Game of the Year 2025 Numbers 17 - 6

This was a hefty year for me and video games. Probably because everything around us is crumbling and terrible and video games were one of the easier disassociation techniques. 

Now the "as always disclaimer" is that these are not games that came out in 2025, just games I played in 2025. I don't have the time to stay up to date on all the newest games. (God damned adult job)

17. Heretic + Hexen

• Hardware: Steamdeck
• Release Year: 2025

I don't know if I consider this game above Doom for real, but I've played Heretic and Hexen less than I've played Doom. 

The first person shooter revolution of the early/mid-90s was moving fast. I had the Shareware version of Heretic, but by the time I had enough allowance, we had Duke Nukem 3D and Quake. 

So this is sort of a fun time capsule for me. Something that feels familiar, but something I've never played. 

16. Elden Ring: Seamless Co-Op and Shadow of the Erdtree

• Hardware: Steamdeck
• Release Year: 2022

I bought my brother Elden Ring years ago and he was too intimidated to play it. I was looking for a reason to return. I watched the progress of Seamless Co-Op and figured I'd offer myself up as a guide to the world. 

It wasn't perfect. There were some really frustrating times on Linux where the Coop mod had an update and wouldn't find my save. So I would go through this dance of finding the save file buried on my Steam Deck, copying it somewhere else. Starting a new character. Playing until the first checkpoint. Finding the new save file. Then overwriting that save file. 

I didn't play the DLC the first time through. Shadow of the Erdtree was still weeks away when I rolled credits and frankly, I was ready to move on. The DLC is cool. It has more of a fantastical feel. The original game tries to ground the world in a reality that we can understand, ruins and castles, forests and swamps. The DLC feels like Morrowind. Like something that can't exist on this planet. 

15. You Will Die Here Tonight

• Hardware: Steamdeck
• Release Year: 2022

Everyone knows this about me, I've been chasing the feeling of those original Resident Evil games my entire life. So a good way to get me to buy your indie game, is to tell me it's a major inspiration. 

You Will Die Here Tonight does so much right, but the few things it does wrong keeps it from being a game I would suggest to others. 

It involves a special elite police squad who have to go to a scary mansion and exfiltrate some mad scientist. Things go wrong quickly and you soon discover that you are in some sort of gameshow or loop. 

The game does exploration well, it gets the feel of the mansion right, it does the backtracking right. If it weren't for the ways to die, this game would be perfect. Obviously, this is a survival horror game. There's going to be some trial and error and frustrating deaths. 

The combat feels terrible. You switch from the overhead view to a first person view where you can be attacked from 360 degrees. Some of the enemies are designed to kill you if you make it too far too quickly, so you also have enemies that are right on top of you immediately. But the worst part is when an enemy grabs you, you have a quick button press system that seems to be too difficult to ever win. And when you lose, you are infected with the virus and have to backtrack to the opening room to cure yourself with a limited number of cures. 

Additionally, there are traps that really suck. For instance, to get the shotgun, you lift it and there's a click. So you know you're standing on a trap door. I died here about 4 times. I knew the solution, stand in the same spot for 3 seconds, but by god, if you didn't stand there for exactly the three seconds, you were dropping through that floor. 

14. Death Loop

• Hardware: Steamdeck
• Release Year: 2022

Just read my full review. I liked it more than most, but not enough for it to crack the top 10.

13. Hitman: The World of Assassination

• Hardware: Steamdeck
• Release Year: 2022

I was unable to bring my saved game over from Xbox, so I lost a lot of progress. But I quickly found having a clean slate and attacking these missions with the bare minimum of gear was more fun. 

The amount of ways to tackle an assassination still astounds me. The design room had to be incredibly fun. "So, what if there was a suitcase that homed in on someone when you threw it."

They continue to support this with wild free DLC like killing Eminem. It's still an incredible platform and I cannot wait to play their James Bond game. 

12. Kitsune Tails

• Hardware: Steamdeck
• Release Year: 2022

This was sold to me as a love letter to Mario 3 and Mario World. And it is, right up to the point where there could be a lawsuit.

