang out and tutorial zone that every month after launch kept getting new toys like basketball hoops and a photo booth, but this toybox space is a mere shadow of something larger and everyone in the room knows it. So once your party is truly ready, eventually the pressure gets put on to the host to start the ascent. After choosing settings for your climb, you ceremoniously crash land at the base of the mountain and you and all your friends get to bask in the enormity of your shared task. For the next 40min to an hour and a half you have to color inside of Aggro Crab’s lines. And if everything goes horribly wrong? Well hey, we go back to the airport terminal, play on the conveyer belts and take selfies together!

To imagine this tension being served in the opposite direction, it would be like if Fall Guys had a loading zone where you could train drills with your little bean friends on various common obstacles. And then when you get to the real thing, everything spills over into that classic Fall Guys chaos and nothing goes to plan! Then you zip back and get to practice again in a training room like it’s a fighting game’s online mode. Both can totally work, but it was so impressive to me how well Peak serves Aggro Crab as a continuation of their design concept that when you express control over your systems, players will respect that regardless of genre, tone, or style. Games that earn being silly because they take the player (and players plural!) seriously.

Multiplayer Perception vs The Setpiece — Abiotic Factor

Are You Seeing What I’m Seeing?

It is insane to me that The Unfortunate Spacemen team could watch Wayne Radio TV introducing the Half-Life Roleplay Renaissance to the world, and then three years later produce a full immersive multiplayer simulation ready for early access all centered around roleplaying the kooky Half-Life Scientist. Abiotic Factor is a stunning roleplay game for tons of reasons, but there is one specific tension I want to drill down into that is inherent to the multiplayer immersive sim. Which now that I’ve written that is not really a thing that exists. So we’re exploring the cutting edge here—brand new tension just dropped! If you are busy working on tasks, and your science buddy in the Discord call triggers an event that dramatically changes the world state, how do you know? Abiotic Factor chooses to let this tension hang in a way that ends up simulating exactly what it was like for most of the scientists at Black Mesa when Gordon Freeman opened that portal. It’s also what I can only assume is a perfect roleplay of being MasterGir in HLVRAI desperately trying to usher all their dingus friends through the plot points of Half-Life.

Now that we can identify this tension exists, we can imagine other directions this can go. Imagine an open world where everyone is doing little tasks and the main goal is always in plain view, perhaps if the immersive sim took place on an O’Neill Cylinder and all players could always look up to see various state changes. Or the inverse, everyone is mining into a sphere and the sphere has state changes that inform players of various conflicts to their tasks. I’ve been playing Elite Dangerous this year, and wrapping my head around the cosmic infinite with an MMO-volume of players feels like such a drop in an infinite ocean, but it gets close to this feeling. We built a space base at the edge of space (come hang at Beer Legacy, we’ve got the best hyperdrives and now no more slavery! [war is ongoing]) and then it immediately started serving other players reaching out to their own further edge of space.

Abiotic Factor does not have Elite Dangerous’s galaxy-sized data spreadsheets of player behavior, so they have to use other methods for corralling players. The base-building features have a deep time and resource sink to them, especially if your group of players want to personalize the space. With respect to this, there are certain parts of the tech tree that get unlocked to streamline those features (larger inventory boxes, better multi-tools, weapons with abilities to handle more specific situations, portal toilet) and whenever those would unlock, it was usually around the same time that we’d been eyeing a relocation to a spot that is deeper in our Black Mesa science facility. Although, we were always window shopping for the obvious ‘safe’ rooms: lots of power outlets, naturally occurring furniture, low enemy spawns—all the things a young polycule of homeowners is looking for. Building ‘forward bases’ as we called them would usually result in all of us resetting our goals and catching our bearings. All of us were constantly at different levels of understanding the map, the game logic, and various silly intricacies of the game—like, we would take walks together to make sure we knew how to get between all of our bases in case anything went horribly wrong and a player got stranded back a the original spawn point (<3 u Coffee Base). These were the player misalignments that we could manage as a group, but there is still the issue of when the game needs to take over with a big setpiece that changes the state of the world.

Syncing up events in an online space with a first-person perspective is probably the hardest programming struggle possible, and for an unknowable reason New Zealand’s Deep Field Games has decided to make it their entire thing. We’ve done this for a long time in games, but it is still a mount Everest for the craft to get two computers to send the amount of data an FPS requires. Driving a vehicle in Abiotic Factor with your friends in it is about as stable as it was in Halo 3. So it’s not. But hey, we’ve figured out fighting game netcode and that seemed impossible too for the longest time. But we’ve mostly worked on this problem from the situation when players are in conflict with one another – many variables are constant in that specific situation. In a game like Abiotic Factor, our dear friend Angel could trip over an event flag while doing their tasks and suddenly a new door has opened, Will was at home base managing the supplies, Sage was there but there was a low hanging pipe in the way, and Solon was taking a shit and doesn’t really know what’s going on anyways and is largely along for the ride as an extra meat shield whenever necessary so it’s preferable to keep him in the dark in most cases anyways. How do we resolve this? Abiotic’s got two solutions, a simple solution: slap a waypoint on stuff that changes! Sure sure sure. Tried and true! But here’s the setpiece secret magic in a remote-yet-synchronous situation: Use Portals.

Abiotic Factor uses portals to transport the player between various wacky situations and hijinks—it’s a trick to extend the setting of Black Mesa so it can have a snow level—but more importantly it’s a Moment and it can be Prepared For! It’s that Squad-up moment that almost always has a comfortable staging section for everyone. And then all of the most thrilling bits of Abiotic Factor happen right as your squad exits the portal! It’s just another example of exquisite design from da goddanged ANZ. It works perfect for a slapstick comedy to have a group of people armed to the teeth stepping through a portal where they are all expecting to get pied in the face by horrible monsters just to find out they have been swept to a magical Ikea where all the toilets are functional! The game’s a heavy lift, but it has always been worth the effort to share these moments with friends, just let me know when you want to play it again.

GOTY 2025: Hey, You Made It Down Here!

THREE-WAY TIE! IT’S FUCKIN TOREE SATURN!!! GO PLAY CAPE HIDEOUS RIGHT NOW AND SMOKE SOME PIPE! FINISH WITH ENA: DREAM BBQ. YOU CAN BEAT ALL THREE IN AN AFTERNOON WITH YOUR FRIENDS IN A DISCORD CALL AND STILL HAVE PLENTY OF TIME AFTERWARDS TO GO HANG OUT WITH YOUR PET! HERE IS MY SON JUPITER, YOU DESERVE IT FOR READING ALL THE WAY DOWN HERE.

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Honorable Mention: dirtbag MAHJONG

This came out of nowhere for me. I missed the Kickstarter and only ended up buying it because my fellow Bluesky Mahjong freaks started posting about it on release. dirtbag MAHJONG is a combination of mahjong with a visual novel story that had me rolling with laughter from the jump. The humor is crass and stupid in all of the best ways. It’s a game about a bunch of complete assholes playing mahjong together with HP pools, attacks you can build up to, and so many dumb ways to play. It’s a genuine delight that does a pretty good job tutorializing Mahjong. The game is exactly what the title says it is: a bunch of complete dirtbags playing Mahjong. A goofy mess of pure fun from start to finish.

Honorable Mention: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

I think it’s a phenomenal game that everyone should play if they have the ability to. Clair Obscur is carried by some incredible performances and some phenomenal art design. The background details of every area shine. It’s a fantastic game that lives up to the legacies of the games that inspired it, but it falls on its face for me in the end. I can pretty much guarantee that if I had beaten the game without doing some of the Chapter 3 sidequests, this would have been in my top five. But one of the main character’s sidequests contradicting the way she acts in the finale completely ruined it for me. The more I think about that decision, the less I liked the game, until it fell off my list.

Honorable Mention: Assassin’s Creed: Shadows

Hey, they made a great Assassin’s Creed game. This spot was bouncing between Ghost of Yotei and this, both games I greatly enjoyed my time with, but one just slightly edging out the other. I am a sucker for open world collectathon checklist podcast games and this one just really did it for me. I think part of it is me just being really into this era of Japanese historical fiction. Being the Nioh/Samurai Warriors freak that I am, it’s fun to go, “I KNOW THAT GUY” every once and a while. All and all it ended up being far more enjoyable than I expected and I don’t regret the 87 hours I spent with it at all. Being able to stealth through the game as Naoe or just barrel in as Yasuke gave me two play styles for whatever mood I was in, and that really tickled my fancy.

10. Octopath Traveler 0

Hey, did you know that if you just have one narrative throughline and more linear storytelling, the Octopath formula works a lot better? I thought they did a lot towards improving their storytelling with Octopath Traveler 2, but this is a much better story that flows from beat to beat rather than being multiple stories that don’t really feel connected. I was someone who did play Champions of the Continent and liked the story they were trying to tell, so it was great to see it put out in a form everyone could enjoy. Its biggest issue is that it is based on a gacha game that brings in everyone from the series, which does make some of the character moments feel lacking while its overall story shines. I would rather have somewhat weaker characters to go with fun turn-based action than great characters with a weaker overall narrative. I’m hoping they do DLC to take a look at some of the other stories that the mobile game has told because there’s some really great stuff in there.

9. Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail

I honestly didn’t think I was going to be writing about this game at all this year. I was burned out, I watched its community be destroyed by grifters, and I was pretty close to uninstalling and being done after finding a lot of the patch story to be lackluster. But then the 7.4 patch came out, and suddenly I was back! I’m enjoying the game more now than I have in a long time. No more burnout, I’m enjoying the game on its merits rather than logging in every day out of some daily necessity. These days I log in to work on pointless achievements and spend time with friends, and it’s been a healing experience. I went from averaging 20+ hours a week to four, and it’s completely rekindled my love of the game and the time I spend on it. I didn’t think I’d ever be an achievement hunter in the game, but playing with a casual purpose is such a relaxing time. Hanging out in space and macro crafting as second screen material while I work is just a nice diversion. I’m making progress towards something, but it’s also relaxing listening to the sounds of crafting while I’m playing other games on my Steam Deck or second monitor.

7.4 came with something I sorely needed, the final raid series, and god damn is it a good one. Finally a raid with no bad fights and all bangers. Seriously, the biggest advancement in Dawntrail has been in the quality of their fight design, and the Heavyweight tier has been incredible to grind out my weekly clears. Do I wish we spent more time in Tuliyollal instead of the cyberpunk city? Oh god yes I do, but what we got this patch was so much better than I expected and has me hooked for what’s coming.

8. Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To

There are two games on my list this year that I think are important for the same reason: experiencing things from a different culture than my own. The game is dripping with the queerness and the Arabic culture of the people who made it, and it’s a genuine delight from start to finish. The main story fleshes out all of the characters, their world, their culture, and the way magic works. It’s a fascinating way to immerse myself in something different. My only complaint is that after you finish the story, the dating sim fully starts and there is a lot less of the match-3 puzzle gameplay. To this day, my morning routine has been to load up a game on Endless Mode, and play until I lose. It’s a zen start to my day, listening to great chill music while I swap tiles to make lines to make things disappear until I lose after around 10 minutes.

7. Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake

I probably wouldn’t have gotten this if I hadn’t gotten a little preview at PAX. I thought it looked good and didn’t fall into the HD-2D trap of muddied visuals from everything needing to have the same fidelity. The demo challenge of an underleveled party going into midgame dungeons was a lot of fun, and led to me snagging the release version for myself. Needless to say, it was a great decision. If you’re going to do a remake while keeping the core of the original intact, this was a pretty incredible way to do it. Not to mention, Dragon Quest II getting an entire extra game worth of stuff added to it that is not only challenging and fun, but surprisingly well written, building up a true end to the trilogy and providing a new experience for someone who had played the originals before, is super fun to see.

6. Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma

When I played Rune Factory 5, I called it a promising start for a new team of developers that had to figure the series out. I was hopeful for the future of the franchise, even while I took major issues with the game. I don’t think they have it 100%, but Guardians of Azuma gives me great hope for the future of the franchise. They gave me a fantastic game with fun town building as well as fun action. The action is where it needs to be for a game like this—the real thing they still need to work on is farming. I found the farming to be relatively boring, and the town management a little lackluster as well. Still, an incredibly charming cast of characters and an overall story that left me very content made this one of my most played games this year, and it’s still one I come back to when I just want to chill out and grind a little.

5. Coral Island

Last time I talked about Coral Island, I spent a significant amount of time gushing about its core while still lamenting the fact that it was not a true 1.0. This year we got two major patches which brought it to a place where I can fully say it feels like a real and complete game. Not only did we get a massive update that adds an underwater farm, and the initially introduced mermaids finally getting characterization, we also got a fantastic online co-op mode that has made the game more than worth revisiting. Coral Island is also steeped in Southeast Asian culture, being developed by Indonesian studio Stairway Games, and it really does make it so much better than just “Stardew Valley in 3D”. If you like the farming style games, this is not only a great one, it might actually be the best of them.

4. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time

When they announced this, I didn’t have a lot of hope. Previews left me feeling skeptical, and the state of Level-5 as a company makes Fantasy Life i feel like a complete miracle. I was worried it was going to be a game that lacked what I loved about the original, and never have I been happier to be wrong. While I would have loved more varied crafting between all the different crafters, every single craft is fun to pull off, every combat style feels great and has some incredibly fun abilities to play with. Every party member that can join you adds something to the game, whether it’s a crafter who sometimes attacks or regularly throws out buffs and debuffs or the fighting class characters who do a surprising amount of damage while being competent elsewhere. Your crafters can also aid in crafting, and gathering friends can help you by chopping trees to make farming materials so much faster. When you factor in the procedural dungeons, a procedural open world dungeon, and more content than you could play through in a reasonable amount of time, there is something to constantly do and unlock. I thought I was done when I finished the main story, but I keep coming back because there is still something new for me to do after 200 hours.

