For many gamers, this year was packed with surprises and will likely go down as one of the best in gaming history. From Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 winning over the hearts of millions to games like Megabonk and Ball x Pit, smaller studios and development teams really got a chance to shine in 2025. Major titles from AAA studios didn’t disappoint either, but looking back at the year, many of our favorite games didn’t come from big publishers. It was a year of variety, from single-player adventures that left us wanting more to shootin’, lootin’, and laughin’ as a group.
It’s interesting to look back at our list of most anticipated games of 2025 and see where those titles ended up here. Some clearly didn’t meet our expectations, while others got delayed to 2026 and possibly beyond. This year also saw the launch of the Switch 2 and the continued rise of PC handhelds, especially with the release of the ROG Xbox Ally. The industry also endured year-round layoffs, with studios shutting down and projects being canceled.
We’re actually hoping this year is an indicator of things to come, with smaller indie teams finding ways to create passionate and innovative games that focus on fun more than anything else. We believe we saw a lot of that this year and expect many more surprises in 2026.
Before we kick things off with our favorite games of 2025, there are some popular titles noticeably missing, namely Hollow Knight: Silksong and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. No one on our team managed to find the time to squeeze in either of those games this packed year. For Hollow Knight: Silksong, I personally don’t have much interest in playing it because I know it’s not my type of game after playing the original. I am planning to dive into both Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II at some point, but it won’t be before the end of this year.
We understand that both of those games would likely belong here if we had gotten around to playing them, but that’s the reason for their omission. We’re a small team, and we do this as a hobby, so we have to pick and choose games that really interest us with the limited time we have.
20. Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition
To this day, I’ll still die on the hill that the Nintendo Wii U was a very underrated system and actually had several great games on it. One of those was Xenoblade Chronicles X, which finally got a remaster earlier this year on Switch. I’m a huge fan of the entire Xenoblade Chronicles series, and even though X is a departure from the mainline numbered entries, the spin it puts on the formula is a welcome one. Featuring giant mechs and an amazing soundtrack, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition prioritizes exploration over storytelling, and as I said in my review, the RPG is narratively sparse, mechanically dense, and structurally uneven.
The single-player campaign won’t be a very memorable one, but the gameplay and the giant world Xenoblade Chronicles X has to offer are every virtual explorer’s dream. We also enjoyed some of the game’s multiplayer features as a group, but they aren’t something you’ll sink dozens of hours into. Unfortunately, the game still hasn’t received any sort of enhancements on the Switch 2, which is a bit of a surprise, since it can definitely take advantage of the better hardware. Nonetheless, if you’re looking for a vast open-world RPG with mechs and MMO-like combat, this one’s a recommendation.
19. Ghost of Yōtei
Some people are going to be surprised to see Ghost of Yōtei toward the bottom of this list, but I just couldn’t shake how similar it all was to Ghost of Tsushima. Objectively, it’s a fantastic game, with a beautifully crafted world, stunning visuals, and amazing combat. I didn’t have too much of an issue with the game’s characters, but the overall generic revenge plot can feel a bit boring at times. In my Ghost of Yōtei review, I mentioned the game really worked for me when sticking to the main story. The vast amount of side content just wasn’t very engaging and felt generic to the core.
My biggest issue with Ghost of Yōtei is that the game doesn’t offer anything new. There aren’t any mechanics, features, or even story beats that make the game feel innovative or fresh. It’s very much taking the foundation from Ghost of Tsushima and adding layers and layers of polish. For many, Ghost of Yōtei will go down as one of their favorite games of all time because Sucker Punch successfully delivered “more Ghost of Tsushima.” I was just hoping Ghost of Yōtei wouldn’t follow in the footsteps of many PlayStation first-party sequels, which have been playing it really safe for the past few years. They’re all great games, but many of them just fall flat for me because of how familiar they are.
18. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
When Death Stranding first released, some people criticized the game, saying that Hideo Kojima needed someone to tell him “no” from time to time and to scale back his crazy ideas. Well, I feel like that person was too present for the development of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, because I found only the final 10 percent of the game felt like a Kojima creation. My other big criticism from my review is that Death Stranding 2: On the Beach might give the player too much freedom. I found, in many instances, that transporting goods no longer felt like a puzzle that had to be solved, as one solution really fit all.
