….And we’re back. Sorry about last year. Our previous owners, G/O Media, were a pack of idiots with more money than brains, who decided to stop anyone at Kotaku from writing personal top ten lists. Why? Pretty simple, really: They had no idea what they were doing and nearly destroyed this place. Anyway, they’re all gone now, and I’m still here. So let’s talk about my 10 favorite games of 2025!
This 2025 list was an odd one to put together. I started with over 20 games that I played this year that I liked a lot. But whittling this list down to 10 was shockingly easy. Nothing felt like it had to be on here or screamed “Zack’s Favorite Game!” It was a year in which I played so many good games, but few that stuck with me in the same way Control did in 2019, or Half-Life: Alyx the following year.
I won’t waste any more time. You can go scroll to the list now and nod in agreement with some picks and shake your head at others. As usual, this list is in no particular order until the very end, where I’ll drop my personal favorite game of the year! (And here are my past lists.)
Oh, wait, one more thing: If you scroll all the way to the end, you’ll find my top 10 games of 2024. Take that, Jimbo.
Battlefield 6
EA / Kotaku
Yeah, I wish EA’s big online FPS had some bigger maps. And, yup, there are still some vehicle balancing issues that need fixing. And, okay, sure, Redsec isn’t great, and the best thing I can say about the single-player campaign is that it’s short. But whatever, none of that has stopped me from investing nearly 150 hours into Battlefield 6 since it launched in October. This is the kind of chaotic but tactical combat that I love in multiplayer games. The kind of online shooter where you can spend all night driving around in tanks and then the next day grab an SMG and clear rooms with your friends. And then a tank blows up the room you were in, and the building collapses, and you scramble outside into a nearby jeep and escape, only to be sniped by a bastard on the other side of the map. It’s Battlefield, baby, and I love it.
Routine
© Lunar Software
When I wrapped Routine, a creepy photorealistic sci-fi horror game, I liked it a lot, but I wasn’t convinced it would make my game of the year list. But then it did something not many games can do: It stuck with me. It has an incredibly oppressive and scary atmosphere that evolves in some interesting ways over the course of its runtime, before ramping up the horror to 11. And it does all of this while not being filled with cheap jump scares or bathtubs of blood. The fact that it’s all set it in mundane but incredibly realistic spaces, like kitchens and offices, just makes it all the easier to fully lose yourself in the experience. One scare in particular shook me up so bad that I’ll never forget it.
Avowed
© Obsidian Entertainment
I will forever be a sucker for big RPGs that let me wander aimlessly and discover new quests. Bethesda’s RPGs have been doing that for decades. Obsidian’s Avowed smartly condenses the Bethesda formula while replacing some of that lost bloat with well-written companions and interesting hand-crafted sidequests. The end result is an RPG that lacks the simulation elements of Skyrim and the scale of Fallout 4, but features memorable characters and moments that stood out in a year filled with both.
THPS 3+4
© Activision
Few games feel as good as a well-made Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater title. And this year’s remake of THPS 3 and THPS 4 is very well-made indeed. This is just a perfect little package of skateboarding shenanigans. Yes, I know people got mad about the open-world quests being removed from THPS 4, but I’ve always preferred the two-minute format for these classic Tony Hawk titles. Leave the big spaces and quests to Underground or Wasteland, y’know? That minor quibble aside, what Iron Galaxy created with THPS 3+4 is marvelous. It looks like I remember those old games looking, plays fantastically, and features enough challenges and extra content to keep you grinding and flipping for many late nights. Now, someone convince Activision to remake Tony Hawk’s Underground, please.
Despelote
© Panic
I don’t care much for soccer. But I loved Despelote, a game that uses soccer as a throughline connecting different moments from a young boy’s life as he grows up in Quito during Ecuador’s qualification for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. This is a story about being a kid, dreaming big, getting into trouble, lying to your parents, growing up, and going back to where you once lived, only to find a much different place. You’ll be able to finish this one in a single extended sitting, and by the end, you’ll likely be won over by its storytelling, voice acting, visuals, and heart.
