Ranking the Video Games I Played in 2025

I’m far from the first person to say so, but what a year for video games! I wish I had more time to write about them in my blog and play them, but with Brackish Waters (the latest video game I’m working on) and my seasonal football officiating, it’s hard to find the extra time. It’s unbelievable that this is my first post since July. I’ve started and scrapped a few posts because I ran out of time for the posts to be relevant or ran out of motivation for writing about the topic.

However, since the high school football season is over, I’m on vacation from Brackish Waters for a few more days, and I’m not at home where all of my games are, I have a lot of extra time. I would be remiss to not do my own ranking of games from 2025.

I debated a few ways of doing this, but ultimately, I decided on the following format:

• These are games that I played in 2025, but they didn’t necessarily release in 2025.

• The list is from worst to best.

• I thought about doing a Top 5 list, but I’d like to rank them all since I had fairly strong thoughts about all of the games that I played this year.

• Below each game title, I have included a separate ranking. That number represents how it ranks in the list of all games that I’ve played enough of to have an opinion on. That list is from 1 (best) to 223 (worst).

• On the list mentioned in the previous bullet, I only rank games that I’ve completed, made a conscious decision not to finish, or are never-ending, such as a multiplayer game or a game that is intended to be played over and over again. These are the rules I’m using for this post as well. For example, I got a late start on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and I’m enjoying it quite a lot. However, I have not finished the game yet, I intend to continue playing it, and it has a definitive end. Because of that, I’m not including it.

So here’s the list of the games that I played in 2025:

23. Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator (2024)

Overall Ranking: 221

If you were paying attention in the introduction, you may notice that this is by far one of the worst games I’ve played, only ranking better than two other games. I am such a sucker for simulation games, and I was one of the psychopaths that actually really enjoyed the part of Grand Theft Auto V where I could drive around in a taxi cab and pick up passengers. Taxi Life seemed right up my alley.

Unfortunately, the game suffers from a severe lack of anything interesting. Games with taxi driving take a lot of forms. In some, there’s a complex narrative around the passengers that are picked up. In others, like Crazy Taxi, it’s all about destructive, wild, irresponsible fun. Crazy Taxi creates a sense of urgency by giving timers, expecting the player to perform wild stunts, and building a world that’s just plain goofy. GTA V simply uses the promise of some extra cash in the game and the challenge of breaking laws while staying under the cops’ radar to keep it a bit interesting.

Taxi Life does nothing to create any sense of urgency. The game fails to understand what makes simulation games so fun: a sense of progress and motivation. When playing a simulator that’s about flipping burgers, there are two approaches. The first is where flipping burgers is easy, but the exciting part of the game is gradually expanding your burger flipping escapades by adding new ingredients, new obstacles, and new requirements. The other is the Hand Simulator approach where the act of flipping the burger is so unbelievably mechanical and difficult that the sense of progress comes from gradually improving into a burger-flipping master.

Instead of either of these approaches, Taxi Life dropped me into a dull world full of dull fares to pick up, all the while extending no motivation or challenge to the player. The first hour of playing the game is the same as the 15th or 30th hour. That does not make for a successful simulation game. One could argue that isn’t the right approach for any game of any genre except for some casual and puzzle games. This was a disappointment at every level.

22. Streamer Life Simulator (2020)

Overall Ranking: 218

I cannot for the life of me understand why this blew up so much. I know it garnered a lot of streamer and YouTuber attention, likely because of the topic of the game. However, the mechanics feel shallow, building my streaming rig felt unsatisfying, I ran into a number of bugs, and overall, it just feels like unrealized potential.

Does this game get better the further into it you get? Possibly. I’ll never know, because the beginning is so uninteresting that I wouldn’t be able to get that far. The things I did while streaming didn’t invoke a sense of accomplishment, and it’s very easy without changing much of what I’m doing to steadily grow as a streamer. The challenge isn’t here, and with it goes the satisfaction and motivation.

21. Ambulance Life : A Paramedic Simulator (2025)

Overall Ranking: 209

Are you sensing a theme? This was not a great year for me as far as simulation games go.

