Aaaaaaaaand another year is down! And must I say: what an absolute banger of a year for gaming! Big surprise hits, great entries in established series, and darling indie games breaking out onto the scene. I was chomping at the bit for this year, as 2024 was thin in releases I was personally interested in, but this year looked very promising (and so does 2026!). With that said, I could barely find enough time to play everything that I wanted these past 12 months, so there will be a lot of deserved awards this year (and also some notable turds as per usual), but it’s best to stop waffling and just get into it!

As it was last year, there are two separate award categories: Minor Awards and Major Awards. Minor Awards for arguably less important and particularly specific categories, and Major Awards for the most important achievements and aspects a game can be defined by. The indie game award is out this year since I didn’t play too many… but mostly I don’t want to wade into that Clair Obscur drama (let’s just say The Alters win), and I was considering having a best story award but I couldn’t really thing of anything to nominate beyond Death Stranding 2 and Dispatch. I’ve got to keep it somewhat competitive!

And to keep you on the edge of your seat this year, I’ve hidden the winners behind a spoiler tag so you can scroll to your heart’s content without being spoiled. Feel free to try it out now! Just hit the text that says AND THE WINNER IS… to reveal our first winner!

AND THE WINNER IS…

A WINNER IS: You!

You have accomplished much in the face of adversity this year, and you know what? Your clicking skills? Unmatched!

Alright, let’s jump right on in and see what awards the games this year will be vying for:

THE CATEGORIES

🥈Minor Awards🥈

“I HAVE A JOB” AWARD FOR BEST GAME I DIDN’T GET AROUND TO PLAYING

2025 was absolutely packed with bangers and interesting games that I wanted to play, but for one reason or another, I couldn’t get around to all of them. It’s nice having a good career so I can afford to buy most games I want to dive into, but comes the other side of the coin where I have a career that requires me to not play games for a significant chunk of my waking hours. Horrible!

I hate missing out, but these are the nominees for games that just passed me by.

Deltarune

Undertale was a really fun genre-bending indie game. It lampooned RPG tropes and really subverted a lot of what people would expect from a game that looks as it does, namely some drab cookie cutter RPGmaker junk. Deltarune did much the same, at least from what was apparent when playing the slow drip feed of two chapters these past few years. They bundled them together and tacked on two more chapters for a paid release this year, but I have to admit that a lot of hype for Deltarune died out with how long it took to get where we are. Indie development is a double sided coin, your first major release doesn’t have anticipation from people since they don’t know who you are, so you can take all the time in the world to create a masterpiece. The second release however will have your fans banging down your door for more, so you better do it faster than last time, even though that slow pace probably contributed to the final quality. Same thing I would imagine is happening with ConcernedApe and his Chocolatier follow up to Stardew Valley. With there being more chapters to release anyway, I’ll probably settle on waiting for the absolute final release. It’s a shame it won’t be as much as a cultural touchstone as Undertale was, but such is the life of being a known element.

ARC Raiders

I’ve been wary to pick up any more hardcore PVPVE extraction shooters in recent years, not just for the fact that I don’t really have a great friend group for it, but mostly because I got burnt out on them. I’ve had many hours of enjoyment playing them, don’t get me wrong. Division 2 (or maybe Helldivers 2 at a stretch) was probably the most recent game I think that fits this bill and I rather enjoyed every moment I played it. It does feel like most of the genre’s ideas have been mined out thoroughly however, and were perfected in a few particular games, so why would you play other ones that don’t do it as well? ARC Raiders stands out for me because of the instant grip on the gaming community it had. Veterans and newcomers alike seemed to get a lot out of it, and it was blowing up my feed for a good few months with clips and videos of some engaging gameplay and funny moments. I probably would’ve played this if I had encouragement from someone who needed a party member or something, but history shows that solo play is not the best style in these games so I never took the leap to buy it for myself.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Ol’ Henry of Skalitz returned to the lands of Bohemia this year for another adventure. I had played the first game very sparingly before 2025, probably when I was still streaming, but I was put off by some glitches and by just not really being in a position to get immersed in its world. What changed for me this year is I gave Kingdom Come Deliverance a second shot, and it clicked for me finally! It’s a great romp through the 14th century, being incredibly immersive and often times feeling like those late 2000s-early 2010s FPS RPGs I used to play. Definitely more Bethesda game-y than anything that company has even thought of releasing so far this decade. And so the sequel was released this year which improved on everything apparently, but I dedicated most of my time to replaying the first one and afterwards jumped to some other new releases that came out. I own Kingdom Come 2 now though, so there should be no reason not to play it in the new year.