3. Warriors: Abyss

Who would have thought that a repetitive Dynasty Warriors roguelike would have been one of my most played games of the year? Look, I don’t have a lot to say about this game: the localization is bad, multiple abilities are incredibly confusing to understand, and there is no story to care about at all. But there  is an incredibly fun and rewarding gameplay loop where every character feels different, every stage is fun to blast through, and it goes fast enough that it never feels like it’s wasting your time. It’s been updated multiple times with DLC from the Atelier series, Ninja Gaiden, and more. Every new character they add has been a blast to play with. Is this the best Roguelike of the year? Probably not, but god damn it’s the most fun I’ve had with one in a very, very long time.

2. Dynasty Warriors: Origins

Dynasty Warriors is back! After the disaster of Dynasty Warriors 9 and the sales failure of Samurai Warriors 5, I thought they were done with Musou. But this year they really came back with a vengeance. They finally hit the right formula with deeper movesets and more varied combat, alongside numbers so big that past games wish they could see a KO count that high. Having a big map to run around with multiple sidequest opportunities, along with an emphasis on telling a single story of one person acting as a mercenary, leads to a much meatier story that allows character personality to shine through a lot of visual novel style cutscenes—with a ton of “so bad it’s good” voice acting that filled me with delight. Seriously, the English dub is a thing of beauty with some absolutely hilarious line delivery that captures the magic of the early games while still being something a little more directed. My only issue is the game has gender counterparts that do nothing to change the story, other than making the gayest Lu Bu straight if you were to be able to play as the female character. 

1A. Game of the Year: Unbeatable

I’m not a rhythm gamer, but Unbeatable grabbed me in a way I didn’t expect, and I’ve even been bopping through the arcade mode every morning for a song shortly after I wake up. The story is where this game shines. I keep going back to Chapters 3 and 5 which are where the whole point of the game solidifies. If you go into this wanting a game where music is illegal and you do crimes, you can play Chapter 2, but the chapters where they were going through the actual story they were telling, those hit me hard in the feels. It’s like the writer held a mirror up to my face and said you, this is you. I’ve never felt so seen. There is so much to chew on with the story they told, and while it definitely has some messy transitions and pacing, all of that fits the vibe and truly hit me. The main thesis of the story really is about someone who was lost finding themselves and regaining the will to live through both music and fighting for the people around her.

“I don’t know who I am right now. But I am better than who I was before. I am seven years different. And I am seven years better. And I refuse to be worse than who I was before.”

1B. Game of the Year: Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars

You all knew this was coming. Suikoden was one of the most formative games for me growing up. It’s lived rent free in my head since I played it on release. It was a franchise where I had finally accepted that it was dead and gone and the only way we’d ever see anything like it was through spiritual successors like Eiyuden Chronicle. And then after that game had an incredibly successful Kickstarter, suddenly a remaster for the original was announced. You had an active social media presence, you had Konami interacting with fans for a few weeks and then…

Radio silence.

Suikoden was dead again. There was no news, no updates, the social media that was so active went completely silent and whenever they got asked, they refused to say anything. I was sure it wasn’t going to happen. I was back to being mad that they got my hopes up, that my long dead franchise was still dead. Konami was just faking coming back to being a gaming company. All that hope that myself and the other Suikoden freaks felt had become a lie from a company who was only pretending to care about games again.

Then the release date reveal happened… 

My hope was restored. Literal tears on the podcast as I felt an overwhelming wave of joy that I would be able to share this thing I love so much with friends who would never have the chance without shelling out hundreds of dollars on original discs. Something I could share on every system. Then TGS came around and not only were we getting the remasters, we’re getting a stage show, an anime, and a mobile game. Not only was my favorite franchise alive, they seemed to be making the series a core component in their return to video games. I have cried tears of joy more than once over the past year as they continue to show that they care and are acting like they want Suikoden to be one of their tentpole franchises. I don’t know about corporate, but the people on the team sure feel like they have a real passion for everything.

But what about the game you ask? Well, there are two ways to do a remake: you can do the HD-2D thing like Dragon Quest or you can upscale the backgrounds and keep the original work as close as you can. They went with that second option for this one and they nailed it; even going back to address complaints that the fanbase had about background details. There are two games in this world where I would be angry if they remade the spritework: Suikoden and Chrono Trigger. I’m happy to say that the character sprites weren’t touched at all. In some ways the high resolution backgrounds with the original sprites can feel a little off, but the spritework is such a huge part of the charm and personality of these games that if they had messed with it I would have been sent into a violent seething rage.

All of the jank from the original releases is still there. Inventory management in Suikoden 1 is genuinely terrible and always was, but it also was the first RPG released on the Playstation, coming weeks before Final Fantasy 7 completely changed the environment. The story is quick and to the point, with my first playthrough of the remaster being about 20 hours to get everything while going out of my way to talk to every single NPC. The localization of Suikoden 1 sands some edges off, sometimes to its detriment, but is an overall improvement over the original release. If you don’t have the nostalgia for some of the sloppy editing, you’re getting a better version now than you did before. 

Suikoden 2 got the biggest upgrade in this release though. I think it goes to show the power of the story they were telling that it’s still considered one of the best RPGs of all time despite having an absolutely horrendous translation. The translation errors of the original were so numerous, with some NPCs having lines of code in their text boxes. This was a lot less charming than the “All this killing in front of a children” moments from Suikoden 1. With the translation fixed, it’s far easier to appreciate the rest of Suikoden 2’s strengths. Tons of minigames to waste your time with, tons of characters, incredible villains, and sprites that do fit in a lot better with the upscaled backgrounds. This release of Suikoden 2 is by far the definitive version of the game. I wish they could have put the inventory management from 2 into 1 to make it a smoother experience, but overall both games are an incredible experience that I think everyone who wants a great JRPG should pick up. Meet these characters I’ve been obsessed with for the last 30 years of my life, and the woman I named myself after!

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The Strip (Including Freeside)

The Strip dazzles visitors who come from far and wide like moths to a flame with its flashy neon lights, brazenly armed Securitrons who bark questions for credentials if you step near them, and shady casinos differentiated only by which flavor of crime they’ll ask you to commit. Step just outside the gates into Freeside and enjoy a more authentic local experience involving hunger, addiction, and folks who will greet you with both a smile and a knife. Together, The Strip and Freeside both offer the picture-perfect post-apocalyptic example of prime urban planning, where wealth is tersely guarded by the high rollers and poverty is for everyone else. Those who visit would do well to remember that The House Always Wins.

• An independent economy powered by gambling and quietly outsourced violence via one shadowy cabal or another
• Memorable dining experiences with unique fare
• Freeside locals are eager to relieve you of your excess caps, valuables, or blood, making your journey lighter

Black Mountain

Black Mountain serves as a scenic hike that active visitors are sure to love, staffed by enthusiastic super mutants with long-range weapons and a strong curiosity for using them on trespassers, with Black Mountain Radio ensuring that no one will mistake the experience for a peaceful hike. The climb is structured with narrow switchbacks and minimal cover, encouraging visitors to remain visible to the violent roaming patrols for the duration of their ascent. Reaching the summit is considered an achievement because it means guests are likely still breathing when they do it.

• Panoramic views victoriously earned under sustained sniper fire
• Locally managed radio station featuring first-of-its-kind shoot-first broadcasting standards
• A vertical route unlike any other designed to test endurance, tactics, and commitment to the journey

Promontory Point (Deathclaw Promontory)

In addition to a scenic capture of the rising cliffs of the Southwest, Promontory Point offers visitors a chance to interact with the Mojave Wasteland’s highest concentration of deathclaws who have claimed the area for their own. On arrival, guests can see an elevated area leading to a unified pack of motivated beasts who are eager to respond to visitors swiftly and collectively. Once spotted, guests can expect a prompt coordinated welcome, making retreat attempts both difficult and urgent. This is a popular destination for visitors seeking memorable wildlife encounters and immediate clarity about their perceived survival odds.

• Up-close impressions of wildlife conducted at full sprint
• Group-oriented residents who respond quickly to disturbances of all kinds
• Natural beauty of the Mojave Wasteland enjoyed from a safe distance

Camp Searchlight

Camp Searchlight offers visitors a softly glowing introduction to radiation exposure and long-term consequences of bad luck as a result of the NCR’s poor decisions. Formerly an NCR military installation, this camp now features open access to all the radiation exposure one could desire, in addition to a rabid roaming population of feral ghouls – mostly former NCR soldiers – who are eager to demonstrate their perception skills. Guests are encouraged to monitor their Geiger counter on their Pip Boy often and to appreciate the area’s history from as far away as they possibly can. Protective gear is strongly recommended to all, with exception to those who are interested in joining the ghoul population.

• Former soldiers now offering unscheduled encounters for morale purposes
• Opportunity to test out protective equipment
• Scenic desolation with some estimated educational value

Cottonwood Cove

Cottonwood Cove offers guests a firsthand look into the distinctive Legion culture, complete with slave pens, public punishments, a strictly adhered-to military discipline bordering on abuse. The camp’s waterside location next to the Colorado River offers scenic views and a dense population of mirelurks, thoughtfully positioned to discourage premature departures against Caesar’s wishes. As long as visitors remain useful or compliant, the chances of their heads ending up on a spike remain (somewhat) low. A short visit is recommended to first-time visitors, as longer stays can become complicated vis-à-vis NCR sanction. This location is an excellent stop for travelers curious about authoritarian regimes and their many red flags.

• Cultural misunderstandings promised to be resolved swiftly and on the spot
• Hospitality defined astonishingly narrowly
• Sightseeing is recommended to be done silently or otherwise from a considerable distance

Vault 22

Vault 22 invites guests to explore a once–cutting-edge agricultural research facility turned self-sustaining flora ecosystem, full of promising educational points and zero interest in human visitors. Travelers will find that the dense overgrowth and low visibility in rooms and hallways ensure that every encounter happens at close range and is almost never on their terms. Barely visible former residents and hostile plant life will offer sudden, intimate opportunities for guests to brush up on survival skills. The experience serves as a tour of scientific ambition and hubris, thoughtfully preserved in a state of permanent collapse.

• Overgrown hallways engineered for unique surprise encounters
• Airborne contaminants included at no charge throughout the facility
• Close-quarters combat encouraged by design from the dozens of locals who are puzzlingly still alive

The Divide

Many visitors find The Divide to be a dramatic travel destination defined by shattered highways, constant stormfronts, and have questions about if cannibalism is part of the custom practiced here. Guests are asked to navigate narrow, unstable routes while contending with unforeseen environmental hazards and residents who are eager to make friends. Occasional underground disturbances ensure no one can become too comfortable while sitting for too long, and a steady stream of recordings from a thoughtful tour guide provide insightful commentary on the history and identity of the region. It’s a popular choice for travelers who enjoy scenery, philosophical bloviating, and being overly blamed for past events they were not in control of.

• Opportunities for up-close encounters with nuclear weapons
• Locals shaped by the fractured land and are deeply committed to staying that way
• Scenic routes best enjoyed without stopping

Zion Canyon

Visitors are offered a rare opportunity in Zion Canyon to experience natural beauty primarily untouched by civilization, mostly because any sort of attempt at civilization keeps being violently interrupted. Towering red cliffs, monolithic rock formations, and lush winding rivers set a peaceful backdrop when being disrupted by ambushes and tribal warfare. Guests will swiftly encounter locals embattled within local conflicts, some of whom have very different ideas about hospitality towards visitors. This is an ideal destination for philanthropic visitors who enjoy challenging hikes and strategic outdoorsmanship, as well as constant reminders that they are a hopeless stranger in a strange land.

• Immediate cultural immersion
• Regular opportunities to practice and exercise diplomacy skills
• Trails through exceptional an landscape primed for reflection, photography, and sudden evasive maneuvers

Big MT

The Big MT welcomes visitors to its research facility where innovation once flourished and oversight has long since vanished. Upon arrival, guests will find that the staff has helpfully unburdened you of both your brain and your spine to streamline the facility experience. Enthusiastic robotic personalities will insist upon their lengthy lectures and explanations of their research while their nemesis contributes regular announcements via a jarring, echoing intercom that thunders across the entire site at inopportune moments of concentration. Autonomous property defenses and experimental lifeforms seem to continue their routines and security checks long after they should have been shut down, creating a lively atmosphere of ongoing research and education for visitors who are curious about scientific advancement.

• Mandatory complimentary removal of organic parts upon arrival
• Free educational research lectures administered at length without consent
• Active patrolling experiments operating without supervision for maximum efficiency

The Sierra Madre Resort & Casino

The Sierra Madre invites guests to experience a long-forgotten pre-war luxury establishment with their own non-negotiable complimentary explosive collar included at no charge upon arrival. Guests will be greeted by a tour guide with great detail about the location and then released into a fog of corrosive red cloud for a uniquely location-specific experience. Visitors are encouraged to savor each and every step they make and to take their time soaking in the wondrous sights of the Grand Opening as the local workforce enthusiastically roams the sites, offering a highly interactive experience for all who pass through the gates. The promise of leaving wealthier than they arrived attracts many visitors to this site, assuming they’ll be able to leave at all.

• Cutting edge wearable technology that provides a once-in-a-lifetime experience when exposed to the certain radio frequencies
• An environment that provides a refreshing break from excess, featuring near-total deprivation
• The Sierra Madre’s signature vermillion toxic cloud that helps to encourage efficient navigation and brisk sightseeing for guests

SAFETY NOTE:

By reading this article, you relinquish any right to lawsuits that may be derived from experiences at any of these sites or locations. The publishers of this article are not responsible for injury, death, or any other unwelcome circumstances guests may experience at any of the sites or locations. Visitors are assumed to travel prepared and to remember that our travel guides will never lie, but may at times omit critical safety details for better ratings.

Sarah Everett is an avid poster and Red Dead Redemption 2 player. You can find her on Twitter, Bluesky and regularly streaming on Twitch.