Much of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a spectacle, but the story is tame compared to its predecessor. There’s more of a focus on combat, but I still found it a bit clunky and not exactly the reason to play the game. Still, what carries it is the overall narrative, its wonderfully acted characters, and the fact that it’s technically one of the most remarkable games I’ve ever played. There are a lot of creative ideas here, but it definitely felt like Kojima didn’t get to go “full Kojima” on this game, and I personally think that’s to its detriment.
17. Hades II
I promise you, Hades II isn’t 17th on the list to be rage bait. I genuinely didn’t walk away from the game impressed, and I was actually quite frustrated with the overall narrative and how progression was handled. I loved the original Hades, and it’s been at the top of my favorite games to play on the Steam Deck list since 2023. Even after rolling credits in Hades II, I think I still prefer the original, despite the fact that Hades II has the vastly superior combat system.
I had a really hard time putting into words how I felt about Hades II in my review. There were moments where the gameplay was some of the best I’ve experienced all year, while other moments made me play something else. Every time I anticipated unlocking something new, I was met with disappointment, and it really does feel like the number of mandatory runs to roll credits is just too much. The game is extremely fun to play, and the writing for each of the characters is still well done, but the overall story arc for Melinoë disappointed me. I’m certain very few will agree with me on this take, but outside of the game’s combat, Hades II is a downgrade for me.
16. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
The level of disappointment I had with games like Ghost of Yōtei and Hades II matches the level of surprise I had when I played through Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time. After several delays, I feared Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time would launch as a buggy mess, but thankfully I was very wrong. This game was one of those rare occurrences where all that extra time paid off and actually went toward polish rather than merely finishing the game.
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time somehow manages to blend all the best parts of other casual life-sim games such as Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, and Stardew Valley. It’s got a predictable story and generic combat system, but the entire game is just so fun to play, and you’ll always have something to do. When we were discussing this list as a group, we all agreed that this was the one game we wished we could have spent more time with. Co-op was surprisingly fun together, even if it’s not particularly deep. I think I said it best in my review: Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time reminded me that not all games need a deep story or engaging combat to be fun. It’s just simply delightful.
15. Dune: Awakening
Funcom could have very easily phoned it in with Dune: Awakening by taking Conan Exiles and swapping out assets for Dune assets. The team didn’t do that, though, and instead created a crafting survival game that really made us feel as if we were transported to the planet of Arrakis. Every bit of this game embraces the Dune universe, from its character creation process to world exploration. I fully expected the game to be a Conan Exiles reskin and was completely blown away when I realized just how massive Dune: Awakening was.
As a group of three, we spent around 90 hours seeing everything Dune: Awakening had to offer at launch. At the time, the endgame content in the Deep Desert definitely had its fair share of issues, with Funcom doing its best to improve the experience. There’s still the issue of upkeep when it comes to managing your base, but we all believe that if you wanted to spend hundreds of hours with this game, you could. As I said in my review, Dune: Awakening doesn’t just feel like a next-generation crafting survival game; it feels surprisingly polished, which is generally not the case for games in this genre.
14. Monster Train 2
I’m going to sound like a hypocrite here, since Monster Train 2, as a sequel, does a similar thing to Ghost of Yōtei and Hades II. That is, it takes an established foundation and adds to it, without fundamentally changing the core gameplay loop. The thing is, Monster Train 2 feels like a noticeable improvement over the original because of how much more refined the clans, cards, and strategies are. And while I didn’t mention this in my review due to spoilers, Monster Train 2 actually includes all of the game’s original clans, which makes it just double the fun. Basically.
Unlike Ghost of Yōtei and Hades II, Monster Train 2’s gameplay is limited as a deckbuilder. I think that’s where it’s different for me, because the direction Monster Train 2 took for its sequel makes sense in terms of refining and building on the original. It’s the sequel I was hoping for, respecting the original game while expanding on experimentation. Yeah, I know the same could be said about Ghost of Yōtei and Hades II, but those games are in genres that afford them more room for innovation. Or in simpler terms: I just had more fun playing Monster Train 2 than I did playing Ghost of Yōtei and Hades II.
13. Ball x Pit
I promise you, you’re going to be hearing and seeing this phrase a lot during the 2025 gaming awards season: This game seemingly came out of nowhere. Try as I might to avoid using it, it’s honestly the most fitting phrase for Ball x Pit. Given the success of the original Hades and Vampire Survivors, it was only a matter of time before the market became filled with roguelites borrowing from all sorts of genres. Ball x Pit is one of the best to ever do it, though. As I said in my review, Ball x Pit takes the classic gameplay of 1976’s Breakout and adds modern roguelite mechanics to deliver something truly unique and addictive.