What’s unique about Ambulance Life is its educational aspect. A lot of simulation games give a small bit of education by communicating the very broad strokes of a profession, lifestyle, or concept. Here, Aesir Interactive took further steps than most in drilling down a bit more on actual EMT work. While just about any EMT online would agree that it is far from truly realistic, it certainly makes a decent effort, I believe. The gameplay also doesn’t suck too bad. Ultimately, it’s a bit shallow, but it’s interesting.

The game is dragged down by its lack of polish from both game design and technical perspectives. On launch, this game was a mess, and over the following months, it hasn’t gotten much better. Ray casting caused strange stuttering, and other bugs abound. There’s a lack of inventiveness from missions, controls are wonky in every aspect, and it’s easy to get to the end of the available scenarios that can be played out. Ambulance Life tickles the brain a bit more than Streamer Life or Taxi Life, but these issues are unacceptable and destroy an otherwise promising game.

20. Streamer Life Simulator 2 (2025)

Overall Ranking: 202

Yep. I went straight into the sequel after the disaster that was the original. I must say, there was a lot more in Streamer Life Simulator 2. I found myself anxious to continue playing at times, finding the progression system better fleshed out, the world more meaningful to explore, and some more interesting things to do on stream.

Unfortunately, if the first game was a hole being dug on a plot of land covered in bedrock, the second one is a hole being dug just a few feet away from the other one with some better tools. It got a bit further, but ultimately, it’s still the same thing. Gameplay stalls out quickly well before reaching the promised land. Just like the first one, Streamer Life Simulator 2 could be a really great game in the later stages, but getting there isn’t worth the trek.

19. Beholder (2016)

Overall Ranking: 155

I really love the concept of Beholder. The idea of a dark, gritty simulation/management game has been done brilliantly by Frostpunk, This War of Mine, and Papers, Please. Being thrust into an unforgiving world and having to follow the rules of that world while trying to maintain your own ethics continues to hit right with Beholder. I adore the art style that so masterfully communicates mood, tone, and atmosphere. The challenge of the game is also welcomed with open arms.

What eats at me with Beholder, though, is the imprecision, as I’ll put it. The game plays clunkily at various points due to inconsistent timing. “Did that person catch me installing this camera? No? How? It definitely seemed like I got caught. Oh well.” Then later, it seems that I got out just in time, only to find out that the person caught me. The lines seem blurred, and in a game where timing and speed is key, this seeming randomness gets frustrating quickly.

It’s also hard to escape some of the bugs that make the game exceedingly more difficult for no reason. While the concept and narrative that the game tried to get across kept me coming back, I couldn’t finish it. Importantly, though, it has not dissuaded me from purchasing and planning to play the sequels. I’d like to see where else this series goes.

18. The Precinct (2025)

Overall Ranking: 133

Cop dramas are plastered all over film and television, but they’re sparse in the video game space (which is why if you like Cop dramas, you should check out Brackish Waters). In my opinion, it’s because they rely heavily on a perfect combination of interesting characters, action, and mystery. That’s a hard combo to put together in video games. Mystery and characters require significant effort from a narrative design perspective, and that talent is hard to come by for development studios. The action also requires a heavy lift from system designers and programmers to feel right. Rockstar’s L.A. Noir might be the only truly great example of how to do it well. In my opinion, there have been quite a few failures, including This is the Police, Shadows of Doubt, and the Sherlock Holmes games,

The Precinct captured my attention for a long time before it released, and it managed to nab my excitement as time went on as well. It doesn’t quite live up to my expectations, but it did a lot of really fun things. The driving wasn’t perfect, but overall, I had quite a bit of fun with it and wouldn’t call it a downfall of the experience. The shooting mechanics were decent but underwhelming, never striking me as the game’s strong suit. I enjoyed a lot of the secrets and challenges scattered throughout the city. Some of the simulation aspects of the game were done quite well when it came to being on patrol.