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Do you ever feel so alone
That you could implode and no one would know?
And when you look around and nobody’s home
Don’t you wanna go back to wherever we’re from?
To wherever we’re from

—”Glum”, Ego Death at the Bachelorette Party, Haley Williams

I do think escapism can save the world. 

In the book, I Leave It Up to You, by Jinwoo Chong, a man wakes up from a coma only to find the world he once knew has completely changed in the midst of his two-year slumber. There is nothing fantastical about this: the main character, Jack, simply got into an accident. Resuming his life, he is now forced to not only confront the baggage that he previously endured, but the problems that he himself brought to others in his absence. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but if I am absent, am I doing anything? And so, I still always struggled with the thought that always being busy contributes to breaking down some sort of system—I didn’t even know which one! Finishing this book was no exception to this unintentional journey I have been on when it comes to consuming media that cycles through the same themes of grief, generational trauma, and general crisis.

At the same time, I have been completely enamored listening to Haley Williams’ album Ego Death at the Bachelorette Party. She explores aging, anger, anguish, and artistry—especially through the lens of her solo career and complex relationship with Paramore. I am constantly reminded all too well of my own baggage to unpack when it comes to being a woman and my relationship to what is going on in the world outside of play. Yet, it was due time that I myself needed to go through a titular ego death: I needed to simply learn again how to have fun and get over myself. 

There are games with a soft surface like Kemono Teatime that are more than capable of having the artistry to do justice to grief. You’re also allowed to let yourself escape and immerse as avatars in their eternal virtuality in VRChat. The loud chaos that exists in a world likeThe Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is allowed to co-exist with the quiet and somber of Skate Story. Games can be art, and some art is escapism, but games will always be just games. 

Every year I always say something cliche and twee like, “I learned a lot about myself”—because it’s true! It is another year and nothing may change the fact that I am fatherless, fickle, and more frail than ever, but it doesn’t stop the fact that we can sing about the shit of the world while also trying to do something about it. So yes, I think escapism can save the world, because if we all owe ourselves a few moments of happiness, there is less room for hate to survive. I believe in us, sans sabotage.

5. Necesse

I played a lot of multiplayer titles this past year. Somehow what stuck out to me the most, with all its goofy deaths and obligatory moments in the voice chat, was Necesse. Necesse is a sandbox game with open world elements where you customize your character, explore various biomes, fight, collect, craft, and etcetera. I am aware this absolutely sounds unoriginal. 

So let’s be honest here: Necesse is kind of ugly (Is that Stardew Valley’s UI?) It’s not entirely original in its mechanics (Rimworld is right there.) And the bigger, more polished titles in this genre are still there to always revisit (Terraria just had another update!) Its most unique feature. compared to the aforementioned titles. is your ability to not only gather and recruit NPC allies, but also set up a pretty robust system where you can separately assign and automate their roles. And honestly, it’s pretty impressive. 

The reality is that Necesse has stood out to me as a release from 2025 less for its quality and more for how much I had enjoyable moments in it. It was satisfying to further complete the hubworld wherever I went further in dungeons in Core Keeper, a comparable game. It was satisfying to the lizard part of my brain to solve a room in Escape Simulator 2. And I have spent way more hours feeling the satisfaction of finally finishing off years-long campaigns with the sickest party of pals in For the King II. But there is also something so fun about never running out of wood again once you assigned a lumberjack. There is something so fun about finally arming up your weird little guys and winning against your first invasion. It’s also really fun seeing your wee little villager take their first shot at an enemy when you equip them with their first gun. Again, you can do these in other games, but I had fun playing Necesse.

I am willing to accept that I may just one day eat my words and that Necesse will soon be a title that won’t find longevity in my future queue. But whether co-op or “friendslop”, don’t let anyone deter you from using games for both building bridges and bullshit.

4. S4U: CITYPUNK 2011 AND LOVE PUNCH

S4U: CITYPUNK 2011 AND LOVE PUNCH is text simulation slash visual novel game set in the far past future year of 2011. You play as a contractor who has to chat online on behalf of clients, typically taking on a different identity, in order to solve their problems.

Its pastel hues and soft anime-inspired style contrasts the decisions you often have to make in this job that is basically an invasion of privacy. Helping your clients sometimes involves inferring information from social media public channels, but you also have the unbridled power of remote access given to you by your employer to see and even intervene in people’s private message channels. This gameplay is very cleverly executed by typing out your dialogue choices on a literal desktop computer in front of you.

The game’s overall ambience and intent feel very similar to VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action; and with VA-11 Hall-A’s own success, it’s hard not to make homage accusations with such a similar title structure. VA-11 Hall-A’s Jill and S4U: CITYPUNK’s Miki both have their own distinct personalities, yet serve as the player’s avatar in how they intervene and play god with the relationships that unravel before them. S4U: CITYPUNK clearly comments on our desire for connections through a screen, and its source of inspiration does it through drink. Yet, it doesn’t reduce these themes to simply how we keep sabotaging ourselves through technology, and instead, paints the complexities of human interactions no matter the medium.

3. The Drifter

Crawl might be up there as a genuine classic to me for its ease of replayability and generally stellar design. It’s exciting to see the dynamic duo of Powerhoof return once again—over six years since their last title—to deliver a title that executes an oxymoronic combination of dark and vibrant themes. The Drifter is a text adventure game that follows Mick Carter, a man whose boundless life is upturned after witnessing a murder. He is mysteriously resurrected after being killed himself, and upon awakening is forcibly thrust into uncovering some revelations about this dark world and himself.

I love text adventure games as much as I despise them. Too many of them try to be funny—and fail at it—thinking they can emulate the scripts of Sierra Entertainment as if they’re the next Monkey Island title. They can be overwrought with scope creep: there are far too many puzzles posed as “challenging” when in reality, their solutions are less based in logic and are instead inspired by the designer’s biases. Where The Drifter succeeds as a modern text adventure is that it doesn’t rely too hard on pastiche, despite carrying a very classic unconventional “hero” setup through this noir-inspired, thriller tale. It doesn’t try to subvert—even though it does subvert. But most importantly, its writing is solid, especially when it comes to its humanization of archetypes that typically don’t get that treatment in other pieces of media, such as the homeless. And well, it just looks damn good.  

The game does have its flaws: it does feel like it treats a few of its puzzles as an afterthought; and it’s less that I often ran into bad logic, but more so that they sometimes don’t feel as fleshed out as they could be. Where The Drifter succeeds is in keeping me intrigued throughout a story. And any good story that keeps me intrigued, I consider a success.

2.  Little Witch In the Woods

Little Witch In the Woods is just one of those cute games that anyone can easily pass time with by curling up in a little hut in a bog to rot. You play as a young apprentice witch who is sent out on a journey to reaffirm her witchhood and grow. You got cats, you got talking animals, you got fishing. You fulfill quests, craft, and customize—these are all the checkboxes of a “cozy game”. 

There are numerous interpretations of the coming-of-age witch story, and Studio Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service is one of my favorite films from their catalog, particularly for nostalgic reasons. Growing up, I always had a strong relationship with the mahou shojo genre, and Cardcaptor Sakura was my shit: I was attracted to how Sakura had all these “witchlike” allusions to sorcery and pseudo-magic imagery that I had not seen in other titles of its genre when I first watched it. And of course, Sakura’s fits. 

It just makes sense that Little Witch In the Woods is the type of game that’s completely up my alley. Most especially, it’s a game that exudes such genuine positivity in its affirmation of community, to always look out and help each other where you can.

1. Back to the Dawn

In Back to the Dawn, you’ve got to break out of jail. 

You are given the choice of two protagonists to play: Thomas the Fox, a journalist who has been wrongfully thrown into the slammer for being close to outing a major conspiracy, and Bob the Panther, an undercover agent who poses as an inmate to do one last job. In both cases, the end goal of these two characters is to escape prison, but it is their time inside that matters the most when it comes to unraveling various story threads and truths. 

I am a huge fan of RPGs, and specifically enjoy seeing games so heavily inspired by tabletop roleplaying systems that try to depart from typical popular fantasy IP, like Disco Elysium. Numerous choices you confront to progress the game in Back to the Dawn are based on skill checks, and your chances of success rely on your character’s skills or perhaps even access to certain items. Are you trying to best one of the strongest people in your cell block, or are you simply earning a reputation to access a secret club? You have various opportunities throughout the jail’s complex to improve these skills, such as improving your strength from weight training or winning fights. 

There is just so much to do in this game. There’s a whole ecosystem where you can do menial tasks like cleaning, or you can find yourself in a poker match with the boys to earn money for better food. This is reflective of the reality that capitalism does not disappear behind bars, and that many people in prison still need to do jobs to participate in some sort of currency exchange system.

Despite being a game that can take you across many different paths, Back to the Dawn excels in making every piece of writing meaningfully add dimension to all of the different characters you encounter. Ironically expressing humanity through anthropomorphic animal characters, you experience the breadth of life, that many dismiss, which exists behind the prison system, the reality of who is often wronged by it, and the bonds and communities that have to form between prisoners to simply survive and preserve their own dignity. 

I have played an earlier build of Back to the Dawn, and its full release is the result of four years of development as the debut title by indie studio Metal Head Games. Even in its earlier stages, the game already felt very robust and well developed, sans a second character option. For what Back to the Dawn is, I look forward to what this developer can possibly bring in the future. 

I am happy that there is a piece of anthropomorphic fiction that tries to unpack these topics way better than Disney’s Zootopia. Justice is something we all aspire to, after all.

The post Elvie’s Top Five Games of 2025 appeared first on Gamesline.

These are films of varying quality. Realistically, most of them settle around a two-star rating, but maybe one of the movies on this list will create a strange and panging interest inside of your soul… If so, I implore you to sit down and watch– maybe something incredible will happen!

I should also clarify that I’m using the term “low-budget”, but I’m not looking up the budget for ANY of these movies. Low-budget is a vibe. Some of these movies were even released in-theaters, but still give a low-budget, straight to DVD energy about them. Come with me on a beautiful journey… RIGHT NOW!

Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom (2016)

What would happen if they turned H.P. Lovecraft into a pale little twiggy magic boy, and Cthulhu was his best friend? Well, what would happen is that I would watch it. I’d watch the whole trilogy, actually. Yeah… (I look away and stare at the wall for a minute.) Yeah, there’s really three of these movies. Not to mention that the movies were based on a graphic novel.

The Howard Lovecraft trilogy is a series of movies with all the visual flair of Tim Burton, Psychonauts, and a mobile game in one. They were all fine enough to watch, but the first film in the trilogy, Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom, held an iron grip on my brain for weeks after I watched it. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Howard Lovecraft and Cthulhu had a snowball fight and built a snowman together. One just can’t forget something like that!

If you’re interested and committed to watching random crap, seriously, watch these movies. They’re all free on YouTube, and it’s so fun watching them and pointing out every strange story choice, every unfinished or unrendered shot, or just clapping every time Spot (Cthulhu) is on-screen.

The Barbie Diaries (2006)

This Barbie movie looks like a PS2 game, and I wouldn’t want it ANY other way. You might be thinking to yourself “Don’t all Barbie movies kinda look like PS2 games…?” And to that I’d say… Um… Maybe? But this one looks even worse, and that’s fucking awesome. The textures are crunchy, the graphics are so specifically 2006, and everything is clipping into each other. Still not convinced to watch? Then I’ll mention that this is basically Mean Girls but with Barbie and her awesome all-girl rock band, and maybe even a little bit of… (gasp)… Magic!

There are countless animated Barbie movies, and many of them are masterpieces. If you don’t believe me, then go look at the Letterboxd ratings. THIS particular movie, however, is not a masterpiece. Still, it sticks in my mind because it’s such a strange, ugly, awesome little outlier.

Minimoni the Movie: Okashi na Daibouken! (2002)

M-I-N-I-M-O-N-I！ Minimoni, Minimoni, Minimoni です！

This is the part of the list where I try to get you into Morning Musume, a Japanese idol group that formed in 1998, with music written and produced by Tsunku♂ of Rhythm Heaven fame! Minimoni is a sub-group of Morning Musume aimed towards children, so of course I love it!

In 2002, the Minimoni movie was released! It’s a combination of live-action and CGI animation, but even the environments in the live-action segments are 3D modeled with that early 2000s goodness. It’s a fun adventure movie with music, but more importantly it has the character Beppin, voiced by Yuko Nakazawa from Morning Musume, the most sexy and beautiful obscure waifu that you’ve never heard of before and has 1 image on Google. The movie is available with English subs for free on Youtube! Go, go, go!

Life’s A Jungle: Africa’s Most Wanted (2012)

All the characters are chill as fuck and don’t care about anything, especially the main dog character. Do I remember any specific events that happened? Absolutely not, but that doesn’t matter because my nuts got slapped off and went flying across the room like a rubber band when I watched it, and I think you should watch it too.

Bratz: Fashion Pixiez (2007)

Bratz: Fashion Pixiez is a fever dream. It’s a beautiful nightmare. It’s Lynchian filmmaking for the pretty pink fashion girlies. I had the pleasure of watching this film for the second time in 2025, and was able to go in with a sense of clarity when compared to the confused, scared, bewildering, feelings I had when experiencing it blindly. My feet were firmly on the ground this time, and to be completely honest, the second watch wasn’t as good as the first. That shouldn’t matter to YOU, however, because all you really need is one watch-through of this baby to have your mind blown and your sinuses cleared.

I’m also going to take this opportunity to say that IT’S TIME to bring back pants layered under skirts. The 20-year cycle means Y2K is back, and all we need to do is stop being a bunch of pussies. If the Bratz Fashion Pixies can layer miniskirts with jeans, then so can we!