Dispatch
© AdHoc Studio / Kotaku
I played a lot of Telltale narrative games (like Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead) back in the day and enjoyed them, but I wasn’t sure if that formula would work again in 2025. I mean, I’m not sure it really worked back then either, but the writing was strong enough to win most folks over. Dispatch, a narrative-driven episodic game about a superhero agency, shows that with some tweaks and upgrades, the Telltale formula can still kick ass. Strong voice acting, a focus on narrative over fluff gameplay, and some truly funny moments help this strange workplace superhero comedy succeed in a way that, I’d argue, most Telltale games didn’t. Now, where’s season 2?
Mafia: The Old Country
© 2K
When I sit down to play a game, I don’t always want to invest 400 hours into an RPG or grind away filling up meters or fight random people online. Sometimes, I just want a linear, 10-to-15-hour cinematic experience featuring solid gameplay and gorgeous visuals. Mafia: The Old Country is that kind of game. The kind of game that we don’t get much of anymore. A big-budget AAA linear action adventure game that lacks crafting, RPG skill trees, or other guff. It’s just the classic mobster story of a dude who goes from nothing to everything, but it all costs him so much. Except this is set in 1904 Italy and ditches Tommy Guns and big cities for rolling fields and horses. The end result is beautiful.
South of Midnight
© Compulsion Games
If South of Midnight’s combat was better, it might have been able to slide into my top spot because everything else around the action-platformer is just that damn good. South of Midnight is a stop-motion-style adventure through a magical version of the South that deals head-on with topics like racism and slavery. But it also celebrates the unique culture that exists in the deep southern portion of the United States. And what screenshots of this game don’t reveal is that it’s packed with some of the best music of 2025, with songs that made me dance and others that made me cry. If you want to feel something, play South of Midnight.
Jurassic World Evolution 3
© Universal
One night, while playing Jurassic World Evolution 3, I spent nearly three hours creating a massive paddock filled with various dinosaurs and a jeep tour. When I realized I had spent that much time on one part of the map, I felt a bit weird. Then I burned another hour while making that paddock look amazing and ensuring the adult and baby dinos inside were happy and healthy. A great game doesn’t have to tell some epic story or be filled with important themes and ideas. A great game can just take what came before it, expand on all of that, and then offer you a newly perfected prehistoric park builder that will suck away weeks of your life if you aren’t careful. This is one of the best simulation games around, and easily the best Jurassic Park game ever made.
And my top game of 2025…The Outer Worlds 2
© Obsidian Entertainment
I went back and forth on this a lot. I bet if you ask me in like two months what my top game of 2025 is, I might say something else. Truly, this was a strange year. But, I must admit that the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that The Outer Worlds 2 (from Avowed studio Obsidian) was my game of the year.
As someone who has put an embarrassing number of hours into Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4, I’m always craving an RPG that can provide similar experiences. The original Outer Worlds got close, but The Outer Worlds 2 finally nails and then improves on the open-ended FPS RPG action found in those past Fallout games. Gone are the stilted conversations from Fallout and the wonky combat and visuals. Instead, The Outer Worlds 2 looks marvelous, feels like a joy to play, and still makes sure to include enough quirky moments and silly bits to satisfy any Fallout fan. Obsidian even included an in-game radio with ads and songs just like Bethesda’s Fallout games.
I can’t wait to come back to The Outer Worlds 2 in a few years, after forgetting most of it, and replay it as a new character. And to me, that’s the ultimate proof that a game has done something right. Now, one more thing…
Zack’s Top 10 Games Of 2024
- Astro Bot
- Silent Hill 2
- Star Wars Outlaws
- Helldivers 2
- Balatro
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard
- Thank Goodness You’re Here
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
- Dungeons of Hinterberg
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – My Favorite Game Of 2024!