Anything on the Nintendo Switch 2

After another long wait, Nintendo has finally come out with its new console! After so many years of confusing the average consumer with odd names for new hardware (namely going from Wii to Wii U and 3DS to “New” 3DS) Nintendo finally just slapped a 2 on the end of its console and called it day. Excellent! Now you can play, uh, Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and… Kirby Air Riders. Hmm. Not really the most bombshell of launch titles. Does the cost make it more attractive? $500? Yeesh. Okay, maybe I’m not missing out as much as I thought I would be, but I played Kirby Air Riders at a friend’s house and it wasn’t so bad! Gameplay I’ve seen of Donkey Kong Bananza looks great and reviewed very well too. I’ll definitely get a Switch 2 at some point as the Nintendo ecosystem will sprout a few gems, and I’m sure many of them will be must-plays and unmissable. Not sure if the offerings currently count as unmissable however.

Outer Worlds 2

I enjoyed the first Outer Worlds, though I did have my complaints which I believe I shared with a lot of the gaming community. It felt very short and small for what it was promised to be, but what was there was tightly designed and fun. I played it on Game Pass so I didn’t have to invest anything into it besides time which probably helped positively bolster my thoughts on it, and I was expecting to do that again with Outer Worlds 2 but I just never picked back up my Game Pass subscription since they (probably correctly) jacked up the price on it. I’ll probably binge it in the future when I have the pennies to rub together.

AND THE WINNER IS…

WINNER: Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 wins for the sheer fact that I craved so much more Kingdom Come after playing the first game this year to try and catch up to the new release. Being so immersive it even got me to go a local rennfest dressed up like a peasant! I haven’t heard anything truly negative about Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 either, so I’m hyped to try it in the new year.

“NARCOLEPTIC HIT” AWARD FOR BEST GAME I HADN’T HEARD ABOUT BEFORE THIS YEAR

The year is always full of surprises! We always hope they’re good ones, and these certainly turned out to be! In some way, I hadn’t heard about these games before they released, but certainly enjoyed the hell out of these sleeper hits. Here are the nominees:

Megabonk

Survivors-like games are wearing me dry, friends. I’ve often spoken of being turned off by games describing themselves as “roguelike”, which I have admittedly cooled off on in recent years having put in some decent play time with roguelikes, but survivors-like game are feeling in the same category. The (relatively) simple concept of enemy-pathed-toward-player and then just spawning more enemies over time is being so exploited that it’s pretty much become a scarlet letter on any game I see. That’s all to say I was blown away as to how much I actually enjoyed Megabonk this year. Lots of fun characters and a large breadth of unlockables, it’s definitely the game I put the most time into this year. It plays perfect for the genre, being speedy and a bit crazed with its smooth build up in difficulty. It has lots of collectibles and challenges to do too, and I enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek zoomer characterization of it.

Dispatch

The loss of Telltale was a tough one to bear a few years ago (though maybe not as much as it could’ve been after a few ass releases towards the end). While it is technically back in the form of a few upcoming titles, other developers look to pick up the interactive storytelling cross. Who better than AdHoc studios, founded by five former Telltale employees. Great acting, great writing, and an actually interesting management minigame, all combine together to make one of the best entries in this genre.