The Amazing Maurice (2022)

It might be a little disrespectful to put on this list, but can you blame me for initially thinking this movie would be average low-budget Tubi slop? Clearly, I was uninformed, as The Amazing Maurice is based on the classically witty and fantastical stories of Terry Pratchett, AKA British writing royalty. This movie is GOOD. So fun and charming, with an engaging and exciting story, a solid voice cast, and a satisfying cleverness when it comes to the writing. The only problem is that our titular Maurice is maybe a teensy little bit… ugly… I’m sorry Maurice, you’re UGLY! But I’ve learned to love you, and you’re voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, and he does a really great job. B-Cumb, you were made to play an animated cat, NOT an animated Grinch!

I know the majority of you wouldn’t pick this out for movie night, but if you’re ever left with nothing to watch and see that smug ass cat while scrolling on Tubi, maybe give it a try!

Monster High: 13 Wishes (2013)

The way that the film Monster High: 13 Wishes was released in 2013? You can only do something like that every 100 years, so I have to assume they’ve been planning this film for decades.

I actually never grew up with Monster High. It was a bit past my time, and I was more of a Bratz and Barbie girl growing up anyway, but the Monster High character designs have consistently slapped, and I’ve found myself drawn to them like a cartoon man floating towards a pie on a windowsill. I think that any of the Monster High movies are going to be a fun watch, but 13 Wishes was truly pretty incredible and strangely compelling? Also, I wish that every animated movie had voice acting like this. It’s SO peak cartoon for girls, every character has a fun and distinct voice, with a specific shoutout to Debi Derryberry’s Draculaura, that is so high-pitched and strange that it literally sounds like it was edited in post.

The Tangerine Bear: Home in Time for Christmas! (1999)

This movie may feel like a weird little outlier on this list, and that’s because it is! It’s the only traditionally-animated movie listed here, and the only Christmas movie, too. So, why is it here?

The Tangerine Bear: Home in Time for Christmas! is a movie that I watched on repeat as a kid, but before this year, it’d been over 15 years since I had seen it. Before my rewatch, I assumed it would just be an about average, cute, sweet movie to watch around Christmastime. As I was watching, I realized just how wrong I was. The Tangerine Bear is a PERFECT movie. I love every one of these sweet characters, and it’s incredibly heartwarming, fun, musical, and really charmingly animated for its supposed budget. I’ll be rewatching The Tangerine Bear again in 2026’s holiday season, and I highly recommend you do, too! It’s free on Tubi!

Top Cat Begins (2015)

Top Cat Begins was there for me in my darkest hours of 2025. Top Cat? Benny the Ball? Choo Choo? These cats are like my second family. Bad Dog? Sexy Goth German cat? Small Man holding a bag, whose mother never truly loved him? I’ve come to begrudgingly accept them as an extended, married-into family.

Also, wow! It’s so nice to watch an animated movie with voice actors in it! And noooooo, I’m not talking about Jack Black as Bowser, or Zendaya as Meechee, or even Rihanna as Smurfette. The film was produced and distributed in Mexico, so the English release had it re-dubbed with a cast of classic cartoon voice actors and anime dubbers. Charlie Adler, Diedrich Bader, Ben Diskin, Steve Blum, Grey DeLisle… these are names that warm the sweet little smiling cartoon heart that lives in the left side of my chest cavity!

Anyway, Top Cat Begins was a complete box office failure, making only $4.8 million with a budget of $8 million, but if it becomes an emotional support movie for one woman in her late twenties, then can it really be called a failure? (Yes)

I’d like to end this off by saying that I wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun watching these if I wasn’t doing it with my lovely, wonderful, and hilarious friends. The real reason why I love watching low-budget animated films isn’t to turn my brain off, or to scratch some sick itch to watch bad media, it’s to laugh and make jokes along with my friends while experiencing something new together. Will you have as good of a time watching these movies as I did? Maybe you will if you grab a few reliable friends who are just as excited about watching a random movie on Tubi as you are.

I’d like to wish everyone reading this a prosperous 2026, where you can create fond memories with the people you live, laugh, and love with! ♥

Jules is an extremely cartoony vtuber that you can follow on Bluesky and on Twitch at twitch.tv/jules.

The post Low-Budget Animated Movies That Slapped My Nuts Clean Off In 2025 – by Julesy Woolsy appeared first on Gamesline.

Inevitably there are about 20-30 games any given year that I could have or should have played, and so many of those games (sometimes up to 28 or 29) I end up whiffing on. Did I play Expedition 33 this year? No. Would it have been on this list if I had? Almost certainly! Pathologic 3 came out on January 6 of 2026, thank God, or else I’d have to wonder if it should be on this list too. 

And if that isn’t enough, I’m also a lazy connoisseur of games that simply never end. Gacha games? Well I’ve played a few. Final Fantasy XIV? Based on my “hours played,” I’m guessing it ate more than one game up this year. And I don’t apologize for that entirely, but in trying to cut back, I also end up playing and loving games I missed in previous years – Neon White and Yakuza 0 were masterpieces! That were released…a really long time ago. 

So you can see my dilemma! And yet, here we are, and here I am having been asked to give a recap of the year in gaming a half month after its ignoble death. My one saving grace is that this is unlikely to be the worst thing you’ve read in 2026 so far. …probably. On to the races!

1. The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy

I’ve been pretty serious about this being my number one game of 2025 with a bullet, and I’m here to say, even having not finished every last ending, that it remains my number one with a bullet. Kaz Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi have teamed up before, and World’s End Club had glimpses of what Hundred Line would become, but without a stuck landing. This game, this massive hunk of gaming experience and overwhelming scale, absolutely sticks that landing and more. I’m not entirely sure if it paid off monetarily for the studio, particularly as Kodaka and Uchikoshi are, effectively, their own studio, but if it didn’t that can easily be put down to the overwhelming and alienating style of the game. Anime, with weird sexualization of (legal god I swear they’re legal) teens, a strategy game with a VN shell, and 100 endings promised and delivered make for a game that not everyone is gonna pick up. That said, the quality and the care put into making this game work is beyond anything I could’ve expected. This is a form-defining piece of art, and if the boys are to be believed, it’s not even fully complete yet. Please dig in.

2. Blue Prince

If there was plausibly a challenger to Hundred Line for the top spot, this is it. If you had these swapped – as noted rabble rouser Sam Sheehan has in the past – I couldn’t blame you. Blue Prince is a masterpiece, and is so damned compelling and monumental, I couldn’t believe it was actually released not too long ago. The game takes up rent-free space in my head, and I can recall mysteries I bailed on and themes I left unfinished simply because the game was taking over my life. I ran through so, so, so many runs of this game and still am not remotely “complete” if rumors are to be believed. I never had Balatro become a life-ruiner for me, but I could see the vision with Blue Prince. It calls to me, with its many rooms and rogue-lite structure, like the Green Goblin mask. “COWARD. Consider the way the Boiler Room works again.”

3. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

Yes, yes I hear you all. This isn’t new it’s a remake. And it failed to capture the spirit of the series! And you, Trevor, didn’t even finish it! BE THAT AS IT MAY. This is the game that finally clued me in to what everyone is so excited about with these Trails in the Sky games. I just stupidly decided to stream the whole thing, which made it tough to put 12 hours in and not sleep. Ultimately, the switch to 3D and active-passive dual combat made this game feel fresh and compelling while also keeping the feeling of the vast potential of the series intact. I can’t wait to finish it and continue on my journey, and it’s hard to say a remake can do better than that.

4. Hell Clock

A Brazilian Hades-like, Hell Clock is not perfect, and that’s ok. It’s clearly a labor of love from a smaller studio, it’s concepts in the narrative are fascinating, and it covers a period of time and place (late 19th century Brazil and its revolutionary struggle) that are rarely touched on by games in general. Ultimately, the game feels great to play, is a lot of fun to experience, features beautiful Portuguese voice acting, and is not the usual fare one would enjoy. Is it as good as Hades? Pretty unfair question dogg! It’s plenty good and plenty fun and let’s be honest if you’re already thinking of playing it you’ve put 400 hours into various Hades already, so a change might be good.

5. Umamusume: Pretty Derby

The horses are women! The women are horses! They’re kind of like if track stars were also racehorses! And they’re cute and there’s a kind of romantic dynamic a little bit but not much. And it’s wholesome! And there’s a school. And you’re a coach. And this should not work for me it should absolutely not work for me at all, but it absolutely flawlessly does. I didn’t play this as much as I could have, but it still left its mark on me and convinced me of the juice the Umamusume series has. There’s a clear reason this is a juggernaut in Japan and worldwide, and it’s because it has a hell of a good heart. The game itself is also very fun!

6. HORSES

Feel kind of bad ranking Horses this low, but the oft-banned, oft-talked about game is honestly kind of more than the sum of its parts and also less than the sum of its parts. A brilliant setup and execution in the Italian naturalist film approach, with truly terrifying visuals and a lot of surprising revelations, the game feels like a hellish delight while its being played. The effect fades a bit upon recollection, but it’s a game that goes for a particular and dramatic reading and lands it pretty damn well! It’s a fascinating piece, and I’ve thought about it way more than I thought I would after beating it. It’s not difficult and it’s not long and if you’re worried about either of those things, do not play it. But if you like extreme media, this is psychologically and visually chilling. Only on GOG for what it’s worth!

7. Split Fiction

Does this count even though I watched the game on YouTube and didn’t play it? Yes, obviously it does because watching people perform couch co-op is the best I can do at the moment. This game, a follow-up to the similar It Takes Two, is a really fun romp through the psyche of two writers, who each have to manage and navigate their own creative landscapes as well as their partner’s. It’s not going to blow your mind – consider this the anti-Horses that way – but it will make you rethink how games ought to work and it is fun as the dickens, even just watching it. Creative and colorful and effortlessly fun.

8. Unbeatable

This is only this low because I haven’t played the game itself yet, and I almost am in my “maybe this is honorable mention because I don’t know” bit. But the demo for this wonderful rhythm game that focuses on the trials and tribulations of a gang of misfits in a land where music has been banned got under my skin in a real way. The music is full of immediate earworms, the art is gorgeous and idiosyncratic, and the gameplay feels great. This latter point is a big deal since PC rhythm games often feel kind of chunky and bad. Unbeatable feels like it fits like a glove. Pick up the full game now!

9. Monster Hunter Wilds

Why isn’t this higher? Well, because it’s not like…a ton different than Monster Hunter World to me. It’s good though and it deserves a spot here and maybe this is the year I finally figure out how to play these games and love them, please someone help me figure out how to properly love these beautiful and difficult games!

10. Hollow Knight: Silksong

Low because I am cheating! I am cheating! I haven’t touched this game! But much like the other considered entry for this (Promise Mascot Agency), I’m absolutely thrilled this game exists. What a coup for Hollow Knight Nation that we got our sequel, and what a great and exciting thing it is that such a game – a sidescroller that is hard as hell – exists in such a pure way. It’s unique, it’s fun, it’s gripping, it satisfies. And when I do play it I’m probably gonna be mad I didn’t rank it at least third.

Dr. Trevor Strunk is host of the gaming interview podcast No Cartridge Audio as well as author of the book Story Mode. You can find him on Bluesky, on Twitter @hegelbon and support No Cartridge on Patreon.

The post Trevor Strunk’s Top 10 Games of 2025 appeared first on Gamesline.

10. Arc Raiders

There is a deep down pinch of regret putting this on my list of the best games of 2025. I regret putting it here because there are many aspects of how Embark Studios uses generative AI that I find deplorable and detract from the quality of the game. This may surprise you, but there are some aspects of how they’ve used deep learning that I think are actually unique and a breath of fresh air. As much as I want to get into that and cover the topic with more nuance, I desperately want to avoid doing the thing I tend to do every year where I go “I love this game, but” and list off a bunch of negatives that may come across as outweighing its positives. In most, if not all of these cases, it’s usually because a game does something extremely unique that you won’t find in similar games of their genre.

What I find truly unique about Arc Raiders is that it’s a masterclass in creating a space that sets you at unease. Sure, sometimes the way the loading screen tips explain player interactions can be heavy-handed, but they’re not wrong. Seeing another player often means keeping your guard up. You might hear gunfire off in the distance and it immediately sets you off, even though you know rationally that it’s, more likely than anything else, a player shooting at one of the robots instead of at another player. But that’s not the point. With small moments like that, distrust has already been sown and, even if you have pure intentions, your finger is still on the trigger ready for something to go down. I’m usually friendly to most people, but there are the occasional moments where the darkness sets in. I’ll see a team in distress, recovering from a bad robot attack or trapped in a corner with no way to escape and tell my homies “we gotta kill these guys” simply because their loot would be better if it was my loot instead.

But I’ve also had beautiful moments as well. In a game I queued into solo to bang out a quick quest, two other people also showed up at the quest’s location. Instead of it turning into a bloodbath, we all said we were friendly and just needed to do this quest. Then, another person showed up, and another person, and another. A non-insubstantial amount of people on that server all showed up just to do one fetch quest, and we all did it happily together. We all looked around for the hidden items we needed to find, and as soon as someone found it, they called it out and pointed everyone else to it. Once the quest was said and done, we all went our separate ways to do a little bit of looting before closing out the round. After grabbing a few things, I headed to the nearest elevator to return home to Speranza and what do I see but a couple of my homies from the scrapyard where we found what we were all looking for together. In that moment, what we were looking for was not some piece of old technology or an audio log or something, but it was peace on Earth. That we can put down the guns and all come together. You can find hope in hopeless places, but only if you’re looking for it.

9. Split Fiction

This section spoils ending details from Split Fiction as well as Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.

Ok, ok, ok. I’m not gonna say “I love this game, but.” Actually, I hate this game… But. You gotta see this shit.

The third in the trilogy of Josef Fares’ whacky co-op adventures focuses on two girl writers who have gone unpublished, and who both sign-up for a tech mogul’s AI powered machine that will extract all their ideas from them. Through a whacky series of events, they get put in the same pod together and need to live out each other’s stories together. The problem? One of them is a sci-fi writer and the other writes only fantasy!!! How could they be any more different and, more importantly as the lesbians in my chat pointed out over and over again, when are they gonna kiss???