Even the plot is serviceable. The biggest kick to the teeth with this game is the delivery of the plot. The voice acting sounds so disjointed and goofy compared to the story being told. It’s clear that the writers went with something more on the dramatic side with comedic moments interspersed throughout. While the writers certainly could’ve picked their comedic moments a little better, the reality is that the voice actors were simply not funny or dramatic. Could this have been a directing gaff? Potentially, but I think the acting in general just needed a huge upgrade. The main character is also as boring as you can get. Again, the plot itself isn’t bad, but the main character has no flaws, no personality, and unconvincing motivations. Throw in some downfalls on the audio mixing/equipment that leaves the voice acting feeling disconnected from the environment, and you’ve got yourself a mess of a narrative that leaves no good impressions.

17. Growing Up (2021)

Overall Ranking: 132

This year, I found myself wanting a life sim game, and I’ve had Growing Up on my wishlist for a bit. The word I would use for this game is “simple.” It’s a simple game with simple mechanics, simple stories, and simple goals. This is a very middle-of-the-road game because this simplicity works for and against the final product in so many ways.

Simplicity Pros:

• It’s easy to play. There’s no complex tutorial or unnecessary mechanics. It just gets you in, adds a little thing here and there, and then that’s in. Those are the mechanics. Have fun.

• It’s relaxing. You can play this game and have a good time for hours at a time.

• Keeping things simple led to some inventiveness on the part of the developers. I like the idea of having brain points that you spend to activate neurons in order to learn new skills. I’m not sure I could find another game that’s quite done that before, and it’s refreshing.

• This is essentially a bug-free game. The lack of complexity has left little room for things to go terribly wrong.

Simplicity Cons:

• In a life sim, it’s sometimes fun to experience those complexities of life, so having them absent hurts the experience at times given what I come to these types of games for.

• While there are a lot of NPCs that have different stories, that’s the only real change in gameplay from life to life. Once you’ve spent a couple of hours playing your first life, you’ve pretty much encountered everything the game has to offer. There’s a ton of repetition, so things get stale quickly on second and subsequent playthroughs.

• The writing is just as simple as everything else. The characters aren’t believable. In this game, five-year-olds use sentence structures and vocabulary that just couldn’t be. There are a lot of adults in our world that have less emotional intelligence than the sixth graders do in Growing Up.

Ultimately, this is an easy game to enjoy, but not for long.

16. Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly (2023)

Overall Ranking: 131

Coffee Talk is such an interesting series in my life. Two of the games have been released, I’ve finished both of them, I’ve enjoyed both of them, and I’m excited for Coffee Talk: Tokyo, but I’ve never felt like they were particularly good games.

The series is exactly what the title suggests: making coffee and talking to customers. Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly was beautifully done. Some characters returned, and a whole host of new characters emerged. Each one is designed expertly from their style and animations to their motivations and personality. The artistic prowess across the board impresses. The act of making coffee for the characters can be challenging, and that keeps the game fresh during the long stretches of reading dialogue. Episode 2 continues its predecessor’s strong narrative kept within a fairly tight experience.

I wish it was more my style of game. While I’ll continue to enjoy them, I highly doubt this series will ever knock my socks off or go beyond a middling experience for me. While the simulation-esque gameplay of making the coffee and the narrative focus both speak to me, the whole “cozy game” genre does not. This cozy style permeates every aspect of the game, watering the experience down a bit. The stakes are very low, the writing is non-confrontational, and the game just sits on simmer for its entirety. This leads to a lot of characters sounding the same despite their well-developed differences; in order to keep that simmer, every character has to apologize for flying off the handle, or for being too intrusive, or for their general behavior at every single turn. Meanwhile, their actual dialogue was roughly a 3/10 on the wildness scale.

I prefer the first Coffee Talk just a bit more. While I liked the additional coffee ingredients and the expansion of the social media app on the in-game phone, I found myself not connecting as well with some of the new characters in this second installment and often missing some of the characters from the first game who were missing.

15. Mad Games Tycoon 2 (2023)

Overall Ranking: 115

Ever since playing Game Dev Tycoon oh so long ago, I’ve been on the search for another game development video game. Unfortunately, nothing has even come close yet to the heights of Game Dev Tycoon. Madd Games Tycoon 2 is the first of the ones that I tried this year, and it wasn’t bad. I enjoyed most of my time with it. However, as I stopped understanding how to progress, the game quickly fizzled out.