You've got water levels, you've got giant boots, you've got a Tanuki equivalent. It rules. It plays really well. And it gets really challenging toward the end. 

The storyline will make our LGBTQ furies incredibly happy, as it's about maybe a same sex relationship where the protagonist is some mythological fox. I don't know, the plot is better than your average Mario game, but that's not why we're here. 

Could not recommend enough. 

11: Lawn Mowing Simulator

• Hardware: PS5
• Release Year: 2021

Folks, it's been a long year. A terrible year. Every day we wake up to new horrors. 

And folks, I hate mowing the lawn. 

But you know what I like to do in this day and age? Mow a virtual lawn in some dinosaur park. 

This game is a meditative state. The joy you feel as you cut that strip you missed the first time and see your percentage go up. If I had one complaint, some of the lawns take too long. This is a game I want to play for about 15-20 minutes at a time and some of the lawns are hour long ordeals. 

10. Metal Gear Delta

• Hardware: PS5
• Release Year: 2025

This was my favorite of the PS1/PS2 era of Metal Gear Solid. Yeah, the menus were a little much. Yeah, some things haven't aged well. But as far as trying to tie together the convoluted stories of the NES and PlayStation games, this did a hell of a job. 

The remake looks sharper and the menus are made to be more easily and quickly accessed. It's close enough to the original where my muscle memory still kicks in an works, but enough new stuff to where it feels modern. 

And to this day, every single time I play this game, I find new systems, new Easter eggs, that I've not seen in the dozen or so times I've beaten this game. 

9. Oblivion Remastered

• Hardware: Steamdeck
• Release Year: 2025

I started a playthrough of Oblivion using cheats during Covid lockdowns. Just immediately set every stat to 100, gave myself all the gold I'd ever need, and just picked the game apart. Saw how systems worked together when nothing was off limits. 

The remaster is pretty good. At least it looks good. I ran into more bugs in the remaster than I ran into in the original. There were still broken questions you have to load a previous save to fix. But it was fun. It felt like home. It was nice to escape the horrors of real life in the Imperial City. 

8. Onimusha Remastered

• Hardware: Steamdeck
• Release Year: 2025

The very small gap in my video game history was the first few years of the PlayStation 2. I bought one, I bought Resident Evil the movie on DVD, and then I couldn't afford much else. I mostly raided the bargain bin at Wal Mart or relied on my used game store having something interesting. 

Onimusha should have been my game. It's Resident Evil, with better graphics, and swords. Yet, I didn't find this game until the end of the PS2 era, as I was moving on to the Xbox 360. 

I didn't get very far. But over last summer, I played through the entire thing. It was like going through a museum of what things were like in the early 2000s (with some quality of life changes). 

Read my full review here. 

7. Yakuza Infinite Wealth

• Hardware: Steam Deck
• Release Year: 2024

I never really had a need to check out the Yakuza games. It seemed like a totally fine action adventure game. None of the writeups or screenshots really sung to me. 

That is, until Like a Dragon. You don't see games that are polled to death. Something that is so safe so you can move X amount of units. Like a Dragon was refreshing, fun, weird. It felt like an idea out of the PlayStation 2 ear. 

Infinite Wealth continued the tradition. Maybe it didn't have as great an impact as Like a Dragon, but  it's up there. 

I spent several dozens of hours in the weird city builder mini-game. I maxed out most of the side quests. I love this world and will return to it over and over again. (And will be moving onto the Pirate game shortly)

6. Sniper Elite: Resistance

• Hardware: PlayStation 5
• Release Year: 2025

Look, Sniper Elite doesn't change much from game to game. The maps get more interesting, but at the end of the day, we're just trying to assassinate Nazis. It's a formula that works. 

Sniper Elite continues to be a franchise that I buy because it's usually affordable for the amount of game you get and, more importantly, let's you play Co-Op throughout the entire campaign. 

I'm middle aged. I have a job. I have friends with kids. We don't have time to grind out a battlepass and get good at a competitive game. So the few Co-Op experiences left tend to get my circle of friends money. 

This game has you back in Europe where there are entire villages and castles crawling with fascists. And let me tell you, it's cathartic to kill them by the dozens per level.