Spoilers for Split Fiction, they do not kiss. I’m sorry. They don’t kiss. I’m sorry. The upside is that if Josef Fares is as open to the critique of his games that I think he is, then his next game is going to be openly homoerotic unabashedly. He’s an ally, after all. I have to believe.

Split Fiction coming from the lineage of A Way Out and It Takes Two is very interesting to me. Neither of them are particularly well written, and if Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons had any understandable dialogue in it at all, it might be a much weaker game for it. A Way Out, though, is ambitious. It’s straightforward, punching way above its depth, and has a bunch of extremely funny juxtaposition in the way you’re supposed to take this crime drama deadly seriously while you and your friend are just playing Legally Distinct Connect 4 with each other. Brothers was similarly serious-yet-goofy at times, but moments of levity help underscore the ultimate tragedy of the journey the titular brothers are going through. It Takes Two is remarkably goofy in presentation but is underscored by the darkness of a family going through a divorce and a child who doesn’t really know what’s going on. With Split Fiction, the real-world stakes are so cartoonishly stupid that they don’t feel particularly different from what the characters are going through while they explore each other’s worlds.

The narrative gimmick of Split Fiction is that each of the worlds the deuteragonists Mio and Zoe go through are all stories that they’ve written in the past, but, more importantly, each story is based off of a real world event that shaped them. Both characters are all too eager to point this out, too. Zoe is unabashedly straightforward about it, often stating that “this story was based on a time me and my sister went into the woods” or something similar. Mio is more withholding, but it is stunningly obvious when you fight a big boss that’s an analogue for Parking Tickets, which of course plays into her overall stress of dealing with remarkable amounts of debt that she took on when SPOILERS. The other thing about this style of writing is that Mio and Zoe are just not very good writers. The game is ultimately a celebration about writing and creativity, and yet remarkably it tells so much on Josef Fares’ style as a writer. He has said as much too, talking about how the core moment of Brothers, where one of the brothers dies, is based off of his own experience as a child burying his newborn brother during the Lebanese Civil War. Drawing from personal experiences is a powerful way to write, but Split Fiction posits this idea that it is basically the only form of inspiration. 

Mio and Zoe, by the end of Split Fiction, are still a sci-fi writer and a fantasy writer. Their experience sharing the stage with each other, exploring each other’s works and growing deeper together as people, doesn’t seem to particularly shape how they each individually write, because the end result of their experiences together is that they co-author a book. In fact, they co-author a book based on their experience in the idea stealing machine and it’s a mindbending thriller that bends into both sci-fi and fantasy genres but is, most importantly, an auto-biographical story about their journey. That’s right, they write the book Split Fiction and it’s the first book either of them ever get published. Am I joking? Is that the real ending? Who knows!!! You have to play it for yourself!!!

That’s all to say it actually plays really well and is a fun platformer that does some really amazing stuff with co-op presentation that is extremely cool and very unique and why I recommend this game in the first place. But unfortunately I can’t tell you about that, since I’ve spent most of this section of my list talking about something else that doesn’t matter. Will I learn from this? Let’s find out!

8. Rematch

Rematch is, put bluntly, the first sports game. You may believe that there are other sports games out there. There are games that simulate sports for sure. You can control a team and run it up a field. You can switch between players and try to dunk buckets. But none of them compare to the feeling of being on the field. You are one player, on a team, on the soccer field (with the rules bent to be more freeform than traditional futbol) and you have one goal: get the ball in the goal. And it rocks.

Jokingly yet accurately referred to as “Rocket League without cars,” Rematch feels like the first time anyone has examined the space of sports games as they, fundamentally, haven’t changed much since the Super Nintendo era, and decided to build one from the ground up that feels like you’re playing a sport. Rematch has training modes that will teach you how to play the game, but other than that, it doesn’t have a single-player mode. It’s all online multiplayer. It wants you on the field ready to get your ass handed to you by other players way beyond your skillset. There are mix-ups, team plays, special moves you may not know how to do. You may see someone do something and go “how the fuck do I do that” and then go into the training mode to lab it out until you too learn how to do it. Even when you’re doing badly, getting on the field with your team, especially with your homies who are all learning together, is intoxicating. And then once your start to form your own strategies and start to make big moves, start to score goals, start to consistently win games, there’s nothing else like it.

Rematch is the first sports game. You may believe that there are other sports games out there. They are not the same.

7. Drop Duchy

There’s beauty in the world knowing that Drop Duchy exists. That someone, in their brain, said “what if we turned Tetris into a city-builder/strategy game?” And then they went and made it and it’s fucking fun. You would think it the work of psycho long-time game developers, but it is actually the first and only game by new French developer Sleepy Mill Studio, with an in-house team of 9 people. Drop Duchy feels like it should be a massive success, and as an introductory game for a small studio, by all rights, it has been really good for them as they’ve continued to release new content well into 2026.

Drop Duchy works because of how neatly it simplifies each aspect of its inspirations. You build cities by placing pieces very similar to tetrominos. Many of those pieces have unique traits to them, and perhaps most importantly, soldiers. You need to make sure that your number of guys is higher than the number of your opponents. But wait! What’s this you might say? A triangle, based on weapons? A rock-paper-scissors style of strengths and weaknesses to every troop type that you may use to gain advantage on your opponents? 

Drop Duchy starts you slow, introducing new concepts once you feel like you’ve gotten a handle on its unique style of puzzle-strategizing. There are multiple times throughout the game where I’ve gotten a new unlock and said, out loud, to myself, alone in my room at impossible hours of the night, “This changes everything.” Even the new DLC factions that have been released so far seem based on the same principle of “oh you this thing that’s fundamental to how the game is played? What if it wasn’t like that?” And it still works! It starts simple in order to complicate itself with new things that are unique to Drop Duchy, adding more complication once you might be thinking you have your head wrapped around everything it has to offer at such a comfortable pace. Drop Duchy is awesome. More games should be “what if we made Tetris into something else?”

6: Pokemon Legends: Z-A

This game had a remarkable challenge, perhaps an impossible one. Pokemon Legends: Z-A comes as a successor to Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which is, in my humble opinion, the best Pokemon game ever made. Or, to be less hyperbolic, the first time a Pokemon game has felt original in decades. Pokemon Legends: Arceus put a big focus on catching Pokemon, what that means from a gameplay perspective and how it’s gone stagnant over generation upon generation of Pokemon games. It came up with the beautifully simple yet elegant system of, in real time, picking up a pokeball and throwing it at a Pokemon. Outstanding. Remarkable. Simply divine. For a series this long-tenured to redefine its core mechanics in such a simple yet satisfying way. How in the world could Pokemon Legends: Z-A, a game that in structure looks like the exact opposite of Legends: Arceus, follow in large, Snorlaxian footsteps?

Pokemon Legends: Z-A takes upon itself a similar challenge. If Legends: Arceus’ gameplay thesis was on how to redefine and remake catching Pokemon from the ground up, to turn it into something realtime and simple and fun to do, Legends: Z-A’s thesis would be on battling. It would take the long-tenured and sometimes bemoaned battling of Pokemon and turn it into something fast paced, real time, and fun. You can argue that Legends: Z-A’s take on battling is not as elegant as the turn-based style that Pokemon has been synonymous with for generations, and frankly I think it would do the series a disservice to drop turn-based battling entirely, but battles in Legends: Z-A are very very fun.

If it was simply a fest to mash out your strongest attacks to OHKO your opponent’s Pokemon as fast as possible, it would be a failure. Instead, Legends: Z-A opts to make you consider your plays, when you use them, what moves you can give your Pokemon in its limited 4 move set to counter other moves, what moves you pull from its broader movepool to take on certain opponents, and most importantly, how to combat type disadvantage on the fly. When someone swaps in a Pokemon that is extremely strong against your type, you are suddenly on the backfoot and need to come up with a strategy fast. You can swap out, but then swapping another Pokemon in is on a timer, meaning that if you make the wrong choice, you suffer big time. You can Mega-Evolve your Pokemon, giving them boosted stats and sometimes changing their typing, but even that’s not an assured victory against a type disadvantage. 

My skills as a trainer and a battler feel like they’re being pushed to the limit in Legends: Z-A’s toughest battles. I’ve had many competitive matches where I’ve nearly run out the clock sitting on a decision trying to make sure I make the right one, or at least the one my opponent won’t see coming. I don’t have that luxury in Legends: Z-A. Even when you lose a Pokemon and get a brief break to swap in a new one, the timer to do so moves fast, and you have to go now. Time is a luxury you do not have. Sometimes it feels so fast that it’s pure chaos. It’s up to you to see if you can keep up with it.

5. Elden Ring Nightreign

I know, I know, Fromsoft game on Scott’s list, of course it happened again. There’s no stopping it. I don’t think I could leave one off if I tried. Nightreign is good, though. I like Nightreign a lot even if it is just a multiplayer side-game. I like that Nightreign is weird and has a ton of idiosyncrasies that are unique even for Souls games. Hey, wait a minute. That’s the same reason I like Dark Souls 2. That’s strange. Huh.

I’ve definitely struggled to figure out what to write about Nightreign that hasn’t been said anywhere else. So, in lieu of just stating all the ways in which a weird Fortnite-style third person action game that is clearly a budget title – allegedly initially pitched as an “Elden Ring Mobile Game” by Tencent until Fromsoft, as the holders of the Elden Ring IP (who happen to be very precious about the games put out under their banner), took over the project and retooled it into a strange multiplayer amalgamation of a ton of different influences using the signature style of combat that From has used for 15 years now that, by all accounts, should not work but does, in fact, work extremely well, I’d like to talk about maps.

Elden Ring Nightreign, unlike similar games of the same genre, up until the release of the Forsaken Hollows DLC, had one map. The map had multiple permutations, dubbed as Shifting Earth events, which would dramatically change a portion of the map and add extra optional objectives that you can engage with if you so desire during your run. Comparatively, PUBG: Battlegrounds has many maps that it has tweaked and modified over the years. Erangel, its first and signature map, recently got a remixed variant called Erangel: Subzero that adds a ton of winter-themed events that happen over the course of a game. Fortnite has an ever-evolving map that, over the course of a season, will take out and add in new areas. When a season is over, they’ll often scrap the map entirely and bring in a new one. This left players with so much nostalgia for older content that they introduced OG mode, which has been going through a selection of slightly remixed and reworked older maps from a much simpler period of Fortnite’s life.

Fromsoft has a storied lineage with geography in their games as well. Dark Souls’ interconnected and deeply vertical map, placing all the different areas adjacent to each other in unique ways, is often lauded as one of the game’s greatest achievements. Coming out in 2011, it felt unique compared to other games at the time, while also being more of a modern take on Metroidvania style world design than even its Metroid and Castlevania contemporaries. This was also the beginning of an era in gaming that I will refer to as Peak Open World. Sleeping Dogs, Shadow of Mordor, GTA V, The Witcher 3, the myriad of Assassin’s Creed games, hell, even Fallout: New Vegas came out one year before Dark Souls. Peak Open World was capped off by Breath Of The Wild, a game that tried to take an already well established genre and twist its conventions to make it more about exploration and discovery. From this point on, you start to hear the term “open world fatigue” whenever another AAA open world release reared its head. 

By the time Elden Ring rolled around in 2022, its open-yet-linear style of world design was divisive among its playerbase. I am a noted liker of its world design, how it encourages exploration and leads you to incredible and unique discoveries. Many people lamented that this would be the style of Souls game that Fromsoft put out in the future, missing the interconnected worlds with very tightly constructed levels that made them so fun in the first place. Big, open, massive maps that you can’t possibly explore every inch of and, by design, have many inches which would be utterly pointless to explore, are an understandable turnoff to many people. Elden Ring’s world is by no means sparse, but there is a lot of space when you run from one place to another, especially when you’re not doing it on your horse. This meant co-op play out in the big open world was a lot of downtime and slow travel since you can’t use your horse in online play. To anyone who spends any amount of time walking around The Lands Between, it can make you feel small and insignificant.

In Nightreign, every player now has a super sprint that you use to travel from one place to another in a map roughly as large as Limgrave, Elden Ring’s opening area. Nightreign feels like the exact opposite of the loneliness Elden Ring can engender. Instead of slowly wandering around with a lot of downtime, you’re sprinting from one area to another in a frenzied rush.Elden Ring almost forces you to take your time and sit and consider your options. Nightreign tells you there’s no time and you need to move move move. You have to GO. You have to go NOW. If you don’t sprint and run around and kill as many things as possible or plan poorly and kill the wrong things or try to tackle something while underleveled and waste valuable time, you’re playing Nightreign wrong. Nightreign wants you to go so fast that I never noticed that on the second day, there are literal giants walking towards The Lands Between coming from the ocean. Huh. A lot like Dark Souls 2. Huh, that’s weird.

The breakneck pace of Nightreign, however, doesn’t invalidate exploration. If anything, Nightreign’s high-level play involves being able to look at your map and plotting out a route through dangerous territory at a moment’s notice. Fortnite and PUBG’s route planning, by comparison, gives you plenty of time to sit and consider your dwindling options and discuss them with your team, and often simply involves just heading to the next closest place in the circle. With Nightreign, you’re often picking a place based on its future value and potential placement inside the circle before it closes in and then plotting your next few moves after that. The churches where you get much needed health flasks may be spread out and inconvenient to your path compared to the places where you might want to get loot. The places you can go are always changing, but the geography is always the same. Even Shifting Earth events take up a large space of the map and are static, so you find yourself getting familiar with their unique geography as well.

It’s interesting, then, to compare and contrast these styles. Nightreign’s map is called Limveld, deliberately evoking Elden Ring’s Limgrave. Limveld is aesthetically very similar to Limgrave, sometimes feeling like parts of it were wholesale ripped right out of Elden Ring. But it still teaches you to appreciate its landscape, to know where you can successfully climb up a wall compared to where it would be a fool’s errand. It teaches you its fastest routes through repetition, and gives you the tools to move through it’s landscape as flawlessly as if you lived there. Each Nightreign’s unique characters all have a background, all come from a distinct place in the world, and all of them feel as though they belong. In Elden Ring, you can choose a background for your character that are all distinct to The Lands Between, but your character is always Tarnished.