While many of the mechanics were very enjoyable, I came to find out that the way I was enjoying the game was not really the “correct” way to play if I wanted to have a successful game development studio. I found myself stuck and not being able to improve my studio at all on multiple attempts. The game felt impossible. Eventually, through some forum searching, what I found was that the way to play in order to have a successful development studio sounded dreadfully unfun. It’s always frustrating when a game I’m playing has so few paths toward success and that path just seems dull.

I’m sure there’s some sort of commentary in there about how game development really works, but I’m a game developer; if I wanted the game development game I’m playing to be as difficult as actually developing the real game I’m developing, then I would be spending that time on the real thing that could potentially make me some money.

14. City Game Studio (2021)

Overall Ranking: 106

City Game Studio was not far ahead of Mad Games Tycoon 2, but it was nonetheless a little better for me. What I really appreciated with this installment in the niche genre of game dev games was its higher focus on competition. Similar to Software Inc., I was able to purchase stocks in competitors, buy out competitors, start different studios under the same company, build a video game marketplace like Steam, and build consoles. There seem to be more ways to victory in City Game Studio.

I still don’t think the experience comes near Game Dev Tycoon, mostly because City Game Studio just doesn’t have the same kind of personality. Also, while I found Mad Games Tycoon 2 to be too difficult, I found City Game Studio to be a bit too easy. Making a thriving video game marketplace is really difficult, and I found it extremely easy in City Game Studio. In general, it’s much easier to stay afloat in this game, and something I love about Game Dev Tycoon is the constant wondering if I’m going to be able to pay rent. That makes waiting for the reviews of my game extremely exciting.

13. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023)

Overall Ranking: 102

Once again, this was a great year for games. It’s hard to believe Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is so low on my list. In any other year, it may have cracked the top five. However, the games that came out this year were so strong. Above this entry are seven games that released in 2025. It’s hard to compete with that. And I didn’t play a large number of games as well that were highly beloved by the gaming community this year.

It didn’t help, though, that Jedi: Survivor frustrated me so much. Soulslikes aren’t my bread and butter. The only reason I even play the Star Wars Jedi series is because it’s Star Wars (and because my girlfriend really likes when I play them). Some combos from enemies just leave my blood boiling. Not to mention the little critters scattered all around some of the planets that can each kill me in one hit no matter how late in the game I am. The save system is asinine; all saving does is save Cal’s place on the map and what level he is. Meanwhile, if I die, every enemy still respawns and has to be fought or run past again to get all the way back to the enemy I’m trying to fight. Then, after three or four minutes of loading, fighting off enemies, running, jumping, and climbing, the fight with the boss I just died to lasts 15 seconds until I die again. I despise this kind of design. Did I play on the hardest difficulty? Yes. Should I have? No. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Why? Only a therapist could answer that question.

This game’s placement on my list, though, is a testament to how great the enjoyable parts are. The voice acting is top notch, there’s plenty of fan service for Star Wars lovers, the puzzles are interesting, the audio design is immaculate, the world design is impressive, and the combat is flashy. Survivor isn’t nearly as good as Fallen Order, but it does plenty of things right.

12. Schedule I (2025)

Overall Ranking: 100

Schedule I is a bit of an anomaly. I try my best not to include early access games on any game list I create because the game is unfinished by definition. I prefer to rank fully released products that are considered feature-complete and finished. Schedule I already has a lot of meat on its bones, though.

I’m not a fan of drugs in general, but what’s the purpose of simulation games if not to let me experience something I never otherwise would have in real life? The rave reviews for the game drew me to give it a try, and I enjoyed what I played quite a lot. I did feel like I reached the end of the excitement a little earlier than the developer intended. However, I would definitely be open to trying Schedule I again when it fully releases. It seems the game has already gotten a good amount of additional content since the last time I played it, so that’s promising. Perhaps I’ll put this game on a future list where it will have gone up in overall ranking. We’ll see.

