This is an unusual topic for me – I’m not usually one for the “end of year retrospective” type of post. But 2025 has been astonishingly rich in great video games. In particular, this year even the “mainstream” has been flooded with games that I’ve liked. You can see this just by contrasting how my playlist overlapped with The Game Awards nominees last year (2 total, and they’re both way down there) to this year (10 total, including 4 of the 6 Game of the Year nominees). And there are several other nominees for this year that I still plan to get around to.

Part of this has to do with the release of the Switch 2, since that’s where I played 3 of the GotY nominees, but it’s also a tribute to the massive strength of indie releases this year. Seriously, the second half of 2025 was just one indie smash after another, and I am still trying to catch up.

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