You can sit for hours in the vast, impressive landscapes of Limgrave overlooking the Mistwood, on a cliff in Liurnia above its massive ankle-deep lake, or on the Mountaintop of the Giants where the giant forge threatens to one day burn the massive golden tree that you can see from anywhere in The Lands Between. But you’re always reminded of the dead, that you exist in a world barely hanging on that is crying out for someone, anyone, to take Marika’s hammer. Even in your quest to become the next Elden Lord, you never feel as though you are part of this world. You are alien. You can choose a background from your character during creation that does not even come from The Lands Between, such as the Reedlander or the Seafarer. The Aristocrat’s background only seeks to “claim noble blood in the Lands Between” with the implication that they may not even be from there. You arose from a coffin after Godfrey sailed away from that place, forever taking away the grace of gold from your eyes. Your only home is the Roundtable Hold, a place where you are at first branded as a “houseguest” by Sir Gideon, and over the course of the game, you see all it’s inhabitants dwindle and leave until you are alone and the hold is burning down.

The Roundtable Hold also serves as the hub area in Nightreign, or some form of it, likely in the same liminal space it existed in during the events of Elden Ring. It’s much older now, and in disrepair, but now it serves as the base of the Nightfarers holding off the encroaching darkness threatening to subsume what’s left of this world. When you choose what character you want to play as, the other ones hang out around the hold. It is their home, fashioned with beds and desks with books and even a kitchen hall where everyone eats. During each character’s personal quests (dubbed remembrances), you see how all of their relationships intertwine and how, even in their impossible situation, they’re still treating each other as people. Some are deeply kind like the Recluse’s motherliness towards the Revenant. Others are tragic like Wylder’s resignation to never lose his sister, the Duchess. Others are dark like the Ironeye’s betrayal towards the Nightfarers as escaping his duties as an Assassin outweighs his desire to stop the night.

These people all live in the ruins of what was left behind. Like Nightreign was built on the existing world, the existing assets of Elden Ring, the Nightfarers exist and Limveld exists because the Roundtable Hold and Limgrave did. You can’t find the Roundtable Hold on a map. Not in Nightreign at least. You can find some version of it in Elden Ring, sitting inconspicuously in the golden city of Lyendell. But even by then, it is old and abandoned, occupied only by a few stragglers just looking for a place they can set a fire and sleep in a bed. But it is not your home. It won’t be anyone’s home, really. Not until everything around it turns to ash. In the closing moments of Nightreign during the game’s ending, you see sprites floating around, traversing the halls of the Roundtable Hold as it is abandoned once more. The Nightfarers, having fulfilled their duty, are no longer needed. Yet the Hold remains. Perhaps to one day become home to someone else, someday. Someplace, somewhen, somewhere, somehow. You can always go back to the Roundtable Hold.

4. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles

They did it again, folks. They remade my favorite game of all time. I like it! I like The Ivalice Chronicles. There’s things I don’t like about it, namely that it excludes content from the War of the Lions version which could have acted as a really good endgame buffer and added more replayability to it. I don’t like that the lovingly animated WotL cutscenes exist in the game but aren’t actually used, and you can only watch them in the cutscene viewer. But also, I love the voice acting! I love that they added more dialogue between characters in battle! I love that they have Cloud and Aerith’s voice actors from the FF7 Remake series to play Cloud and the non-descript flower girl that shows up in his cutscenes! I love that because it’s not actually Aerith and an Ivalician version of her, it’s just her actress putting on a posh accent! Everyone is posh in Ivalice! I love that Construct-8 has the voice of a small child! It’s good! It’s really good! 

I must admit to you, though. I have been looking at the Nexus mods page for The Ivalice Chronicles obsessively in hopes that someone will put out some kind of WotL content mod. Or any more new content at all, really. I have a desire to see this thing become something more than it is, even though I know they are rushing up against their limitations at record speed. Truly, the Final Fantasy Hacktics community has brushed up against hard limits of what they can and can’t mod in The Ivalice Chronicles after busting open the WotL version for PSP emulators. But I’m holding out hope. The Dark Knight and Onion Knight classes still existed in the game’s files. It just took some clever reworking to make them whole. I want to see this become the best version of FFT that has ever existed, because it’s already damn near close.

3. Death Stranding 2: On The Beach

Awesome game, great ending. As fun as the first Death Stranding. If it was simply a retread of what Death Stranding did, then I probably wouldn’t rate this so highly, but the ending is an unreal spectacle that has to be seen to be believed. I can’t talk about it without spoiling it. I’m already spoiling several other games on this list and I just need you to know that I won’t do it in this case. I have to stand firm in my resolve here. You gotta check this shit out.

2. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

The following section fully spoils the ending and major plot details of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

When I initially came to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, online opinion havers had already planted a seed in me that it’s not a game you come to for the story, you’re there for The Gameplay. You’re there for raw turn based action RPG thrills with live action parrying and quick time events and everything. The story, for whatever unique trappings it had, was likely another banal RPG story about killing god or whatever… The thing is, though, is that online opinion havers are always wrong. Explain this, smart guys: if the story of Expedition 33 is really not all that important, then how come I’ve been agonizing over the decision at its ending for months now? 

Before I can discuss the ending of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, there is a lot of ground I need to cover. I’ll try to skip over most of the story details but there are a lot of specific ones that need to be mentioned. Ok, so, broad strokes: the world of Expedition 33 takes place inside of a painting that exists in the real world, in Paris, France likely in the late 19th century, early 20th century, painted by the only son of the Dessendre family. The Dessendres are an esteemed family of Painters that have the ability to craft pocket-dimensions out of the paintings they create, at a nebulous and loosely explained cost of their life-force. What is made clear is that the longer you stay in the painting, and the more you try to paint, the further your body in the real world dies.

The Dessendre family consists of five members. The patriarch of the family is Renoir, named after 19th century French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. He is similarly married to Aline, also named after her real world counterpart Aline Charigot, who was a dressmaker and served as a model for many of Renoir’s paintings. Their son, Verso, died in a fire set by a rival gang of creatives known as The Writers, an act that their youngest daughter, Alicia, who was also maimed irrevocably in the fire, feels personally responsible for. Their oldest daughter, Clea, becomes bitter and cruel to Alicia, reinforcing and internalizing Alicia’s guilt over her brother’s death.

In her grief, Aline dives into the world Verso painted and refuses to leave, ingratiating herself as a godlike figure known as The Paintress. After many failed attempts at getting her to leave the painting, Renoir enters it as well in order to erase it. Alicia, seeing herself as having no more worth in the real world, follows her father. However, as a novice painter who can’t control her power, she instead gets absorbed into the painting and reborn as the character Maelle without any of her past memories.

Over the course of her new life living in the city of Lumiere inside the painting, Maelle becomes a little-sister figure to Gustave, the leader of Expedition 33. You’ve likely heard this setup for the story at this point so I’ll keep it brief: Expedition 33, like the many Expeditions before it, sets off to destroy the paintress to stop the Gommage, a yearly event that kills all of the oldest people in the world based on their age. Maelle joins the expedition as well with a feeling that she doesn’t quite belong in Lumiere. Upon setting off, Expedition 33 is decimated by Renoir. The fledging remnants of Expedition 33 in Gustave, Maelle, Lune and Sciel all reunite and attempt to continue the journey to the Paintress.

Gustave and Maelle are deeply attached to each other. When Maelle feels like she has nobody else in the world, like she’s completely alone and isolated, she still has Gustave, the one remaining thread of security for her. Which is why it’s so heartbreaking when Renoir murders Gustave at the end of the game’s first act. Jumping in to save Maelle before Renoir strikes her down, too, is another man who seems like he’s too old to still be alive, who looks a lot like Gustave but with streaks of silver in his hair. This man is named Verso.

We find out later in the game that the Verso and Renoir that exist inside the painting are painted facsimiles of their real world counterparts. Verso joins the party as Gustave’s replacement in Final Fantasy V Gulaf-to-Krile fashion, being a similar but not entirely the same character. Verso tells Maelle that he is a pianist, a different kind of artist despite his parents’ wishes, and that he played in Lumiere back before the first expedition. Maelle makes him promise to come play again when everything is over, which Verso casually accepts.

We can find remnants of failed expeditions: audio logs, previous camps and expedition flags, and the many many petrified bodies of previous expeditioners. This world has existed for a long time and the people in it have suffered for generations now, wishing for a future that they can finally call their own. Despite losing Gustave, Maelle travels with him, Lune and Sciel, while still finding beauty in the world in the whimsical Esquie and Monoco, Verso’s Gestral companion and blue mage of the team. Verso has lived so long that he and Monoco, in their conversations together, recall all of the old adventures they’ve been on and previous expeditions they’ve helped. The world these people live in is very real, even if it only exists on a canvas.

In Act 3 of the game, after all about the Dessendre family has been revealed and everything laid bare, after the painted version of Renoir and the Paintress had been defeated, expelling Aline from the painting for the time being, in one last shocking twist, everyone in the world other than Verso and Maelle are gommaged all at once. The truth of the gommage was not that every time the number went down, she was killing everyone of that age, but that Renoir was attempting to kill everyone in the painting in order to expel her from it, with the number counting down being the people left she could shield due to the painting draining her lifeforce. Verso knew all along that this would happen, and helped the expedition to expel the Paintress because he was sick of living in a world as a shadow of another person. When Verso was painted, he was painted with the memories of the real Verso. He knew all about his life. He knew about the truth of the world, and hid all of this from everyone. He was made immortal by the Paintress and no longer wants to live in this world, and, in order to save his ailing mother from her grief, is willing to erase everything. He feels ownership over the painting and it’s hard not to understand why; he is the namesake of its painter.

With this truth revealed, Maelle regains her memories, but most importantly, she takes control of her ability to paint. She can create life in this world and be its god in the same way that her family could. The real Renoir finally shows himself before Verso and Maelle. He controls all the power in the world and wants Maelle to come home now that Aline is gone from the painting. He’s not like the painted Renoir, he’s gentler and more understanding, but is firm in his belief that the painting must be destroyed in order to make his family whole again. Maelle opposes this: the painting is not only a home to so many beautiful people and things, but she also feels as though it’s now her home. She has no life outside the painting. Her body is frail and disfigured, unable to speak, and seemingly beset on all sides by people who either hate her or want her dead. In the painting, she can live what she believes to be a free and normal life, the implication being that she, too, is tempted by the limitless possibilities of the painting just like her mother. However, where Aline stayed in the painting to grieve a life she lost, Maelle wants to live a life she feels like she’s finally gained.

In contesting Renoir, Maelle uses what limited powers she can conjure to paint her party members Lune and Sciel back into existence, as well as a necromantic army of petrified expeditioners to lead a full scale attack on Lumiere and to face Renoir head to head. In the final confrontation, Sciel and Lune both approach Renoir to speak their truth, that Sciel grieves for the people of the world that they’ve lost and that Lune believes that children need to be able to grow up and be their own people outside of their parents’ influence. Renoir listens to them both, considers their words, and recognizes their humanity. But his choice doesn’t waiver. He’s willing to let these people die if it means his family can live. Maelle, in a way she was not able to do in the real world, is able to speak her truth directly to her father. She believes she has nothing in her real body. She’s tried over and over again to start over but can never live down that her brother died because of her.

With their differences irreconcilable, Expedition 33 defeats Renoir with the help of the Paintress, Aline, who enters the painting once more in order to get Renoir out. The path is clear to the heart of the painting, where Verso, before anyone else, abandons the party to jump ahead. Inside the heart is another soul trapped inside the canvas. The true painter: the trapped soul, or perhaps a remnant of a soul, of the real Verso. A literal manifestation of the adage that every artist puts a little bit of themselves in their work. He has done nothing but paint since he died years ago, and he is tired. He confides in the other Verso that he no longer wishes to paint. Verso tells him that he doesn’t need to paint anymore, and is about to run him through with his sword until he’s stopped at the last second by Maelle.

All of this explainer of the plot sets up the moral dilemma at the end of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that has been haunting me since I beat it. Maelle and Verso are about to duel for the fate of the painting. You choose which person you’re going to control, similar to the ending of another game CO:Ex33 is clearly inspired by. If Maelle wins, the painting lives on. Alicia will cease to exist and she will continue to live as Maelle, keeping the painting alive at the cost of not only her own soul, but her deceased brother’s still trapped in the painting. Their grief and the grief of the entire Dessendre family is the price to pay in order to keep a world full of living, breathing people alive, no matter if it’s the “Real World” or not. If Verso wins, Maelle dies, expelling her from the painting to return to living in the world as Alicia, and erasing the painting for good. The world inside the painting will cease to be.

From a pragmatic perspective, I believe most people would choose Maelle. They’ve seen the world for what it is and to let it be erased feels like a massive loss of life. If you choose Maelle and defeat Verso, Verso pleads with Maelle not to bring him back. He doesn’t want to live anymore, he just wants to die. Once he’s defeated, Verso’s body fades off into flower pedals just like all the people you’ve witnessed die in this game have as well. We jump forward in time to Lumiere in the future. Maelle has resurrected everybody and Lumiere is a beautiful and prosperous town once more. We are reunited with Gustave and his ex-girlfriend Sophie, together once again, after she had been gommaged at the very beginning of the game. 