11. Starfield (2023)

Overall Ranking: 99

I had such a reverse experience with Starfield compared to what everyone else had. The big saying about Starfield that everyone would pass around and make fun of was, “You just have to play it for 12 hours, then it gets good!” Who wants to play a crappy game for 12 hours to get to the good part? There are five-hour games that are amazing all the way through. 12 hours?! That’s like saying a movie sucks for the first 90 minutes, but then it gets good. So I have to watch a whole feature-length film’s worth of garbage before I can start the good part?

However, when I play open-world games, I often have the most fun doing a bunch of the side quests early on. For the first few hours, the game didn’t seem to go much of anywhere, but then I started getting side quests, and you can bet I started doing those immediately. I went to Neon, Akila City, Cydonia, and Hopetown. I started getting into quests with Ryujin, the Crimson Fleet, and the Trackers Alliance. It was great. I enjoyed exploring the galaxy tremendously. I also like the romance options that exist. Occasionally, I would pop into the Lodge to see what main missions with Constellation were available, but those seemed pretty mundane, so I assumed I wasn’t very far along in the main story.

Then, before I knew it, I was running out of intriguing side quests, so I decided to focus a little more on the story missions, only to suddenly have the game end after another five hours of playing or so. Apparently, I did all of the fun stuff first that was supposed to be done later on in the story. Then the story just completely fell flat. I can’t believe almost every single story mission was “go here, fight a few guys, get an artifact, and come back.” It was so shallow compared to the side quests.

Overall, a very enjoyable experience. I can only imagine what it would’ve been like had the main narrative been given the same treatment as the side content, though.

10. Writer’s Rush (2024)

Overall Ranking: 88

This is one of the most unique games on this list. In this game, you’re a writer trying to win a writing contest by writing a series of articles, books, screenplays, video game scripts, etc. You play through multiple sections of the competition to try to beat out the other writers and become the number-one writer in the world. You choose your topics, content, genre, and format, and then you submit it. You try to meet certain requirements and climb up the ladder.

This game can be difficult to put down. The constant sense of progress is cleverly designed. The act of “writing” in this game is very straight forward, but it definitely requires some trial and error. I wish it was a little less forgiving, though. I managed to beat it in my first playthrough, never once stumbling at all. But it’s a very unique simulation game that emphasizes speed and ruthlessness to your competition.

9. Yes, Your Grace 2: Snowfall (2025)

Overall Ranking: 76

The first Yes, Your Grace very much left me wanting more, and with Snowfall, I got it, plus some extra that I didn’t even know I needed. The UI and base game mechanics are extremely reminiscent of the first game, but they’ve received a mighty overhaul that, if I were to guess, better match what the developers aimed for originally. The narrative also offers a much higher level of complexity, keeping me engaged throughout a more memorable plot.

While there were aspects of the original’s plot that I liked a lot that I didn’t find here, Snowfall was hands down an improvement on every front. The sound effects and music are etched inside of my skull, and the challenge of deciding how to use my resources still make me feel guilty if I think about them for too long.

The main improvements I would’ve liked are fewer side characters and fewer dream sequences. The side characters are plentiful, but because of that, they each get their own little side stories. These could’ve been fewer and better fleshed out than the final product. This also would’ve likely come with better side advisor balancing. Fewer advisors would mean less swapping between a bunch of them as they get tired and more strategic usage of the ones available. As far as the dream sequences go, they just felt tacked on and too frequent. They didn’t yield anything interesting and stand out as the least fun parts of the game.

8. Dave the Diver (2023)

Overall Ranking: 65

Yes, I finally got Dave the Diver. I think the game is a bit overrated, but overrated doesn’t mean bad or even average. This is a high quality game with so many different mechanical additions across the entire narrative. As someone who loves simulation and management games, the tie in of running a sushi restaurant went a long way for me. I enjoyed managing the fish I had and trying to get the right fish for the right recipes, maximizing profits.

