Community MetaCouncil's Game of the Year Awards 2025

Best of Last Year

• Any game from 2025 that you played this year.

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Do you mean 2024? Else it’s the same as goty

I wish i played and finished more games this year
but now that i have a new pc i will next year.
I do have a goty though

Me getting ready to vote Civilization VII as turd of the year.

Already know what I will be voting for Best of Last Year.


Best game not played is a fun idea! I have a few games in mind...

I don't play as many current year games as last year. For whatever reason.

As it currently stands, I can count the number of games released in 2025 that I've completed in one hand. And the closest thing to a GOTY in my mind is still a work in progress.

Well, I still have four weeks to work on it, I guess.

Yeah I haven't played a ton of new games this year but I'll get a vote in either way. But once again I like that the deadline is 15th of Jan so I have time to potentially grab something 2025 from the sales and play it before the deadline.

I'm trying to finish some a few more games before finishing my list and submitting my votes

I sent my votes.

My votes are in. Don't slack folks!

Done. Anime will win.

Done.

My top 5:

1. Monster train 2
2. Sektori
3. Tempest Rising
4. Blade Chimera
5. Patapon Replay

Donezo!

GOTY 2025:
1. Hades 2
2. Dynasty Warriors: Origins
3. Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
4. The First Berserker Khazan
5. Tormented Souls 2 / Silent Hill F

1. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
2. Last of Us: Part II (PC)
3. Mafia: Old Country
4. Hell is Us
5. South of Midnight

Best Soundtrack:
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

Best Old Game:
Aliens: Dark Descent

Turd of the Year:
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage

I have a tentative list of 3 games but I still need to catch up on a few that I grabbed during the sales window.

Done.

I never really play latest games because of exploitative regional pricings or my hardware not matching current specs anymore.
I played many then-current releases last year. This year, barely (except for fiddling around with a couple, on my friend's Xbox and PS5.). One that I did play substantially, deserves more recognition.

Was difficultier than I expected.

My list:

1) Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
2) Lost Records: Bloom and Rage
3) Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo
4) Doom: The Dark Ages
5) Split Fiction

Alright, sent mine in.

1. The Séance of Blake Manor
2. Babushka's Glitch Dungeon
3. Hollow Knight: Silksong
4. Skin Deep
5. Blue Prince

I voted like this:

GOTY 2025
1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
2. Hollow Knight: Silksong
3. AI LIMIT
4. Ender Magnolia: Blood in the Mist
5. The Outer Worlds 2

Short Motivation for GOTY:
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the best JRPG style games I have played, and it is very surprising to see a game with so many strengths coming from a new developer with no track record.

The story and characters are simply better than in most other games in the genre. I am quite good at losing interest in games and disappearing them in my massive queue of things to do later, but after a brief opening section with slightly annoying city exploration content, the game delivers one of the most enticing and one of the most well paced main story progressions that I have experienced in a role playing game. Despite the strong drive forward in the story, the game is at the same time subtle in how it fleshes out the world building and the character back stories. The voice acting and the ending(s) are incredible as well. There are no weaknesses in the story department in this game!

The gameplay is great as well, but has some minor frustrations. Basically, the gameplay systems are maximalist in the vein of a main line Final Fantasy game. You can except an old school world map system, loads of side quests, loads of optional areas, and a complex combat system that synergizes with a lot of items that you will find through the extensive exploration content that the game has to offer. The combat system is turn-based, but includes timing based button prompts that have to be used defensively, and can also be used to enhance offensive abilities. It is a quite interesting system, but it mostly comes off as a well made turn based JPRG combat system. The frustrations in the system consist of a lot of really difficult enemy encounters that are placed near the main path of areas, and it is often unclear if you should tackle the challenges right away or if you should leave them for endgame cleanup duties. A couple of such encounters throughout the game would have been fine, but in this game most areas have one or two of them ...

The graphics and music are fantastic, and perfectly complement the great story that the game has to offer. I played the game in 4k DLSS quality mode with DLSS4 forced through the Nvidia app, and the graphics never disappointed.

I would highly recommend the game to fans of the JRPG genre.

Best of Last Year:
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Best Game Not Played:
Avowed

Ongoing:
Teardown

Best Soundtrack:
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Best Old Game:
Super Mario Galaxy 2

Turd of the Year:
Baby Steps

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I need to make a decision I don't think I ever had to make before regarding the GotY vote.
Usually, I've either completed all games that would be candidate for my GotY, or not even (often remotely ) gotten to them yet.
But this year, I'm in the middle of Expedition 33, and if it holds up (even accounting for the falloff I expect in almost every single RPG towards the end) it will easily make it into my top 5.

I lean towards including it.

GOTY 2025
1. Look Outside
2. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
3. Hollow Knight: Silksong
4. Hades II

Look Outside is a $10 RPGMaker game that caught my eye while I was browsing the Steam store during the Winter Sale. I found the artstyle and premise interesting, plus I've heard some good things about it so I bought it. What I thought would be a short little RPG turned into a 60+ hour obsession, despite technically beating the game 20 hours in. The game is full of secrets, mysteries to solve, endearing characters, funny interactions, unsettling horrors, and I was so enthralled by its setting. Sure, I had lots of fun with Clair Obscur and Silksong, but those 2 have gotten enough praise already and I think more people should check out Look Outside. Such a charming and thought-provoking game should not fade to obscurity.

Best Soundtrack:
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Best Old Game:
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

I didn't even play that many games this year and I still had trouble cutting the final list down to 5. Really great year for gaming.

1. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time

This thing is pure distilled joy in game form. The art direction, menu UIs, music...all of it packaged together feels so snug & warm. Energy that's pure & joyous w/o being saccharine. A tough needle to thread that FI pulls off with an easy confidence.