No, I’m Not A Human

Indie horror games aren’t really my thing to play now that I rarely stream or make videos. I mostly watch folks like MrKravin, John Wolfe, InSym, even JackSepticEye still, play those horror games to get my fix, since most entries in the genre feel cut from the same cloth. Walk around a PS1 hellscape and get stabbed eventually. It gets a bit overdone nowadays! But No, I’m Not A Human surprised me this year by actually grabbing my attention enough to make me want to play it myself! A bit of body-analog-apocalypse-horror fare that reminds me old horror flash games like Don’t Escape, Dark Cut, and Exmortis with an overarching management game mixed in. Figure out who’s an imposter and keep them out, while also dealing with random events to mess you up. It’s mostly presented as a visual novel but it’s so weird and funky it hits everything that I personally like in indie horror. Unexplained entities, inhuman looking characters, dark, brooding, gory, eastern european. It’s excellent!

Schedule I

Drugs are bad, but this game isn’t! Creating a drug empire with your buddies has never been more fun, and it was already pretty fun so you know this has to be pretty amazing. It’s a fun management game that has little gamified elements for every action which add to the experience, like bagging up individual nuggets or watering plants. The characterization of the NPCs and some content could be worked on and expanded a bit, but still being in early access means this game has a lot of room to bloom before its final harvest.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

AAA surprises are few and very far between. Bethesda did it this year however with a surprise remaster of Oblivion, the first Elder Scrolls game I personally played. Interestingly enough, the graphics and rendering is all done with modern Unreal engine making it look sharp and polished, but the actual physics, game functions, etc is still the old pre-creation engine that powered the original game. So it’s an incredibly accurate remaster, more so than many other developers could claim. It also has a drawback being such an accurate remaster in that all the jank is still very present and annoying. Hope you enjoy games from 2006 because this certainly plays like one! To me at least, all the glitches, weird physics, and dodgy gameplay are mostly just cute and adorable features with my rose tinted glasses.

AND THE WINNER IS…

WINNER: Megabonk

With excellent replayability, smooth gameplay, and funny meme-y elements you don’t often see in games, Megabonk surprised me not only for the fact that I hadn’t heard about it before this year, but also because of how fun and addictive it turned out to be!

“EM DASH” AWARD FOR SHITTIEST USAGE OF AI

That’s a great idea—an award for the worst usage of AI! AI can be very controversial, especially when it’s implemented in a way that seems heavy handed or lazy. Let’s explore that together! Here—are some of my—recommendations!

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur my beautiful child. Why did you have use AI? Yes I know, it was just temporary assets, yes it was an accident that it was kept in AND to your credit you did remove it right after it was discovered, but do you know what wasn’t an accident? Choosing to use AI and not having someone go into Microsoft Paint and do some scribbles to give you a placeholder asset. Both achieve the same thing, but one is based on ripping off artists while the other is made with infinitely more love and care, no matter how little effort is put into it. It also creates an air of distrust. What else used AI to create it? Are you hiding something else??

Arc Raiders

Arc Raiders got everyone bricked up this year, and I could see the appeal. One thing that I didn’t mention in my “best game I didn’t play” nomination for this game though is that one of the things that put me off was its inclusion of AI voice acting. For whatever reason they went the lazy route with using AI voices for some lines, which they have ABSOLUTELY DEFENDED IS NOT MEANT TO REPLACE HUMAN TALENT even though that’s pretty much what it’s doing. It’s the same reason I avoided Liar’s Bar even though that got decent reviews in 2024.

Fortnite

Having James Earl Jones sign away his vocal talent to be used in AI is pretty akin to elder abuse in my mind. The poor man must be spinning in his grave since Fortnite had their event with the ability to get AI Darth Vader to respond to prompts and say back lines in the iconic voice through ElevenLabs’ AI vocal replication software. Of course that amounted to the Sith Lord spouting some pretty horrifically racist slurs and homophobic rants which were posted up all around social media. To be fair, that was pretty expected of a bunch of unmonitored 12 year olds on Fortnite.

