At this time of the year, a lot of our coverage revolves around ‘2025’s Best [Enter Category] Games’. While we love to shine light on brilliant new releases, we also wanted to share some staff picks of the games we’ve played this year that were released before 2025.
Dragon Age II – Jess
Last Christmas, I made good use of my time off work to play through the first three of Bioware’s Dragon Age games following the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. While I’ve only just gotten around to starting The Veilguard, I did fly through Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. It’s remarkable that, while being part of the same series, each Dragon Age game has its own unique set of great things it brings to the table, and things that make the table unbalanced. But the two consistent elements throughout the series (I cannot comment on The Veilguard) is that each game has an incredible cast of companions (which is unsurprising from Bioware), and an encyclopedia of lore to uncover.
Dragon Age II in particular stood out to me. While, yes, the game was rushed through development and as a result, its dungeons really suffered. But it felt truly unique in its story and characters, following our player character, Hawke (my Hawke was an apostate mage), as they flee from the Blight that takes place during Origins and find themselves as a refugee in the city of Kirkwall. Here, the main story is split into three parts that span across nine years, with three years in between each part. Hawke establishes themselves in the city of Kirkwall and forms a found family with the characters that join your party. Because of the time span, I was really invested with Hawk’s story. The party felt truly connected from the long-term bond as we watched their lives progress and their stories slowly unfold. Rather than a ‘how much does this person like you’ bar that plummets every time you sneeze wrong in that companion’s direction, Dragon Age 2 uses a friendship/rivalry meter. When a companion disagrees with Hawke’s views, it doesn’t automatically mean that they hate your guts; instead you become rivals where they don’t agree with you, but they still respect you. In fact, becoming a rival with some companions is even beneficial to their story; rather than pandering to something they may be doing wrong for the sake of staying friends, you challenge them. It makes them feel so much more multi-dimensional which is hugely important in these games. This system was unfortunately dropped in Dragon Age: Inquisition in order to scrap the meters completely to make companion relationships feel more real – but the friendship/rivalry meter is still my preferred mechanic for companion relationships.
Yakuza Kiwami – Bobby
I’ve heard many times that Yakuza is something of a “Japanese Grand Theft Auto”, and I never knew what that meant until this year, when I rang the new year in with a playthrough of my first ever Yakuza game, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s Yakuza Kiwami. It’s absolutely ridiculous, but the story also takes such serious and dramatic turns that I was hooked on gameplay and plot alike. This fusion of humour and exagerrated characterisation to a satirical degree combined with the dark city streets exploration and bloody violence in the missions really earned Yakuza its title as the Japanese GTA-like. It’s just as polished, just as fun to play, and honestly just as deserving of praise and hype as Rockstar’s iconic franchise. And yes, I’ve already started playing Yakuza 0!
Shadow of the Colossus – Nirav
As hard as it is to believe, I actually did not play Shadow of the Colossus until 2025. I was not a PlayStation kid growing up, but this year my curiosity finally got the better of me when I saw the Bluepoint 2018 remake while browsing the PlayStation Plus catalog. While I did not enjoy a lot of the gameplay and found the climbing mechanics to be lacking, what blew me away was the unadulterated spirit of ludonarrative harmony – that is, the gameplay mechanics and narrative themes support and feed each other. When I reached the end of the story and was being sucked into the earth, holding down the R2 button with all my might, a single sentence crossed my mind: “I can’t keep holding on forever.” In that moment, I knew. I let go. I have experienced precious few moments of epiphany like this before, and I will treasure this game always because of it.
Strange Horticulture – Kate
I played this absolutely delightful, sinister and mysterious puzzle game this year, and I can’t recommend it enough. The deceptively simple gameplay of Bad Viking’s Strange Horticulture hides a deep mystery story that is a treat to uncover. I loved identifying plants, traveling around the countryside to find more, and learning about my customers through their various issues they came to my shop to solve. And can I just say that I wish that the plant that could open any lock was real – I would totally grow those!
Bioshock Infinite – Axel
I’ve been (slowly) picking my way through Irrational Games’ Bioshock Infinite. I could say that it seems particularly timely, given the state of the world right now. I could say that it was part of my desperate search for the “perfect’ steampunk game, even if it’s technically outside the typical timeframe for the genre. I might even say that since I played the remaster of System Shock 2 earlier this year, it seems perfectly acceptable to try going through the games which followed after. Truth, though? It’s all about that barbershop quartet performing “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys. Considering Brian Wilson’s death earlier this year, that alone seemed like a decent enough reason to pick my way through Columbia.