There’s a funny feeling about the gommage. It’s tragic, but everybody knows it’s coming. Once the number turns to your age, you have a whole year to live out your life and you become prepared for death. It still hurts losing the ones you’ve lost. But you know it’s coming. I share this feeling with Maelle’s ending, as everyone files into an opera house for a concert. The perspective shifts to 4:3 and all color leaves the scene, becoming a stark black and white. The curtain rises and we see Verso at the piano. Maelle did not respect his wish. She brings him back to life to perform for her just like he promised he would. We watch him sorrowfully play until cutting back to Maelle in what can only be described as a jumpscare, half of her face covered in the same curse that plagued her mother after so much prolonged time in the painting. We were told over and over again that she would become intoxicated by it, that she’ll never grow out of childhood if she doesn’t leave the painting, and that’s exactly what happens.

If Verso wins the duel, he strikes down Maelle, expelling her from the painting and back to her life as Alicia. Esquie and Monoco are the first to confront Verso, his oldest and dearest friends, and they hug him as they are the first to disappear. Sciel, who Verso had become romantically involved with over the expedition, is the next to come in. She looks at him mournfully, but is ultimately accepting of her fate, as she too disappears. Lune is the last to arrive, and she looks disgusted with Verso. She sits on the ground and simply waits wordlessly until her time, never breaking eyes with him. She forces him, the proxy for you, the player, to sit with the choice that you’ve made. The painted Verso is the last to disappear before the soul of the real Verso stops painting altogether. We cut to the real world once more. The entire family is together once again, visiting Verso’s grave. Clea is the first to leave, with Renoir and Aline behind her. Before Alicia leaves, she sees the entire party: Gustave, Maelle, Sciel, Lune, Verso, Esquie and Monoco, all there in the distance. Their memories are still with her. Maybe one day, if she paints again, she may paint them in another world. It’s hard to say, they were never her creations to begin with, but they do mean everything to her. In this ending, Alicia has a future ahead of her, and more importantly, time to grow and space to grieve.

It’s hard for me not to draw comparisons to Ursula K LeGuin’s short story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. In the story, LeGuin encourages you, the reader, to imagine what you would consider paradise, the perfect place to live with dancing and frolicking and friendly people there to greet you every day. However, Omelas has a dark secret, that hidden in the city is a feeble child that lives a tortured existence, essentially alone and trapped in a closet, wallowing in its own filth and considered too dumb to even know what’s happening to it. Everyone in the town knows that he exists, and once children grow to a certain age, they’re shown the child as well and are told in no uncertain terms that they must not help it in the slightest, that “there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.” There is no reasonable doubt for any of the citizens of Omelas, every single one understands that their majestic lives are at the expense of a tortured child.

Post-gommage Lumiere and Omelas are similar in this regard: a city of people who live in peace and harmony at the expense of continued child-suffering. In the case of Lumiere, it’s not only at the expense of the stunted growth of Maelle who’s literal lifeforce now fuels the painting, but also in the soul of the trapped Verso in the heart of the painting. Maelle, too, prolongs the painted Verso’s suffering by denying his agency and forcing him to live because she simply wants him to. Maelle doesn’t believe herself to be suffering, she is living the life she always wished she could and is surrounded by people who love her unconditionally, but we know this is a fantasy for her. Even if this world is real and worthy of existence, it still exists at the mercy of a child-god who refuses to face responsibility and adulthood. From her perspective, it’s easy to see why she would choose this life, even if it meant and even if she knew it would kill her in the end. She believes that she will ultimately be unaffected by it, that she can leave the painting whenever she wants and visit home again. But we’re not given any indication that she does, as she walks her mothers path, living in an idealized version of her own grief in a world her dead brother created.

But destroying the canvas, despite its destruction ultimately being the catalyst that does bring the family back together, isn’t a great option either. At no point does Renoir consider the Canvas to be fake. He knows it’s full of people with real thoughts and feelings and full lives. Which makes his decision to end the painting feel so callous and cold. His family means everything to him as each of their families, including Maelle’s found family, has meant everything to her. But he isn’t wrong, destroying the canvas does ultimately lead to his family being able to grieve properly and live again. The painted Verso shares this sentiment. Despite being a simulacra of his own dead self, he still sees the Paintress as his mother, and he still sees that she’s suffering for him, and can’t bear to live with it anymore. Does he not have ownership over what happens to the canvas? Is he not its rightful heir? Should he have to continue on as an immortal being that cannot die, his immortality fueled by the spirit of the person who once painted him? Is his grief not valid as well?

There’s also the matter of class to consider. Lumiere doesn’t have any sort of wealth inequality. Everyone appears to be free citizens, and since the expeditions, have been content with living peacefully until their time runs out. By the time the story starts, Lumiere’s citizens live in a state of tragic contentment. Their only way of fighting back is the expeditions, where all the 67th before them had failed. Their society, however, was created by and continues to live due to the continued suffering of a family of wealthy elites in Paris, France. It’s really not difficult to see the plight of this well off family, with how many times I walked through the halls of their ostentatious manor, and wondered to myself “why do I care about these people?” Surely, their family drama could live unabated from the world of the canvas, their meddling could be less obtrusive? The canvas could be locked away in a vault somewhere and left to live as its own pocket world? The concession that the game makes here is that Aline is so drunk with the temptation of the painting that she will find a way to enter it. She’s been forced out multiple times and she keeps coming back every time. She tells Renoir she is allowed to grieve in her own way, but the way she chooses to grieve is killing her and tearing her family apart.

As someone who lived with a parent that had substance abuse issues, this hit hard for me. Seeing the same person make the same mistakes over and over again and wanting them to stop, and they just refuse, it’s heartbreaking. Anyone who’s been through that before knows how much addiction can tear apart families and rip loved ones away from you. I didn’t have a great relationship with my stepfather. In fact, I hated him, but my mom and my sister still loved him. Any time I found needles in our basement, or he would do something extremely drastic to fuel his addiction, it was another knife in the chest. My mom one day came home to find our entire savings had been emptied. A modest $10,000, everything she’d been able to save up for years working shitty jobs, completely gone. I remember the venom in her voice when she asked him where all the money went. I’d never heard her make a noise like that before.

Aline Dessendre’s compulsions are not too dissimilar from that of impressionist painters in the early 20th century. Pablo Picasso famously hosted regular opium nights in his studio between 1904-1908, until his friend Karl-Heinz Wiegels committed suicide during a psychotic break brought on by a combination of hashish and opium. Even after he swore off opium for good, he still experimented with cocaine, alcohol, morphine, and seemingly any other substance he could get his hands on over the course of his life. Vincent Van Gogh drank excessively, with absinthe as his drink of choice, so much so that it was the subject of one of his paintings in his Still Life series. Absinthe taken in great quantities has hallucinogenic properties, and while it’s a hotly debated topic that the distinct yellow hue of many of his paintings was caused by excessive drinking (allegedly, drinking too much absinthe causes your vision to slightly more yellow), there is a consensus that absinthe was a contributing factor to Van Gogh’s declining mental state.

Maybe it’s uncouth to compare fantasy painting powers with real life drug addiction. I don’t know. I can only really speak from my own experiences. But when I heard Renoir say he’s tried and tried and tried and how nothing works, how she kept coming back, it hit me. I know what it’s like to have someone so close to me so full of grief and anger to think the only thing I can do is destroy this. Renoir doesn’t want to destroy the painting either, he says as much. Not only would he be condemning everyone to death but he also doesn’t want to lose the last piece he has of his lost son. Yet still, he’s willing to give it up to save his wife and to bring his daughter back home before she falls for the same alluring addiction as her mother.

It’s not hard for me to put myself in Renoir’s shoes in that case. It’s especially easier for me to put myself in the role of Verso, being the youngest son of my family. Seeing them fighting and feeling helpless. Wanting to do something, anything to help but knowing you’re too powerless. Feeling like it’s your fault to begin with. I know in my heart that destroying the canvas is not the way to go. You can’t condemn that many people, they need to be able to live their lives. But seeing that it’s built upon the suffering of people, both alive and dead, in a cycle of endless torment. Is that still ethical? Is it ok for a world to live if it means a lone few suffer? There are none who walk away from Lumiere. The world outside isn’t made for them. They’re trapped there just as Aline is with the memory of her son, driving herself to the only comfort she has. Those who create have the duty to create responsibly, as art can often be used as a sword as much as it is a shield or a blanket or any other creature comfort fitting of this metaphor. The artist of the canvas is already dead, and he wishes to stop painting. It’s everyone else that perverts his work to make it live on.

The real Aline Charigot never picked up a paint brush, but she did die tragically of a heart attack at the age of 56. Auguste attempted to craft a sculpture of her to live on forever, but due to his arthritis and his advanced age, being 20 years her senior, the monument was never finished and served as the basis for a bronze bust by her grave. It’s easy to see where the basis for the Renoir for the game comes from, a compulsive devotion to restore something that can never again be like it once was. The ending choice in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 follows a motif of tragic choices, leaving the player with a final moral dilemma so deeply fraught that you question whether or not you know the right answer. I think, then, I would have liked another option. Perhaps, it might be best if the canvas was hung in a museum for everybody to see. Maybe that makes me as foolish as Auguste, believing that I know better and would like to see the beauty of the world preserved, despite the tragedy that it cannot. From my perspective, though, that’s not what matters. What matters is that it’s an ending that I would have liked.

1. Blue Prince

My #1 game of the year is Blue Prince! Thanks for reading!

The post Scott’s Top 10 Games, a Mini-Essay on Geography and Place, and a Dissection of The Ending Of A Video Game That Got Him All Fucked Up in 2025 appeared first on Gamesline.

I’ve hit a threshold with video games. It’s hard to place why, but I just play them less these days. Maybe the shrinking pool of games journalism makes it harder to find what really hits for me, perhaps it’s the dour mood of watching the games industry, could be I’m just not good at playing games anymore.

It’s not cheap to love games, money or time-wise. I like to have beaten a game before I pass judgement. But thirty, fourty, one-hundred hours… It can be a lot when you’re juggling a job in labor and creative pursuits. 

But games are nothing if not a rascal of a medium. Their hurdles, quirks, and mechanics can turn the smallest detail into a whole story. How was I supposed to anticipate I would spend all of September going over my Silksong route again and again in my head? Or that a brief detour into VRChat would turn into me and a friend hosting a whole party? When games work for me, they straddle the line between escape and obsession. I can’t always handle the obsession, but I can’t deny the passion.

I also played a metric ton of Old School Runescape, but you can follow me on socials if you want to hear about that.

Part 2: Maybe Next Year

Nine out of ten times, I’m going to wait until a game is finished before I play it. I don’t want to spoil my appetite with a version of a game I will eventually lose to the development cycle. 

But the independent video game is not always a safe investment for your patience. While it was always possible an early access game would never come out, it feels like these days one must be on the lookout for next year’s hopefuls in case they get cancelled early. (Oh Dreamsettler, I would have pre-ordered a $100 deluxe edition if I had known!)

So this year I swallowed my pride and tried some games before they were completely finished. 

Endless Legend 2 was my favorite of these. The first Endless Legend turned me around on the concept of 4X games entirely, and the original ideas that made Endless Legend special are developed even further in 2. The game suffers from visual clutter and some systems (like the hero relationship system) that feel severely undercooked, but I loved digging into this game’s factions. The Necrophages especially were both visually charming and a fun, high momentum take on a militaristic 4X faction. 

Ambrosia Sky Act One had the benefit of being an “Act One.” The promise that the story would keep moving forward made my few hours with the first act feel meaningful. And I’m glad I took the chance, because this game is really special. It’s lovely and interested in dark, sad themes. I’ve written deeper thoughts here, but this quick and rough peek into the story has me really excited for the next two acts. Also Ambrosia Sky had the best looking hands in a video game this year.

Ratatan gives us a taste of a modern, roguelike take on Patapon. While I don’t think the roguelite angle is a great fit, I can’t say it’s all that far from doing missions for supplies in the original Patapon. Otherwise, the character designs are still incredibly charming and it’s easy to zone out to the rhythm mechanics. Here’s hoping they take out the mobile game-esque weapon upgrade system. 

Deadlock is definitely calling to me as a former Dota 2 player and Team Fortress 2 dabbler. I’ve played it enough to know I like the style and am really into its arcane (magically and mechanically speaking) MOBA design. Here’s hoping it comes out before they sap every female character of their butch energy.

Ena’s Dream BBQ offered some truly amazing animation at the cost of some incredibly hit or miss dialogue. It’s not exactly my thing, but I’m curious how it’ll turn out. If you’re a Newgrounds fan who also likes Slave of God, this is probably the perfect game for you. 

Also some more Deltarune chapters came out. I liked them.

Part 3: I Got the Rhythm In Me

We like rhythm games again, don’t we? Perhaps it was the explosive popularity of the free-to-play Newgrounds finger dancer Friday Night Funkin’, but this year seemed to see a small but spirited return to the genre. 

Early in the year we saw Rift of the Necrodancer, whose claim to fame was its mix of Guitar Hero and roguelike mechanics. After four years in early access, we got Rhythm Doctor, which offered challenging rhythm minigames with only one button. December saw the release of Bits & Bops and Unbeatable, the former being an independent take on Nintendo’s Rhythm Heaven franchise and the latter being akin to a rhythmic One-Finger Death Punch. I haven’t played those last two as of writing this. 

I enjoyed my time with Rift of the Necrodancer and Rhythm Doctor, though undoubtedly more so with Rhythm Doctor. Rift of the Necrodancer absolutely has a ton of charm (and in my opinion the better soundtrack) but the whole experience suffers from high cognitive load.  I had my fun, but after the credits I felt so exhausted by its numerous mechanics I couldn’t really bring myself to boot it back up.

Rhythm Doctor, with its singular button, was much more chill and easy to enjoy. A flow state feels necessary for enjoying a rhythm game, and it was pretty easy to get into here, at least at the start. Near the end of the game you start to get a lot of audio cues to listen for, and while it takes longer to feel overwhelmed, it will happen. What makes it work in Rhythm Doctor is the clear intent to overwhelm: handling the stress fits the mechanics and themes of the game.