On paper, designing a roguelite seems simple. Create a pool of options and just randomly select three of those options every time a player levels up. The player then chooses one of those three options and the gameplay loops until they either win or lose. Properly designing those options is what makes roguelites compelling and addictive to play, though, and Ball x Pit nails that. There’s a wide variety of balls to choose from, as well as characters and equipment that provide passives. Each run results in different combinations of items, and it feels really satisfying when you manage to break the game. Three of us here at FullCleared couldn’t be pulled away from Ball x Pit for dozens of hours, and it’s such a great game to play on the go on the Switch or a handheld PC.
12. Monster Hunter Wilds
As a group, Monster Hunter Wilds was our most anticipated game of the year. While a few of us have dabbled with the Monster Hunter franchise prior to Monster Hunter: World, it was that entry that really got the whole group of us obsessed. We spent hundreds of hours together in Monster Hunter: World and Monster Hunter Rise on the Switch, so it was a safe bet that we would do the same again with Monster Hunter Wilds. Simply put, the Monster Hunter series offers some of the best co-op gameplay out there.
The fact that it ends up on the bottom half of our list here might mean we were disappointed with Monster Hunter Wilds. That’s partly the case, as we all did spend over 70 hours with the game, many of those hours immediately after launch. As we mentioned in our review, some parts of Monster Hunter Wilds are nearly everything a long-time fan could hope for, but the overall lack of difficult endgame hunts at launch had us stepping away from the game a lot sooner than anticipated. Combined with major performance issues on PC, it’s a shame that Monster Hunter Wilds was ultimately good, just not great.
11. Borderlands 4
The similarities between our Borderlands 4 and Monster Hunter Wilds experiences are almost uncanny. With both franchises, we find ourselves looking past certain flaws because we’re creating our own fun by doing silly things as a group. The Borderlands series has always been a bit of a sandbox for us, and while we were really disappointed with Borderlands 3’s characters and writing, we still enjoyed its gameplay. We were cautiously optimistic that Borderlands 4 would bring us back to those hundreds of hours of farming we had with Borderlands 2.
As with Monster Hunter Wilds, we enjoyed the campaign and dozens of hours of endgame but found ourselves shelving the game sooner than anticipated. This was partly due to other games that released in the crowded month, but also partly because farming UVHM 5 got pretty old, pretty quickly. As we said in our review, we enjoy these games as a group, so some of the co-op bugs we experienced didn’t help either, and constant lag in a group of four made for a frustrating experience. There’s definitely a time when we’ll revisit Borderlands 4, though, as the core gameplay is still one of the best gaming has to offer.
10. DOOM: The Dark Ages
Okay, so I honestly forgot that DOOM: The Dark Ages even released this year. But when we looked back to determine where it belonged on the list, we collectively had little to complain about the game. I personally think it’s the best of the modern DOOM trilogy, as I was not a fan of the aerial movement in DOOM Eternal. I thought I would hate the idea of having a shield in DOOM: The Dark Ages and a parrying mechanic in a first-person shooter, but it all surprisingly worked really well together.
As someone who grew up playing DOOM II on local BBSes, I can say the franchise has and always will be special to me. So long as I’m alive, I don’t plan on skipping any DOOM games, and I can’t wait to see what id Software is working on next. In my DOOM: The Dark Ages review, I said the game is the closest modern version of classic DOOM II I have experienced to date, and I found it to be the most fun I’ve had with a DOOM game since I was a teen.
9. Donkey Kong Bananza
Sometimes, you just want a game that isn’t very serious or demanding. Sometimes, you just want a game that’s silly fun, and that’s what Donkey Kong Bananza delivers. I wouldn’t even go so far as to call this game a 3D platformer, because the platforming sequences are so limited and none of them are very demanding. Like I said in my review, Donkey Kong Bananza is Nintendo flexing its muscles and proving it’s still the one to beat when it comes to creativity and pure fun.
Some questioned whether Nintendo made the right move in introducing the Switch 2 era with a new Donkey Kong title rather than a 3D Mario release. The thing is, the concept behind destructible environments can only be achieved with Donkey Kong, who has the power to destroy an entire island with his bare fists. It always fascinates me how Nintendo manages to make me feel like a kid again, no matter what decade it is. Donkey Kong Bananza’s biggest flaw was its underwhelming boss fights, but they’re just a small piece of this giant banana pie.