Amazon’s Fallout Season 1 Recap

A bit of an outsider here, Fallout season 2 was released towards the end of the year on Lord Bezos’s streaming platform and to get everyone back up to speed on what happened in the first season, some studio executive or general sadist had a great idea of creating a recap with AI! Quick, low effort slop to save some of Jeffrey’s dragon-like horde of gold. Perfect, right? The only problem is that it hallucinated 99% of its way through it, throwing in things that didn’t actually happen in the first season which apparently nobody bothered to check before pushing out, which in its defense is pretty much representative of the mindset people who go into using AI.

AND THE “WINNER” IS…

WINNER: ALL OF THEM

Well look at me, I just can’t decide which I hate the most! I might as well half ass it too and just say you all win. Congratulations everybody, you pleased the shareholders! Feel free to return to your shoveling of the slop pits, and please stop using generative AI for creative purposes.

“HOPIUM” AWARD FOR MOST ANTICIPATED GAME

2025 was great… but could it be better? It would be if some of these games came out already! Here’s some nominees for my most anticipated games (hopefully) coming out in the new year.

OD

Kojima has always eyed going down the horror route. Psycho Mantis, P.T., B.T. (see what he did there?) things in Death Stranding. It’s always been teasing the waters of a full fledged horror experience. After the bombshell reveal at the Game Awards having a master of modern horror films Jordan Peele confirmed to be working on it, my hype meter shot through the roof. I’m a Kojima stan through and through so this may not have been too much of a surprise for folks who know me, but for someone who doesn’t often play horror games, this one is definitely towards the top of my list.

Grand Theft Auto VI

Will it finally happen? Have the shark bucks finally wrung dry? It’s anyone’s guess, but now after a few billion years (I bought GTA V when it originally released on PS3!) it seems we’re on the cusp of it finally hitting the shelves. It won’t live up to the hype, let me tell you. I’m a man that preordered Duke Nukem Forever when it was finally coming out on Xbox 360. I’VE PLAYED THESE GAMES BEFORE!! This will not end well, but the hype is certainly there. To be fair though, I was never huge into the GTA scene. I love the mainline games but I don’t do GTA online so my expectations are pretty tempered. I’ll probably be pleased with whatever is released.

Marvel’s Wolverine

With the flagging quality of the MCU, I feel like the next avenue for Marvel properties is going to be in the gaming world. The recent successes of Marvel Rivals and the Spider-Man games probably caught the notice of someone in Disney HQ and I would have to imagine they’ll push more game-centric products out in this decade. A lot of the single player games have been absolute bangers anyway. I enjoyed the Guardians of the Galaxy game a lot more than I thought I would, the Spider-Man games have been wonderful and Midnight Suns was really good too if a bit niche. We won’t talk about that Avengers game that released a few years ago, but it’s safe to say Marvel should be used to having a few flops by now. Marvel’s Wolverine, with the few leaks and trailers I’ve seen, looks great! I have no reason to believe Insomniac Games will botch this too horribly. I do have high hopes for it, and as far as Wolverine goes, the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game is one of the very few movie tie-in games I like mentioning since it was actually very good when most movie tie-ins of the time resembled churned out flavorless gruel.

AND THE WINNER IS…

WINNER: HALF-LIFE 3

IT WILL HAPPEN, YOU MUST BELIEVE HARDERRRRRRR

“COPIUM” AWARD FOR LEAST ANTICIPATED GAME

But on the flip side there are some games that I don’t think really need to come out either, at least when judging by some previews shown. Entries into overcooked and overworked series, long drawn out production times, or perhaps just things that aren’t interesting at all are:

Pragmata

Japanese-made shooters being terrible as a rule is getting harder to argue for nowadays. For a long time it seemed only Kojima games, Lost Planet, and something like Binary Domain were the only western-styled shooters that seemed to have any appeal to actual western audiences. The tide is changing however, and Pragmata looks to push it forward. That being said, I played the demo when it was announced on the Game Awards and it’s a dreadfully run-of-the-mill futuristic shooter. I could not be less interested, respectfully. Downgrade the graphics and you could say it was released in the late 2000s-early 2010s. Hey if you’re all for that, feel free to enjoy it! It could surprise me as well, but right now it looks very mid to me.