Core Keeper – Professor Clare
Have you ever thought about using a mysterious magical core you found to build a massive underground utopia with you and your friends? Pugstorm’s cozy management sim, Core Keeper, will definitely scratch that itch. At the recommendation of a friend, a handful of us dove into the game earlier this year, which ended up being one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in a management style game. I normally grow bored of the repetition that comes with these types of games, but having a group of friends to play with, and friends who all took on different roles to make our little community grow and flourish, was a lot of fun. Playing solo can be fun but does just feel like another iteration of Stardew Valley or Sun Haven, so if you’re looking to spice up the experience, recruiting a few friends to brave the mysteries of the underground can be a great way to spend some time together.
Mouthwashing – JP
I had heard about Wrong Organ’s Mouthwashing around October of 2024 when it was all the rage, so when my girlfriend’s brother and father gave me a rudimentary gaming PC setup for Christmas one of the first things I did was purchase this game. Despite being the first game I beat this year, Mouthwashing has sat in the back of my brain this whole year. A chilling tale with tons of influence from movies I love like The Thing (1982) and Event Horizon (1997).
Final Fantasy XIV – Walter
This year, I decided to give MMOs a chance. While Warframe captured me, it is more of an MMO lite experience that takes some inspiration from other big MMOs, like Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV. It’s been more than ten years since Final Fantasy XIV came out, yet it is still bringing new meaningful updates and content. Final Fantasy XIV has everything that I was looking for from an MMO: good story, interesting characters, and an immersive world with a great community. It not only has one of the best communities, but a great team behind it as well, with big names from Square Enix like Yoshi-P, Masayoshi Soken and more.
Butterfly Soup – Mateusz
Are you looking for video games that explore specific topics and can’t find any? Try checking out itch.io. The absolute wealth of deep, meaningful, and personal stories that await when you free yourself of Big Storefront exclusivity is staggering. You might find something as breathtakingly beautiful as Brianna Lei’s Butterfly Soup duology of for free. There are many angles to approach this one from: an amazing time capsule of 2008 America, one of the most adorable internet-era romances ever, and a devastating depiction of generational trauma among the children of Asian immigrants. All in bits and pieces of determination, hope, love, and memes. It is so, so funny. Play it TODAY.
Cyberpunk 2077 – Nima
I had CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 sitting in my library for years. The messy launch really killed my hype for the game, and I didn’t return to it until this year when I kept hearing how good the game had gotten and how amazing the DLC, Phantom Liberty is. And honestly, it’s true. It’s not a perfect game, it doesn’t have the high quality RPG elements CD Project Red is known for. However, if you view it as a story-driven action game, it’s one of the best experiences I’ve had in a long time. The gameplay is fun, the story is exhilarating, especially in Phantom Liberty, and the performances are, well, breath-taking. But most of all, it’s one of the most visually stunning games of all time. Even years after its release, I don’t think any other game has come close to it. Just driving and walking in Night City, ignoring everything else about the game, is in its own an unforgettable experience.
Pseudoregalia – Tim
How to describe this game… It’s a puzzle platformer designed to look and feel like a forgotten N64 title. There’s tons of freedom to explore and get lost in Rittzler’s Pseudoregalia – stumble over new areas and just generally aimlessly wander until you figure out what you need to be doing, and it’s just excellent fun. If you’re a fan of Mario 64, Mario Odyssey or other movement-intense 3D platformers, give this game a gander.
Earthbound – Adam
Ape Inc. (now Creatures Inc.) and HAL Laboratory’s Earthbound is my favorite RPG of all time, but it’s been at least 15 years since I played it. I had been wanting to give it a replay since its addition to NSO but just hadn’t found the time to actually commit to it. With the Switch 2 releasing though and Mario Kart World played, I started to finally dive through the NSO offerings one night and kinda just made a snap decision that it was finally time to give it a replay. It’s still unbeliveable. Wildly creative, interesting, weird, funny, and not really showing much age despite it being 31 years old now. The music still sound fantastic with so many memorable side characters. Whether that’s Camera Man’s random appearances or Brick Road’s quest to becoming Dungeon Man, it’s still just so sharp and funny and there really isn’t a lot like it still.
What games have you played this year that were released before 2025? Let us know in the comments!