8. Elden Ring Nightreign
Elden Ring Nightreign might have been my biggest surprise of the year. Not because I didn’t expect it to be good, but because of how much I ended up enjoying the game. See, I’m not really a huge Soulslike fan. I did spend nearly 40 hours with Elden Ring but just couldn’t get myself to finish the game. To this day, I find FromSoftware’s style of combat to feel clunky, and I mostly don’t have the patience to see its games through. I’m not the only one like this within our group either, as a couple of others also found Nightreign more enjoyable than Elden Ring.
Perhaps it’s because we play a lot of co-op games together, but Elden Ring Nightreign turned out to be one of the most fun experiences we’ve ever had. As we said in our review, a few of us found ourselves wanting to keep playing repeatedly, even after unsuccessful runs, because of how great the faster-paced combat felt. Part of the experience scratched that itch Monster Hunter Wilds failed to scratch earlier in the year. By the time this article publishes, Elden Ring Nightreign’s DLC, The Forsaken Hollows, will be available, and it’s very likely some of us will jump back in.
7. Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles
Without question, a remaster or remake of Final Fantasy Tactics has been toward the top of my wishlist ever since I recently tried to do a playthrough on my Android tablet. I’m glad Square Enix went the route it did with Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles, preserving the core and spirit of a game that was originally designed in the mid-1990s. All of the quality-of-life improvements contribute to delivering a modern experience while retaining everything that made Final Fantasy Tactics special, including permanently losing party members.
In my review, I said Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles is the best way to experience Ramza and Delita’s story, and it’s worth a playthrough even if you know the game inside and out. It’s almost surprising the difference that voice acting makes, particularly with a script like this, as it really brought everything to life. The characters just have so much more personality when the words are spoken, adding even more weight to what was already an emotional story. Combine it all with one of the best soundtracks video games have to offer and a respectable $49.99 price tag, and it’s easy to see why I have Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles so high up on the list.
6. Dying Light: The Beast
If I had to guess, the spot where we decided to place Dying Light: The Beast on this list will likely be the most controversial take. We’re honestly surprised the game didn’t get more praise than it did, because we found it to be one of the best experiences we had all year as a group. From its brutal combat to its suspenseful atmosphere and challenging boss fights, Dying Light: The Beast excels where Dying Light 2: Stay Human stumbled. The best way to summarize it comes from my review, where I said Dying Light: The Beast is a lean, brutal return that dials back on sprawling systems in exchange for sharper parkour, nastier combat, and the return of real night terror.
While the game is far from perfect, the entire campaign was a blast to play through with two other people. Some of the missions were so fun that I had no problem doing them multiple times as we got one another caught up on the story. Dying Light: The Beast really brought back a lot of the fun we had with the original Dying Light and successfully delivers all the right things. If you and your friends need a game to enjoy over the holiday break, you won’t be disappointed with Dying Light: The Beast, assuming you can stomach it.
5. Dispatch
There might be some recency bias here, but I really did love every moment of Dispatch. Like I mentioned in my review, my only real complaint after the credits rolled was that I felt the game was too short. I was left wanting more from these characters, all of whom somehow managed to differentiate themselves from stereotypical superheroes and supervillains. Sure, the premise is very much like Suicide Squad or Guardians of the Galaxy, but this ragtag team of former villains will win you over.
While Dispatch isn’t very heavy on gameplay, it does have a bit more interaction than classic Telltale games. As someone who absolutely loved The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and Tales from the Borderlands, I really had little hope that we would ever see a proper spiritual successor to Telltale Games. Thankfully, Dispatch and AdHoc Studio proved me wrong, and hopefully we won’t have to wait years before seeing more from the team.
4. Split Fiction
If you couldn’t already tell by our list here, we tend to play a lot of co-op games together. So it’s little surprise that we’re huge fans of Hazelight Studios and all three games they’ve released: A Way Out, It Takes Two, and this year’s Split Fiction. As we mentioned in our review of Split Fiction, we were blown away by just how creative the entire game was throughout its 13- to 15-hour playthrough. The amount of variety in its gameplay is almost overwhelming, and the way it manages to cleverly add co-op mechanics to single-player ideas is nothing short of genius.