Game of Thrones: War for Westeros

Please, I want you to tell me the name of a Game of Thrones game that is not completely terrible, and is not the telltale series. I’ll wait.

Okay, as I now lay here dying of old age, there has not been a good Game of Thrones game… ever. Yes yes, the Telltale series was passable, but when compared to other Telltale games it is wayyy down there towards the bottom. It was released during the airing of Game of Thrones anyway, so all the hype for a decent game set in Westeros was at its peak. One has to question who this is really for in the year of our lord 2026. Game of Thrones is so old and out of date now it might’ve actually come out in the middle ages. At least try to lean into House of the Dragon or something, HBO!

Halloween: The Game

Dead By Daylight is successful and nobody can replicate it. End of story. I try not to be a negative person or anti-creator, but to whomever is licensing out this product: you just really got to stop. Not to mention the guys still making it. These games have playable lobbies for about 6 weeks after release and then nobody touches the game ever again. It really does seem a ploy to just take your money and run with it, especially when they close down the servers after a few years. Michael Myers is already in Dead by Daylight bro, just go play that!

AND THE “WINNER” IS…

WINNER: Game of Thrones: War for Westeros

Must we have more Game of Thrones games? It feels like we’re being force fed this so they can farm our livers for succulent foie gras to please some shadowy bureaucratic CEO who really doesn’t understand how awful this series turned out to be. Game of Thrones was a mass media public execution, it is not to be celebrated or interacted with. It exists as a warning for the hubris of man. Even the creator knows the series is creatively bankrupt. I speak on behalf of everyone when I say: through releasing this, the only thing you are creating or adding to in any meaningful sort of way is a larger landfill.

🥇MAJOR AWARDS 🥇

“RISE UP, FRIENDSLOP” FOR BEST MULTIPLAYER GAME

We get into what’s now my favorite genre term: Friendslop! You can ask Mudsie if you want, friendslop is fun to say, and here to stay! R.E.P.O., Peak, RV There Yet… Whatever you want to call them, there were quite a few great multiplayer games this year, so let’s see the nominees:

Peak

Games about climbing have been on the rise. Getting Over It, Grow Home, Celeste, even White Knuckle had its moment in the spotlight this year. It makes sense then that a multiplayer climbing game would clamber up the charts at some point, and here we are! Peak is a roguelike climbing game where you and probably a few other friends, try to climb to the Peak of a mountain to call for help after your plane crashes. Of course the classic friendslop qualities are all there: proximity voice chat, weird physics, being able to grief your friends, unexplained elements for hilarious unpredictability, and it all works together very well to make it a fun adventure for your team!

Schedule I

Creating that drug empire with your friends is really fun, and this game certainly proved it. Again, with the fun minigames and tiny jobs associated with most interactive elements, you really get into a groove with friends by each assuming different tasks and roles. Maybe you’ll be on the shopping runs, or bagging up the drugs, or dealing out to the customers while your friend waters the plants or picks up the dead drop. Coming together to get the money machine chugging along is great and feels rewarding when shared with buddies, and it was definitely one of the more memorable games I played with Mudsie this year.