I considered 100%ing the game, but ultimately, I just felt very done with the game at the end. The farming stuff started to feel tacked on and unnecessary, fishing became less of a privilege and more of a chore, and frankly, I didn’t love the narrative after it shifted in the middle. So many of the characters felt intrusive, and traversal became a pain.

What’s undeniable, though, is the quality of the style. Style oozes out of the UI, art, sound, and game design. It’s also super dense. There’s so much to do, and I can see why people would play it for upwards of 50 hours. I myself was feeling like I could play it that long for the first 10-15 hours. That tapering off of my enjoyment really hurt my opinion of the game in the end.

7. Balatro (2024)

Overall Ranking: 60

It’s hard to imagine myself playing solitaire ever again. Solitaire was my go-to game to keep my hands busy while watching a show, chatting with someone, etc. Now, Balatro is my uncontested favorite solitary card game.

Balatro is the epitome of simple rules creating complex gameplay. However, Balatro does this on such an advanced level that it’s difficult to put into words why it’s such an amazing game. In doing so, it’s describing such basic mechanics, most of which could be understood by anyone above the age of 12 or 13. It’s the genius design of how these elements interact with one another that creates endless possibilities, endless complexity, and endless fun.

In the most rudimentary terms, Balatro is addictive. It hardly gets old, no matter how many days in a row you play it. If that’s not the mark of a great game, it’s hard to know what is. I would put it under the category of a casual game, though, and I personally only value casual games so highly. I put much higher value on things that are emotionally impactful to me and burn moments into my memory. Balatro doesn’t really do that for me, so despite how much I love and play it, it has a much lower ceiling on this list.

6. Avowed (2025)

Overall Ranking: 59

I love a lot of games that have RPG elements, but I wouldn’t consider RPGs my bread and butter. Rather, I find a lot of RPG mechanics to be interesting additions to other genres. For example, Mass Effect is my favorite video game franchise, and there are a few integral role-playing features throughout the series. However, at its heart, I would say Mass Effect is an action, sci-fi, third-person shooter, not an RPG. I tend to not enjoy pure RPGs as much as many do.

Avowed, despite not breaking sales records or contending for Game of the Year at The Game Awards, is what I would consider to be my fourth favorite RPG (behind Baldur’s Gate 3, The Outer Worlds, and Skyrim, in that order). I don’t think it pushed the envelope very much in most of what it was doing, the characters—Marius in particular—could really get on my nerves at times, and the stealth mechanic is a complete joke. However, Avowed shines in its magic combat, its world building, and its intriguing narrative that had me continually guessing at what the ending would be or what decisions I should make.

In an RPG, the true test for me of quality is how much I want to do the side quests. In the aforementioned Starfield, I loved a lot of the side quests, but they became too repetitive at times and lost their charm. In Avowed, each side quest felt carefully crafted with little repetition outside of the typical treasures to fetch. I enjoyed the structure of separating the world into different regions, and I found myself returning to certain regions after I had completed their main missions, and that is very unlike me.

5. Strange Antiquities (2025)

Overall Ranking: 51

Some amazing puzzle games released this year. I still intend to get to Blue Prince, but I couldn’t not play the follow-up to Strange Horticulture. While the first game wasn’t my favorite, I thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle solving concept that Bad Viking implemented. Getting to see it more polished and in a different context excited me, and the development team did not disappoint.

Strange Antiquities is a beautiful congress of tantalizing narrative, intelligent puzzles, and flawless design. Getting a new antiquity to ponder was always a pleasure to the eyes and the brain. Every new item I discovered teased out the question, “What is this one about?” This is achieved with detailed art and design for each of the over 80 items that can be unlocked.

It’s hard to complain about much in this game. I do wish that there was more variety with the secrets of the shop. The game relies on the same gimmick to unlock parts of the shop just a bit too much for me. Otherwise, everything about this game was a step up from the first entry in the series. I desperately hope that Bad Viking continues this series.

4. Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020)

Overall Ranking: 44

I finally finished this one after owning it for quite a while, making this one of the oldest games I played this year. I even started it at one point in the past and didn’t finish it, so I started a fresh game on PS5 in 2025.

Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man from 2018 is one of my top 10 games I’ve ever played, and it’s very unlike games that I would typically enjoy; I don’t particularly care for superheroes, open-world games can often feel like a slog to me, and the mechanics aren’t that much like anything I’ve enjoyed in the past. I got the platinum trophy in it, though, and played through New Game+ (another oddity for me) because I enjoyed the story, the mechanics were sharp, the combat was simple but challenging, and swinging around New York City never got tiring.

The reason I’m talking so much about a game from over seven years ago is because Spider-Man: Miles Morales continues to do a lot of the same things in the same ways. Unfortunately, what drags this entry in the series down is the predictable plot and uninspired enemies. In the original game, combat was a puzzle to be solved with carefully selected and placed enemies to create difficulty. This time around, it felt more like the enemies simply existed to be punched and more enemies means higher difficulty.

3. The Roottrees Are Dead (2025)

Overall Ranking: 43

The Roottrees Are Dead absolutely came out of nowhere. I don’t remember exactly how I came across it, but when I did, I knew I had to have it. If anyone knows me, they know I’m a huge family tree nerd, so this gameplay of uncovering a family’s lineage via a family tree suddenly seemed so obvious and brilliant.

What’s better is that the developers did not disappoint at any turn. It’s a game that relies heavily on contrast to balance the experience. Surfing an old-style internet to find answers and connect dots worked with the jazzy soundtrack to create a cozy yet mysterious atmosphere that’s perfect for puzzle solving. Additionally, every discovery elicits a feeling of victory and intrigue, all the while being underscored by the context for the game: the tragic deaths of several of the Roottrees whom you’re prying into the lives of.

So much care was put into each detail of the Roottrees’ lore, the soundtrack, and the mechanics. If it wasn’t for some of the overly convoluted solutions that made the final hours of the game frustrating, this would’ve been higher on my list, surpassing games like Return of the Obra Dinn that it takes such heavy inspiration from.

2. Split Fiction (2025)

Overall Ranking: 24

Now we’re getting into the stuff that truly stands out. I join a lot of other gamers in partial disappointment that so many amazing games came out in 2025. Split Fiction didn’t receive nearly the credit it deserved. In any other year, this game could’ve been a heavy winner across the industry of any awards that are up for grabs. Unfortunately, this year, it fell behind some other truly spectacular works of art.

That doesn’t in any way diminish the brilliance of Hazelight’s most recent co-op masterpiece. Hazelight has become that studio that just doesn’t know how to miss. There’s a lot of comparison across the internet between this game and It Takes Two, trying to argue which one is better. Ultimately, it seems that the consensus is that the two are of very similar quality with groups of people who just slightly prefer one over the other.

I’m of the camp that prefers Split Fiction. While I agree that the narrative sang louder in It Takes Two, I still felt that of Split Fiction was a fun premise that gave birth to tons of neat gameplay ideas. And that gameplay is ultimately where Split Fiction takes the cake. The variety, the always fresh puzzle solving, the fast actiony parts, the mellower goofy parts, and the technical innovation leave little more to be desired.

1. Dispatch (2025)

Overall Ranking: 20

And here we are. The moment I saw the trailer for Dispatch at The Game Awards 2024, I knew it was going to be a game for me. High focus on narrative with a stellar cast and interspersed with simulation-style gameplay has me written all over it.

I’ve absolutely adored so many of Telltale’s games. While they were always filled with some odd dialogue and quirks, they always left me wanting more because of Telltale’s expertise at the broader storytelling and focus on branching paths. AdHoc Studio—a studio full of ex-Telltale talent—simply did what Telltale was trying to do all along.

The writing is witty, believable, and heartfelt. The characters are tried and true with special superhero qualities to keep them fresh. The simulation gameplay offers up player agency while serving as a secondary way of delivering the narrative. At this point in my overall list, we’re looking less at flaws and more at personal preference. To me, this is essentially a perfect game. However, ultimately, it just comes down to the emotional impact I felt at the end. There have been 19 other games in my life that have put a bigger stamp on my heart, but Dispatch stands tall with the best of them.