If 2025 had an overall mood, it was equal parts appetite for spectacle and hunger for surprise. Big studios put their chips on sprawling RPGs and familiar franchises; tiny teams kept delivering quietly brilliant experiments. Publishers reorganized, consoles reasserted themselves, and players responded by voting with wallets and hours — often in ways that surprised critics and executives alike.
Eurogamer's readers crowned Sandfall's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as their Game of the Year, and it's easy to see why: a turn‑based JRPG with so much personality it feels cinematic and handcrafted at once. Across outlets, two themes emerge from the most talked‑about releases: narrative ambition (Clair Obscur, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Dispatch) and mechanical excellence in compact packages (Hades II, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Blue Prince). GameDeveloper's Bryant Francis explicitly celebrated that narrative thread, calling out Clair Obscur and Blue Prince for the emotional heft and craft they coaxed out of systems and story.
The big, the boutique, and the remasters
2025 didn't play by a single rulebook. Obsidian released both Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 (the latter split in praise and debate), while Nintendo leaned into exclusives to drive hardware: Switch 2 became the fastest‑selling console in Nintendo history, shifting more than 10 million units in its opening months and helping titles like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza find massive audiences. Nintendo's momentum was a rare bit of unalloyed good news amid industry churn; it even prompted an upward forecast revision from the company midyear (Nintendo raises Switch 2 forecast as sales surge).
But the year also belonged to indies and mid‑sized teams. Hades II and Hollow Knight: Silksong proved that focused design and tight combat loops still captivate millions. Blue Prince and Dispatch reminded us that smaller budgets don't limit emotional or structural ambition. And remasters — from Oblivion to Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater — kept older catalogs both relevant and profitable.
Not everything old was polished into gold; some franchises experimented boldly. Retro Studios' Metroid Prime 4 resurfaced excitement for classic sci‑fi exploration and was buoyed by a trailer cycle that rekindled old hype (Metroid Prime 4's 'Survive' trailer rekindles hype). Meanwhile, extraction and emergent multiplayer found a fresh audience in Arc Raiders, a tense, bite‑sized cooperative shooter that reviewers said finally delivered on promises of emergent raidplay (Arc Raiders launch coverage).
Business: consolidation, strategy shifts, and AI anxieties
If studios were busy shipping games, the business side of 2025 was making headlines too. A PIF‑led consortium moved to take Electronic Arts private in a record $55 billion leveraged buyout — one of the largest deals Wall Street has seen in gaming. Ubisoft announced a new co‑owned studio with Tencent to rehabilitate key franchises. Take‑Two's Rockstar kept fans on edge with delays and internal shakeups around GTA 6. CNBC's roundups captured a moment of rapid consolidation and strategic repositioning: publishers are balancing the classic console blockbuster model with increasing openness to cross‑platform releases.
That broader industry churn carried an undercurrent of worry. Game Developer and others have been sounding alarms about the fate of narrative teams and writers, noting layoffs and the industry's flirtation with AI for content creation. Bryant Francis's wrap‑up even framed 2025 as a year when teams that fought for written, human stories were rewarded — a reminder that players still value carefully crafted characters and arcs.
What players played (and voted for)
Across editorial lists and reader polls, certain names kept returning: Clair Obscur, Hades II, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Death Stranding 2 and Donkey Kong Bananza. Sports franchises remained commercially dominant (NBA 2K26, EA Sports FC 26), but the cultural conversation skewed toward authorship and surprise — the little game that demanded hours of obsession and the AA studio that delivered a masterpiece on a midrange budget.
Critically, this year showed that strong design and a clear point of view can trump blockbuster marketing. A handcrafted turn‑based game could beat out slicker, bigger budget entries in reader polls. A nimble multiplayer concept could reignite a genre. And a console launch with the right first‑party slate could still reset industry momentum.
If you're trying to decide what to play over the holidays: give a narrative‑heavy pick an hour or two (Clair Obscur, Dispatch), pick an indie with a tight loop for short sessions (Hades II, Blue Prince), and if you want spectacle, there are AAA worlds waiting (Kingdom Come II, Metroid Prime 4). If you're considering hardware choices and care about future exclusives, the PlayStation rumour mill keeps churning toward a refresh — the new PlayStation 5 Pro console remains a common talking point among platform watchers and is worth watching if you track console capability (PlayStation 5 Pro Console)[https://amzn.to/48BLvuO].
Expect 2026 to test whether consolidation makes studios steadier or stranger; whether AI becomes an assistant or a replacement; and whether players keep rewarding the human voice in games. For now, 2025 leaves us with a stacked backlog and an odd, satisfying feeling: in an era of hyperproduction, the games that dared to be weird, focused, or tender found their audiences.