Killing Floor 3

Okay, but seriously, friendslop wasn’t the only kind of multiplayer games this year. We had some normal ones like this sequel the Killing Floor series! It had a bit of a sketchy launch with fans questioning a few fundamental flaws seen in the Spring’s early access period which caused it to be delayed to around mid-summertime, but the devs were determined to not go down the Payday 3 route of completely botching a franchise and that extra time helped it along. The new maps have great atmosphere and remind me a lot of the original two games, and the enemies are excellently gross and sickly/slickly redesigned too. It plays more like a modern shooter and has additions like the modding of weapons so you can customize your build even more so than previous entries. I think the point that it’s at now is pretty good, and with more content it’ll be on the same level as Killing Floor 2 in no time. It certainly has a better outlook than Payday 3 does!

Orcs Must Die: Death Trap

This one feels like it’s a bit of a selfish inclusion but I have to remember these are my game awards after all. Orcs Must Die was a series with a great few games early on but has waned in recent years. With a near closure of the development company coming on the heels of the poorly received Orcs Must Die Unchained (which I will forever defend was not bad, at least once they fixed it after launch), Robot Entertainment got whisked upon the angelic wings of Google to make a proper sequel to Orcs Must Die 2 and have it exclusive on Stadia which was enough to keep them afloat. Now that they’re back moving along and not fighting to stay above water, they’ve released Orcs Must Die: Death Trap this year to continue expanding upon the franchise. The new traps are fun, the maps look great and the new characters actually have personalities this time! There were some growing pains around things like having limited barricades, but they have shown they know how to properly balance and make gameplay adjustments that satisfies the community at large while also keeping with the spirit of the game’s original vision.

AND THE WINNER IS…

WINNER: Killing Floor 3

Killing Floor 3 is bringing back the fun of 2 for the modern era. It’s been quite a while for this sequel to come out, and while it’s not perfect yet, I think it has the best chance of sticking around for gamers to play in years to come. It’s fast paced, stressful, satisfying and fun. It’s an excellent game for chilling out and playing with friends. Also, should I need to preemptively defend myself as well, I will say most of the negative reviews for this game comes from there not being “as much” in it as Killing Floor 2 has right now, a game which I may remind you had updates for nine years. I think this game feels better for what modern gamers want and desire. Maybe we’ll return to this in 9 years as well to see if I was wrong for multiplayer game of 2025, at which point I’ll rescind it and give it to Split Fiction since I’d probably have played it by then.

“THIS IS NOT AN AWARD” AWARD FOR WORST GAME

Assassin’s Creed Shadows

The enshittification of Ubisoft has become widely apparent in the past few years, and for me personally came to a head with this year’s Assassin’s Creed. After wishing nearly 20 years for an Assassin’s Creed game to take place in historical Japan, it finally came to be, but the monkey paw’s curled to have it released in the middle of Ubisoft’s awful production slump of uninspired gunk. I was pretty excited for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but after playing through the intro and into the story for a bit, I dropped it. The setting is lovely and it looks great, but it really does feel like the story and gameplay was made with not just a lack of care but a lack of interest. Not unique in any sort of way, it finds a tight niche as a game for people who love watching paint dry.

Escape from Tarkov

Finally, Escape from Tarkov has come out, and now with it being its release year I can finally include it as a nominee for an end-of-year award. Shame then how it pops up for worst game! While it may not have been anything to particularly do from this year, the near decade development cropped up many bad feelings from a promising hardcore shooter. The game plays well, and the bones are good, but it often felt like I was playing out of necessity rather than for any sort of enjoyment after awhile. Lots of fetch quests are thrown at the player and too much RNG or boring grinding is needed to advance, rather than raw skill which this game purports to prefer. Not to mention all the out of game issues like developers reneging on the Edge of Darkness edition containing all future DLC (which they now say it won’t), and the inclusion of many pay to win aspects that they rallied against early on. This may read like one of those negative steam reviews where the poster has put in like 500 hours and still doesn’t recommend it, but trust me in that I probably wouldn’t have put in as many hours had I known the build up would fizzle out to nothingness.

