🎮 Best Video Games of 2025
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1
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Turn-Based RPG - Sandfall Interactive - Kepler Interactive - 24/04/2025 - 18+ - PC / PS5 / Xbox Series X|S Each year, an entity known as the Paintress paints a number that erases from existence everyone who has reached that age. Expedition 33 sets out from the city of Lumière to reach her monolith and stop her, in a turn-based RPG marked by deep emotional and artistic weight.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the debut project of Sandfall Interactive, a small French studio founded by a group of developers with backgrounds at major companies such as Ubisoft, who chose to launch their first game with a bold and risky ambition: a turn-based RPG aimed at an audience largely accustomed to real-time action games. The story unfolds on the fictional continent of Lumière, a world with a Belle Époque charm threatened by the Paintress. The playable cast, Expedition 33, sets out from the city of Lumière to confront the Paintress at her monolith, in a journey that soon becomes a deep meditation on grief, loss and the acceptance of death, themes rooted partly in the personal experience of creative director Guillaume Broche, who dedicated the game to his mother's memory. On the combat side, the game layers a real-time dodge-and-parry system requiring sharp reflexes and precise timing on top of a classic turn-based structure, an approach that recalls Sekiro and the Mario and Luigi series and makes every encounter feel tactical and physical at once. The cast of characters, each with a distinct skill tree and specific narrative weight, moves through a world that alternates linear exploration with more open, breathable areas, all carried by an orchestral score from Lorien Testard repeatedly named among the year's best. The art direction, indebted to late-nineteenth-century French painting, builds memorable settings that combine decay and beauty, while the writing, backed by a strong voice cast, balances lighter moments with passages of real emotional intensity. Made by a team of just over thirty people under often difficult production conditions, the game was received from launch as one of the most significant surprises in the genre's recent history, able to stand toe to toe with productions backed by vastly larger budgets. In the months following release, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 gathered near-unanimous acclaim from critics and players alike, culminating in a Game of the Year win and a record total of nine awards at The Game Awards, the best result ever achieved by a debut title in the show's history.
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10votes
2
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Metroidvania - Team Cherry - Team Cherry - 04/09/2025 - 7+ - PC / PS5 / Xbox Series X|S / Switch / Switch 2 Playing as Hornet, the princess-protector from the first game, the heroine wakes up captive in the kingdom of Pharloom and must fight her way to the summit of a decaying, silk-bound civilization, facing hostile creatures, mysterious allies and a realm hiding age-old secrets.
Hollow Knight: Silksong arrives after an extraordinarily long wait, first announced back in 2019 and stretching over six years through long silences, community speculation and an anticipation that became something of a cultural phenomenon in its own right, fueled by tiny Australian studio Team Cherry, which for most of that time consisted of just three people. The sequel to the celebrated 2017 metroidvania sets aside the Knight in favor of Hornet, the spider-princess who was a supporting character in the first game, captured at the story's outset and waking up a prisoner in the kingdom of Pharloom, a vertical civilization built entirely around the theme of silk, which she must climb to the summit of in order to survive and uncover its secrets. Compared to its predecessor, combat feels faster, more aggressive and more acrobatic, built around Hornet's needle and greater mobility that invites a more offensive approach than the caution typical of the first Hollow Knight, without giving up the punishing difficulty and memorable boss fights that made the series famous. Silk itself becomes a central resource, harvested from defeated enemies and used to heal or power up equippable tools that let players customize their playstyle more flexibly than before. The level design retains the intricate, interconnected structure that made the metroidvania genre a hallmark of the series, with areas distinct in look and atmosphere that open up gradually as new abilities are acquired, while the hand-drawn art direction and Christopher Larkin's orchestral score confirm and expand on the first game's signature style. Aside from some difficulty spikes several critics judged excessive even by the series' standards, the game was received as a worthy and, in many respects, superior successor, one able to justify such a long wait with an unusual amount of content and overall polish. At launch, demand outstripped every expectation, crashing multiple digital storefronts within hours and turning the release into one of the most closely followed and talked-about gaming events of the year.
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9votes
3
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Action-Adventure - Kojima Productions - Sony Interactive Entertainment - 26/06/2025 - 18+ - PS5 / PC Sam Porter Bridges returns to action years after the first game, tasked with extending the chiral network beyond America's borders in a new expedition across Mexico and Australia, facing deliveries, APAS threats and the mobile ship DHV Magellan.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach marks Sam Porter Bridges' return several years after the events of the first game, in a project that cements Kojima Productions' identity as a now fully mature independent studio following the split from Konami. The story first moves to a Mexico devastated by the Death Stranding phenomenon, before expanding into a vast, environmentally diverse Australia, where Sam is tasked with extending the chiral network beyond the borders of the United States, facing threats such as the private military group APAS as well as enemies inhabiting the so-called beach realm. Compared to the first game, the gameplay keeps its core built on transporting cargo across difficult terrain, but introduces tools that make the experience noticeably smoother and less punishing, including an upgraded exoskeleton, more manageable vehicles, a monorail built cooperatively with other players, and the ability to explore underwater environments. Combat, often cited as the original's weak point, is also more refined and varied, with a larger toolkit of offensive and defensive options that make encounters more engaging without betraying the series' contemplative core. The narrative side, carried by a cast including Norman Reedus, Léa Seydoux, Elle Fanning and Woody Harrelson, continues the author's signature meditation on connection, isolation and extinction, weaving together science fiction, social commentary and moments of pure cinematic spectacle. On the technical side, the Decima engine renders natural landscapes of rare visual quality, capturing both the aridity of Mexico and the chromatic variety of the Australian terrain. While it keeps the drawn-out narrative pacing that continues to divide part of the audience less accustomed to Kojima's style, the game was met with broader critical acclaim than its predecessor, praised in particular for its markedly improved gameplay mechanics. First-week sales across the Japanese and international markets outperformed the original, confirming Death Stranding 2 as one of the year's most talked-about and commercially significant launches.
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8votes