Feels quite DQB2-adjacent in feel & form. The amount of content on offer impresses and I love that there's always multiple paths/goals that can be followed. Leading to a freeform sandbox vibe that invites the player to engage at a variety of mood levels.

Man what a soothing balm.



2. Escape From Duckov

It's amazing when media can successfully combine two disparate tones into a cohesive whole. Duckov sports both whimsy & depth.

Looks gorgeous and plays like a dream. There's a Dysmantle-like simplicity with the top-down presentation, the playfield reads clean. And still tactical depth remains with diverse loadouts, skill trees and base expansion. A refreshing combo of charm & mechanical engagement.

When I look at the inspiration with Tarkov, I see an ambitious & complex military im-sim shooter. Incredible for the target audience but for me a bit too mechanically & competitively intense. Duckov enters the chat with a single-player approximation that feels more breezy without sacrificing any of the essentials.



3. Schedule I

Somewhere along the way Schedule I went from a pretty dang accomplished meme game to a legit awesome real game.

Great moment to moment gameplay loops & progression systems, fun world to explore, really nice gameplay feel (upgrade your skateboard asap!). This thing is WAY more thoughtful & polished than one may imagine on the surface. Really nails that "just one more day" progression loop of classics like Stardew, etc.

The WarioWare-like minigames for product packaging & distribution are a mechanical stroke of genius!



4. Sunken Engine

SE is a shipyard sim with a creative Lovecraft twist. Sports killer artwork and the gameplay loop has surprising depth for a traditional "lite" job sim (think Gas Station Simulator).

Along with the genre staples like base expansion and skill upgrade trees there's also nice side activities like fishing and fish-market stall sales.

I love that you have to manage your sanity as well, you start seeing strange visions as it decays. This thing really nails the creep-vibe atmosphere, it feels far more authentic to the themes than you'd imagine given the genre.

All told it's a super-creative twist on an established genre with nice production values and an attractive price.



5. Little Rocket Lab

Stardew meets Factorio-lite is about as apt as you're gonna get with this one. A great hybrid for genre fans.

Very friendly from the jump with a cozy story campaign attached to help with user direction.

The overall more relaxed vibe makes it a great palate cleanser when weighed against the math-engineering trainers like Factorio, lol.


6. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon / Sanctuary of Sarras DLC

It's AA Black Metal Skyrim and it's absolutely glorious.

Great art style, thoughtful lore from TTRPG roots, and most importantly it captures that Bethesda rpg sandbox vibe that so few releases seem able to replicate. With a bonus perk of weighty combat.

Def. got that grim-dark energy, but it's played with such earnestness that instead of being cheeseball it won me over.



7. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

I do have a soft spot for the original Trails 1st. Steam says I played around 25 hrs. back in 2017, but I obviously never finished it and don't remember much beyond positive vibes.

But man this remake is just so immediately attractive on first blush. Maybe I haven't been keeping up with modern JRPG design 'cause this production is just so lush & colorful. It reads so clean, which I actually do remember in the small details found in the original, such as set dressings found in shops, etc (ie unique geometry for a random apple barrel).

Another neat touch is the character portraits in the dialogue panels. Guess I'm used to them being static pics normally, but here there's just a touch of animation to them, a slight shift in hair that's tasteful & subtle. Suggesting animation but not overdoing it.

Great realtime/turn-based hybrid combat system.

Warm-blanket RPG'ing at its finest!



8. Heart of the Machine

Sleek, stylish & sophisticated.

Heart of the Machine is a tactics, 4X, city-builder, colony sim, and RPG.

Impressive genre mashup and the freshest entry in the Strat scene in quite some time.

Feels like a classic in the making.



9. MIRO

Miro feels like the early days of No Man's Sky in regards to planetary exploration, the walking-sim element with discovery & chill vibes. Yet this is structured with a story & defined goals. Nice tech upgrade paths compliment the exploration element, giving purpose in resource collection.

It feels a bit like a matured Proteus in presentation but with distinct story beats & direction. Has that lo-fi PS1-era art direction if that's your thing (it def. is mine). While planets you explore are procedural, they remain static with unique resource types & structures that you can revisit for upgrade materials. So it doesn't feel random in the traditional sense.

Bonus props for QoL features like toggles to both auto-walk & auto-run. Seems like a small thing but it makes a difference at the maps are quite sprawling and thanks to an upgradable compass that populates POIs, it never feels aimless.



10. VEIN

VEIN is a surprisingly atmospheric run at Project Zomboid. And it looks to have amazing potential.

The zombie survival-sandbox genre is a crowded market on PC so differentiation can be challenging. VEIN brings the goods in combining the complex nature of Zomboid with a fresh first-person perspective. So a bit like 7 Days with more depth.

It's coming from a 2-person dev team who appear to have a firm grasp on the appeal of titles like Zomboid. The character stats (physical/mental health), skill development & world interactivity is on the upper-end of the spectrum, making the space feel dynamic and full of possibility. After all these years it's wild to play out the survival gameplay loops unique to Zomboid in a fully realized 3D space, one that can be quite visually striking at times.

Character movement & combat feel responsive if a bit pedestrian. You can set zombie pop size in new game creation, but being 3D it feels like population sizes will never match the hoards in Zomboid. Menus navigation is smart & snappy (very important with high-volume inventory management). The map is huge with a nice variety of natural & inhabited environments.

It's firmly in Early Access so you're getting in on the ground floor. But in the here and now, it feels well worth one's time & attention.

Other notable titles I really dug this year that make me wish there were a Top 20:

Easy Delivery Co.
Quasimorph
Obenseuer
AutoForge
Card Survival: Fantasy Forest
Two Point Museum
Approaching Infinity
Disillusion ST
ENA: Dream BBQ
Cape Hideous