Battlefield 6

A path retread enough will eventually become a canyon, and no canyon is as grand as the modern military FPS genre. As evidenced by the achingly tropey and god awful single player, Battlefield 6 somehow finds a new low for the series by being just absolutely dreadful. Just really bad. Every single mission in the single player story was a lesson in insult. Dull overused plots, unoriginal gameplay set pieces, and just generally unengaging. Even as someone who hasn’t played a military shooter like this in years, its lack of originality was incredible, nearing spiteful. The multiplayer was the normal guff you can turn off your brain to if you’re just playing with some buddies, but when analyzed, even the dedicated community disliked it. Enjoy every map from boring wide open desert to close quarters call-of-duty-esque city! We don’t know what makes Battlefield different than Call of Duty any more, and hey, why not pay for some AI stickers to slap on your gun we said wouldn’t be in the game? The obvious battle royale game mode inclusion is so triple A it makes me want to vomit. It was apparently better than this year’s Call of Duty at least.

AND THE WINNER IS…

WINNER: Battlefield 6

Maybe I’m just not the target audience for this but Battlefield 6 straight blew ass. The single player was so insultingly boring and tropey, the multiplayer was lifeless, and all the trappings of the modern military FPS shooter are on full display. This game doesn’t need to exist because it’s already existed the past 20 years. Try something different because until then I’m not making the mistake of picking it up again for another shot after a few years.

“WHITE FEATURELESS BEDROOM DRESSER FROM IKEA” AWARD FOR MOST MEDIOCRE GAME

Doom: The Dark Ages

The sequel churning machine comes for all your favorite games, and after enjoying Doom: Eternal in 2020 (we’re getting old) slightly more than 2016’s Doom (ignoring all the weird story elements), I was interested to see what next was in store for the Doom Slayer. What it was turned out to be another feeling of a rehashed Doom going down the same path it had back in the early 2000s. Can’t we all agree to just give up on all this Makyrs, Argent msacguffin storylines and needless lore? Wasn’t the reason Doom 2016 so popular because it just let the series breathe with its own gameplay and cut all the fat off? It’s not necessary to explain every single origin story or have dramatic moments where the Doom Slayer is a murdering psychopath BUT he’s a collared murdering psychopath so you need to feel bad for him. It’s sort of the opposite problem I have with Assassin’s Creed, where I would hope they could explore more of the Abstergo-Apples of Eden-Animus plots since it could be framed really interestingly if done well. This series needs to just realize there’s not going to be a great story, at least with whatever they’re deciding to do right now. They should’ve really just leaned more into the gameplay, and adding a shield charge doesn’t change enough for me to feel like it’s new. The mullet was a good addition though.

Blue Prince

This pains me to say after all the praise I’ve seen for Blue Prince, but I was rather let down by this game. It’s a bit intriguing story-wise for instance, but there’s many branching threads that you keep discovering before resolving any, making it a bit confusing to follow. Your enjoyment of this game really just relies on how lucky you are in discovering each thing in the order the developers imagined you would. The huge reliance on RNG and restarting over and over to discover new things made me rather frustrated as well, as it feels like you’re often struggling to make any progress. It’s a game that certainly requires a lot of dedication and time sunk into it, which I just didn’t really feel like I could give.

Monster Hunter Wilds

Struggling to remember anything memorable from a game is a pretty poor quality to have. Monster Hunter Wilds sits near the top of my list for that as it came onto the scene in a pretty big way for my friend group and then crumpled to the ground after about a month. Seems as though it did for the community at large as well, because the end game content was lacking and there wasn’t much reason to stick around otherwise. The story also was that “promised child” plot line I don’t vibe with, see: Ava in Borderlands 3. Why have the plot centered around the main character when it can be a side person nobody cares for? Not even to mention the horrible optimization or lack thereof on PCs, which was how I played it. It led to a very underwhelming performance, but not really explicitly bad since the gameplay was pretty alright.