These are great games, despite how their design philosophies bump up against the way I like to play rhythm games (semi-catatonically). But there was one rhythm game that I kept coming back to this year, a rhythm game for playing dumbly and still feeling great… and that game is Fortnite Festival. 

Fortnite is admittedly in the doghouse right now because it’s doing Harry Potter skins, so when I talk about this game I want you to rest assured I did all my playing before that announcement, I have cancelled my subscription, and I don’t endorse playing it at the moment. I’m not proud that Fortnite won me over for so much of this year, but my hope in talking about its musical game mode is that we can extract what’s worth learning from it. 

Fortnite Festival is the result of Epic Games acquiring Harmonix, a studio who are very knowledgeable in music games and also fairly in touch with pop culture. I may be rightfully smeared for this opinion, but my favorite original music in a rhythm game this year was the music produced for Fortnite Festival. I genuinely enjoy some good pop music and EDM. I think Rhythm Games are sort of drowning in “gamer power metal”: fast, hype songs that aren’t really compelling outside of their energy. 

Also, for anyone familiar with Dropmix or Fuser, they put on-the-fly mashups in this game! You can go into Fortnite Jam Stage and watch DJs or make your own low-effort mixes with other players. One of my most unforgettable experiences this year was joining a lobby and finding someone who was hidden away from everyone else mixing like a god damn fiend. It was an incredible social experience that made me feel like I stumbled into an underground show.

I couldn’t talk about this game without bringing up the way it makes the controller feel. I played Festival on a Dualsense and made an incredible discovery: when you time the release of certain notes, the controller gives haptic feedback on press AND release. This is game-changing. Not only does it just increase positive feedback, but the lingering feeling of the controller still vibrating after you release creates a unique sensation, like an instrument still thrumming from your touch. It’s a good use of haptic feedback that should absolutely spread. 

Anyway don’t play Fortnite. It didn’t come out this year so it can’t go on my Game of the Year List anyway.

Part 4: Game of the Year List

This year, I’ve got five games I’d love to tell you about.

#5: Formless Star by Splendidland

Formless Star is a game about discovering animals on a weird little planet. I don’t wanna get too into this game because it’s free so… you should just go see the animals yourself. Rest assured, Splendidland is an amazing artist and well-versed appreciator of little guys, so the visual quality is certainly not up for debate. 

What may surprise you is this game’s other charms: its characters, its humor, its secret interactions. What made this game become one of my favorites is its ethos about creating art. Formless Star is a shapeless, constantly changing planet that wants to connect with you. It’ll never stop changing, but that’s what makes it so important to see for yourself. 

#4: OFF (2025 Remaster) by Mortis Ghost & Fangamer

I did not think this would be here. When I picked up OFF this year I mostly did it out of a sense of historical curiosity. I had played a bit of OFF during its first renaissance back in 2013, but I was an eighteen-year-old without much patience for puzzles or random encounters, so I never finished it. Skip to 2025 and suddenly OFF is exactly my kind of shit.

Puzzles had me breaking out the notepad. Combat encounters impressed me with their music and alarming enemy designs. And every scanned .jpeg of an old garment factory to accompany the game’s weird worldbuilding was a chef’s kiss. 

First of all, the OFF remaster is considerably more like its original form than say… Persona 3 Reload, but the differences they made are very smart. The original art that charmed me back in the day is untouched, but the user interface is greatly improved. I love the new critical hit effect especially, in which the turn you crit tells you you’re going to crit and also arrives faster than your usual action cooldown. I like that enemies get the same effect, giving you a chance to go “oh shit, here it comes” when their turn meter is on fire and filling up twice as fast. It’s not a difficult game by any means, but the combat system kept me on my toes and wiped my party a few times.

The thing about OFF that makes me feel so positive about it even now is that I genuinely just wanted to keep playing it until I beat it. Even the parts that seem super corny and dated transformed into something charming through OFF’s earnest appreciation of its ideas. Its 4th wall breaks and blunt themes are softened by the way they are balanced, it wants to impress you while still being silly. OFF’s irony is dramatic, the game’s impatience and fourth-wall breaks never felt like insecurity, rather they were novel forms of characterization. 

I like to go back and appreciate old creepypastas from time to time: the horror texts of old internet forums. Broadly, creepypastas love to shock readers through distorting the world they feel comfortable in. A common trope of the genre is a video game mascot like Sonic or Mario either being badly hurt or hurting others, often paired with graphic descriptions of violence. OFF plays in the same space, it’s about a callous and cruel protagonist with a shocking indifference to violence. My favorite creepypastas are never the bloodiest, or the most shocking, they’re the ones where the writer wanted to share something with me: their fear, their anger, their sadness. Despite OFF’s clear love of meat, smoke, trash, and other gross things, its final moments aren’t visceral, they’re empty. Your crusade doesn’t leave the world bloody, burnt, or broken, it leaves it white. When I saw the most shocking things OFF had to offer I didn’t cringe or wince, I just felt empty. I felt like I was sharing someone else’s emptiness.  

OFF hits all the same beats, without second guessing itself. Playing the bad guy in 2025 isn’t the same as playing the bad guy in 2008, but rather than lamenting my own familiarity with genre convention, I had fun slipping into a familiar role. 

#3: Hollow Knight: Silksong by Team Cherry

The gamer mantra often used in the face of adversity is “get good.” Anyone who goes into Silksong with this sort of mindset will quickly find themselves struggling against a trap designed to punish them. Silksong, with all its intensive gameplay loops, runbacks, and grinds, pushes back hard against brute force. So, in my time with Silksong, I ignored the bullheaded logic of turning bosses into loops of death, and instead taught myself how to feel zen in the face of these odds. It may sound backwards, but in its cruelty, Silksong taught me to be nicer to myself. 

I never expected to beat Silksong. I only really picked it up because it looked visually incredible and was pretty affordable. “It’ll be a miracle if I beat Act 1,” I said to myself. After spending two hours dying to the Savage Beastfly, I felt like my prediction was coming true. 

After seventy-four hours, I rolled credits on Act 3.

The early game of Silksong was probably the hardest for me. “Persistence is key,” I thought. “If I can’t beat the chumps down here, how can I expect to finish it?” It was only after giving in to my pride that I realized I was playing the game self-destructively. The region after a boss wasn’t the prize for beating it, but another challenge: how can I use the gameworld to salve the burn of its more difficult encounters?

I eventually went on to beat Sister Splinter, the Last Judge, Skarsinger, and even the game’s final boss, and while my skill improved, the thing that made it actually doable was learning not to torture myself. In contrast to Elden Ring’s Stakes of Marika, which seem to encourage as many attempts as you can stomach, Silksong’s runbacks are a built-in speedbump for these spirals. 

I no longer did the game’s side quests as soon as I got them; I made sure there was a healthy stack of content waiting for me if I ever got stuck on a boss. I stopped turning every boss into a gauntlet, but rather treated them as check-ups. I learned the bosses through little dates and used the game’s world as a distraction when they became too much. At night, sleep would reinforce muscle memory.

This was probably the most fun I’ve ever had dealing with a game that required such fine motor control. Not only did I learn to reduce my own frustration, but I got something I always wished for in a punishing game: I never got good. I was never eclipsing the bosses. I was never overwhelming myself with information or a need to practice. I got to enjoy the game as a champion masochist. I got my ass kicked and smiled. 

Silksong is a one-of-a-kind game. Maybe one of the greatest ever made. It’s beautiful, sorrowful, mechanically tight, and none of its content feels like “the bad part.” For me, the soreness with Silksong comes from it simply being very big. I played it for a month, and while I could critically say all that gameplay was good, I still wanted to go home and do something else. I am also on record saying I don’t like the ending of Act 3, I think at the final moment they turn away from their tight, character-based story into the realm of lore and self-reference. But it’s still a game I really adore. 

#2: Eternal Strands by Yellow Brick Games

While I may have gotten to the point of Silksong where I was too full to have anymore, the entire time I was playing Eternal Strands I never stopped wanting to read every bit of writing I could. I’m sure I missed some item descriptions or text somewhere, but for the most part if a character said something I sat my ass down and listened. 

Eternal Strands does not seem like my kind of thing upfront. It has that sort of young adult high-fantasy vibe of The Dragon Prince or The Stormlight Archives, so at first I thought I would bounce off this game. Months after beating it, I feel like one of its biggest fans.

Eternal Strands pulls heavily from Dragon’s Dogma and Shadow of the Colossus, but throws in some physics toys from The Force Unleashed and various Source Engine games. These procedural systems worked together in ways that let me write the encounter as the player. I had eureka moments in this game like nothing else this year: using the ice wall ability to freeze a dragon’s face to the ground while it breathed fire so I could climb on its head is what games are made of. It is honestly what I thought games would be like one day as a child.

Eternal Strands is very good about pitting you against an insanely huge dude and just letting you figure it out. The game’s spells have a wide variety of applications, and your instructions on how to use them is “have at it.” I got to enjoy figuring out the bosses with little-to-no intrusion from the game, but when I did have moments of uncertainty the game’s bestiary had the information I needed. It hit a good balance of not letting me get stuck without breathing down my neck. Even though you are getting watched remotely by your party members, they’re polite enough to not be overbearing. 

This game can also be a bit grindy; trust me when I say this excites me. It made the circumstances of the game feel dire, like I needed to be looking out for opportunities, finding ways to make myself more efficient. What makes these grinds work is that you can outsmart them. Early on you’ll be fighting every little mob one-on-one in swordfights, and they do become redundant eventually. At this point you have two options: groan that this game is such a grind OR… open your spellbook. One of the fundamental abilities in this game is picking things up and throwing them. The moment you’ve gotten all the drops you need from a generic mob, the name of the game goes from “how do I beat you with my sword?” to “where’s a hole I can throw you in?” Once you trivialize the underlings, missions get faster and you get more time to focus on the large boss monsters who drop better upgrade materials. 

The upgrade materials feed back into your elementally aligned arsenal. Defeating arcane monsters grant you the ability to telekinetically lift, push, and explode, sending yourself and enemies flying, fire monsters let you spew flames in various forms and call upon explosive minions (that you can then throw yourself), and ice enemies let you coat the level and yourself in ice. The open application of these abilities feeds back into the game’s navigation. When faced with clouds of poison gas, I could use my ice armor as a hazmat suit. Large gaps could be conquered by building bridges of ice or throwing yourself haphazardly with telekinesis. I let my explosive minions distract my foes when I needed to focus on objectives. By the end of this game, there were no enemies or obstacles I couldn’t outsmart. 

But what drives you to plunge back into this big magical city time and time again? That would be the game’s extensive cast of characters. This is where the game goes from a fun toy to something I’ll always remember. I loved the arcs these characters had, they were dramatic, well acted, messy, and felt distinct from each other. There were characters in this game who were mean, who made mistakes, who had difficult, ugly breakdowns!

And that’s what I wanna see in video games.

#1: Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector by Jump Over the Age

Citizen Sleeper was one of my favorite games of 2022, but ask anyone how they feel and they are quick to say “I liked it but it got too easy.” About six hours into my second run of Citizen Sleeper 2 I was stuck on a derelict space station, slowly starving as I scrounged for enough gas to make the jump back to society. Not only that, my computer brain was glitching out because a union uprising I had just taken part in went bad. It was one of the most stressful moments in a game I’d played this year, it was also easily my favorite. 

Citizen Sleeper 2 did eventually become easy for me, but it was only the moment I had finished one-hundred percent of its side content. While I would have liked it even harder, for about a dozen hours I had to really think about all my resources and the route I would take across the Starward Vector.

Remember when I mentioned this was my second run? That’s because the first one died. Just completely failed. I beefed it before even leaving the first area of the game. This first failed attempt acted as a sort of tutorial for the full game, but it also worked as a story in microcosm. My first run I was cagey, untrusting, and mean. And I paid the price. 

My second Sleeper was much more patient. 

When I briefly looked at the Steam reviews of Starward Vector there was a very common sentiment: “Oh, this game is fun, just follow these very specific instructions first!” Disregard all of those. Go in scared and uncertain, just don’t get too attached.

It’ll be worth it because being in this game is pure beauty. The visuals and soundtrack create an atmosphere that surrounds and crystallizes you, leaving you in the perfect emotional state for the story to wreck you. 

I think I may have teared up a bit during Silksong and Eternal Strands, but this game made me cry. I’ve heard people say they prefer the writing of the first game, and while I think the first game is a sharper narrative with fewer stumbles, the narrative of Citizen Sleeper 2 just resonated way more with me. When playing Citizen Sleeper 1 you meet a lot of characters, but you aren’t a permanent fixture to them; unless you commit to one of the game’s endings that follows that character’s storyline, you will only ever be a ship passing in the night. It’s an impactful part of the first game, but it’s also how the sequel distinguishes itself. In Citizen Sleeper 2 you are entangled in this world, people are counting on you. You have a crew who are a mix of shady characters and close allies, after running errands and high-pressure missions you start to form a bond with them, in the same way I would feel an emerging bond with an XCOM squadmate that did particularly good or bad. While Citizen Sleeper 2 is built around a singular ending as opposed to the original’s multiple, the action of ending the game felt like a more crushing commitment than picking from one of many.

While I think Citizen Sleeper 2 leans a bit too hard on rewarding “doing the right thing,” there are definitely still tough choices and times when the best thing you can do for a character is not what they want from you. It creates plenty of situations where I actually had to sit and think, “what the hell am I going to do?” Some of these choices even ended up being the tougher path, but I still stood by them and was happy I took them.  

While I had to work up the courage to give Citizen Sleeper 2 a second try, I am so glad I did, because once that second run started I played it obsessively until I saw everything I could. I still listen to the soundtrack very regularly, thinking about drifting through space on that rig and seeing the faces of the characters I ran missions with. 

I feel like I got exactly what I needed from Citizen Sleeper 2, but I am still intensely curious to see what Jump Over the Age does next.

Ava is a writer and illustrator that draws colorful robots and writes gross, visceral literature.

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