While the overall writing of the two main characters is a bit vanilla, they do have personality and a compelling enough story to push the game along. At the end of the day, though, you’re playing Split Fiction because it’s one of the best co-op experiences out there. It’s just a fun game from start to end, and several times we were taken by surprise at just how cool a certain mechanic was. We like grading games by how many “wow” moments they have, and Split Fiction was packed with them.
3. Blue Prince
Although Blue Prince is a single-player game, three of us played it as if it were a co-op experience. For several days, we all streamed our runs on Discord, documented and shared notes in Google Sheets, and tried to piece everything together without resorting to the internet for answers. It was a journey that was absolutely new to us, despite having played hundreds of games together for over 20 years. Blue Prince is one of the best-designed games I’ve ever played, from its original premise to how it executes its roguelite mechanics.
As we said in our review, Blue Prince is an interesting title because it makes us rethink what a game actually is. There’s no combat or complex mechanics, and players simply walk around a mansion, draft rooms, and solve puzzles at their own pace. For three of us, it’s one of the best games we’ve ever played. But at the same time, we can completely relate if someone finds it absolutely boring. If you can connect with what Blue Prince is trying to do, though, it’ll give you an experience like none other, and it’s not a game we’ll soon forget.
2. Megabonk
No, Megabonk isn’t in this spot because we like memes. For nearly two months, several of us could only talk and think about Megabonk. Despite other games releasing that should have been on our radar, all we did was unlock characters, weapons, and items in Megabonk. Once we ran out of things to unlock, we spent days and days trying to put together a leaderboard-worthy run. Megabonk is much more than just a 3D take on Vampire Survivors because of several intentional design choices that keep you believing the next run is going to be great.
I cover this in more depth in my review, but essentially Megabonk’s pool of upgrades and items is so huge, even with banning, that the level of variability in each run feels nearly infinite. But what the game does differently from other survivor-like titles is give players choices for risk and reward. For example, you can forgo opening chests until you get your Luck high enough, but doing so will make you weaker for that early portion of the run. You also get to decide how many additional bosses you want to spawn. You could also argue that there’s a greater level of skill required to do a proper run in Megabonk, from navigating the map as quickly as possible to avoiding death and positioning your character optimally for damage.
Megabonk is one of those games where I feel like, if I had no other obligations, I could play it endlessly. Sometimes it’s just being silly and seeing what I can do with a different character; other times it’s seeing how quickly I luck into one of the items I want and how far I can get on a leaderboard run. It’s such a simple game, but the build variety is huge, and it’s one of the few roguelites where when you get lucky and it all comes together, it feels special.
1. FullCleared’s Game of the Year: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Alright, so I’m going to go ahead and pat myself on the back for this one. In June 2024, the Xbox Games Showcase was widely considered the best show of that summer. Xbox had a ton to show off, from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle to DOOM: The Dark Ages, Gears of War: E-Day, and State of Decay 3. It was a very packed show with games that appealed to everyone, but my attention was on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Shortly after the presentation, I published an article saying it was the most exciting game from the Xbox Showcase. In August, when Sandfall Interactive shared a first-look gameplay trailer, I was convinced this game was going to be something special, and it was personally my most anticipated game of 2025.
As someone who grew up loving the Final Fantasy franchise and who considers turn-based RPGs my favorite genre, I really hoped that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 would do something new. Something fresh. Something memorable. When the credits rolled, I sat there thinking about how I was going to put this experience into words. How I was going to convince others that it was a truly special game and one everyone should experience. In my review, I simply said that I felt I had experienced a profound journey, a carefully composed narrative painted with layers of complexity and charming characters. It’s genuinely a meticulously crafted masterpiece and one that has been widely recognized within the industry.
Even if turn-based RPGs aren’t your thing, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is worth a playthrough. It’s one of those games that manages to capture the reason why I play and love video games. From its absolutely amazing soundtrack to its memorable characters, world-building, and storytelling, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 really is as good as everyone makes it out to be. This game even managed to hook some of our contributors who hardly play single-player games. As for myself, I knew it was something special when I recently started a second playthrough on PlayStation 5 after finishing it on PC earlier this year. I almost never find the time to replay a game because of just how many games there are to review, but starting it again months later just reminded me how good Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 really is. I’ve played and finished a lot of games since I published my review on May 2, and it’s still unquestionably my favorite game of the year. The rest of the team agrees.