AND THE WINNER IS…

WINNER: Doom: The Dark Ages

Sometimes a sequel isn’t warranted. Was this game created just to re-up on the Doom trademark or just because they actually had something to showcase? I mean, it’s Doom, so you “can” have fun with it, just like the last two games. In this one though there wasn’t really much different that really warranted a new title, and what is new is pretty needless and extra. Not to mention there are a few annoyances that balance out all the good which leads me to having a supreme lack of interest or any truly strong opinions about this game, making it the perfect recipient for most mediocre game!

THE NUKEDPIXELS AWARD FOR BEST GAME OF THE YEAR

We have arrived friends. The best game of the year! 2025 was packed with bangers and I can’t nominate them all, so I’ve whittled it down to 4. Here are our deserving nominees:

Death Stranding 2

I’ve been excited to talk about this game in this article and now I finally can! As an aside, this probably would’ve won a NukedPixels best story award but there wasn’t really any other competition to speak of. The Death Stranding series is such a weird creature that has always been hard to describe. A delivery simulator with a tale of loss and regret, and also hope? A body horror/ghost/post-apocalypse fusion with a quirky anime sheen and also 3rd person shooter gameplay? What Death Stranding 1 did during the pandemic was great. It accidentally represented the state that 2020 was in, with everyone being sequestered away into their bunkers and their only connections being through the internet. Death Stranding 2 carries on the torch of that for a short stint in Mexico and then Australia, where Sam is once again tasked into linking together a country to restore connections severed by the death stranding. With slow burn mysteries told in expertly acted cutscenes, stories and quests are revealed and resolved in a such a manner where you’re deeply confused and a bit disturbed the entire time but you love every second of it because it’s so damn unique and made with such care by a developer with so much style. I’m probably far from unbiased here, but Death Stranding 2 is a really great game.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Oh boy where to start? Like everyone else this year, I loved Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Though, by it introducing itself with one of the most terrible mouthfeels of a title I can think of in recent years, I wasn’t really expecting to play this since I assumed it would be some generic JRPG (or I suppose FRPG (fr*nce role-playing game)) but I picked it up after the heaps of praise popped up everywhere after release. When I took the plunge, it blew me away. Everything from the plot to the setting to the raw gameplay is masterfully done, and is probably the defining game from 2025. Maybe some parts where you’re running around the levels outside of combat feels a bit clunky, some of the characters could’ve been a little less exaggerated, and perhaps a couple overly esoteric story beats here and there could’ve been better explained (though who am I to complain about that after praising Death Stranding 2 for generally being confusing), but ultimately I had nothing to complain about.

Megabonk

This may seem like a bit of a black sheep being here, but Megabonk was probably my most played game this year, and the one I probably enjoyed the actual gameplay of the most. Out of everything else, Megabonk kept me engaged through the entire year. On the road in New York, at home on my computer, at a friend’s house states away… I found time to play it everywhere! Definitely a great game, and still with room to grow and expand long after the year is over through updates and new content!

Dispatch

I didn’t know how much I was craving a new Telltale-esque game until playing Dispatch this year. The story is pretty much as you would expect, but every character is deeply likeable (with great acting from well known content creators) and having the inclusion of an actual management game in it (even if it is mobile-y) is very well appreciated. This game surprised me most as being the best this year to hit the ground running, as you quickly understand character motivations and what they’re all about, which is a great testament to the writing. I’m excited to see where this goes in the future, and I’m sure an animated show is not far off as well, for good reason!

AND THE WINNER OF THE HIGHLY COVETED NUKEDPIXELS GAME AWARDS AWARD FOR BEST GAME IS…

WINNER: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the most masterfully designed games in recent years. A great plot mixed with great gameplay, music, acting, and visuals. Especially with it coming seemingly out of nowhere, it was the perfect hit. With so much praise, and barely any flaws to speak of, this game is the whole package for many people, and it shouldn’t be overlooked by gamers of all types, especially those who can enjoy turn-based combat.

Thank you for reading! I’ll see you all in 2026!!!