My GOTY is . . . currently undecided. Kinda. I have a game picked out, but in the interest of fairness I'm not gonna call it yet until I've gotten to play
DOOM: The Dark Ages. That game straight up won't allow you to launch it if your GPU doesn't support integrated raytracing (with no option to disable), so I couldn't play it until I upgraded my PC recently. Since its predecessors won my coveted GOTY title in 2016 and 2020, it seems fair to at least give it a chance. I bought it on the Steam sale and will start playing it shortly - maybe after the holidays, maybe after I finish Metroid Prime 4. Also want to give Unbeatable a fair shake before I call it. So it might be January before I make the call. I know you are all hotly anticipating this, but please wait just a little longer.
In the meantime, some highlights from this year for me:
Sometimes, you just gotta let 'em cook. The abrupt tone shift from "how is this taking eight years to make" to "holy shit how did they make this in eight years" among the gaming community around launch ought to tell you everything you need to know.
Hollow Knight: Silksong really is Hollow Knight 2: It's bigger, it's harder, it has more shmoovement, it has tons more areas to visit and monsters to fight and toys to play with. Like its predecessor, it likely won't do much to convince you if this genre isn't your style - it's more about perfecting what exists than breaking any new ground - but it's a colossal accomplishment and an easy GOTY pick for me in most years. And it's $20, which is basically highway robbery. Some of the best bang for your buck in this hobby, especially as prices continue to skyrocket on ... everything.
Also, if you're worried, reports of its difficulty are a bit exaggerated. Sure, it's a gamer's game, don't come in here if you aren't okay with a challenge. But you can handle it, if you stick to it. Promise.
Promise not to stop reading this part after I say "it's a game made by my favorite youtuber". Okay? Wait no come back
Logic Bombs is a Picross-style logic puzzle game where you have to deduce where to place bombs on the grid to kill all the enemies without harming the other creatures.
The man who made it has a much better five minute introduction to give you an idea of what you're in for. I've played games like this a lot before - Picross, Dungeons & Diagrams, even browser-based randomly generated nonograms - but Logic Bombs' unique mechanics add a fresh layer to puzzle solving. What's really admirable is the way those rules and their consequences get explored throughout the puzzles. At some point in the middle stretch I felt like the last 20 levels or so I'd played had each hinted me into discovering some new consequence of those rules that I could utilize to solve future puzzles. I ended up putting a lot of time into solving them all, and I highly recommend it for puzzle appreciators.
I was tempted to call
Mario Kart World my GOTY for its
OST alone. They managed to squeeze every Mario game ever made in here, and a couple extras too. It even comes with a whole video game when you buy it.
MKW is great if you love playing as weird little guys in racing games - 2025 was a strong year for us - but I would say the tracks alone wouldn't make a great replacement for MK 8 Deluxe. They're a solid selection, some great some forgettable, but it's hard to compete with 8D's quantity. Instead what I think is most interesting about MKW is the very clear divide between players on its open world. Despite it being such a core feature it's in the literal name of the game, there sometimes isn't that much to do in it. The rewards you get for what tasks do exist are borderline useless, and there's no checklist to help you hunt down what tasks are remaining. Some find this pointless and boring, but I think it's one of the most intrinsically-driven games released in recent memory. I think it's enjoyable to just drive around and listen to the tunes, to go from one place to another, to explore all the little details in the areas surrounding the tracks, to take little challenges in offroad areas, to see if I can get my car into a weird spot. I spent a lot of my time in MKW just Existing. Life is not a checklist to be filled. It's nice to take some time and just soak it in every once and a while.
So I actually liked it so much I
wrote an essay about it. Then later I
did it again. I think it's a bit tragic people are sleeping on
Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, because I think it's one of the finest fast-paced action platformers I've played in ages. It's a bit Pizza Tower, if you're into that, except with actual deaths. Still haven't made my way through hard mode but absolutely going to. Another solid GOTY contender for me - I was seriously considering picking this one over Silksong, if that tells you how strongly I feel about this game.
Yes, really. Just the Daft Punk thing. It starts with a music video for Contact that gave me actual goosebumps, then brings you to a gamified digital recreation of Alive 2007. There are other minigames throughout that you can play, but my favorite part is a room where you get access to the stems for about 30 songs throughout Daft Punk's whole catalogue and can mix them together in real time, solo or as a group. Sometimes you can tell when someone's working on something they really enjoy, and this has Harmonix's spirit all over it. This is free and it's still available right now, and I really do recommend giving it a look if you're a Daft Punk fan.
Sure, you've played a beatmatching rhythm game before. But
Rift of the NecroDancer sets itself apart by having the "notes" be monsters, each with their own required hit patterns. This adds a new complexity to classic beatmatching gameplay that's satisfying as hell to get right and raises the skill ceiling astronomically. There are a few rhythm Punch-Out style bosses which are pretty fun, and the game's been getting tons of DLC from other indie games, rhythm games and even Hatsune Miku. This has been an unusually strong year for indie rhythm games in general, but Rift stands out as not only one of the best, but probably the one easiest to recommend to someone who isn't necessarily a rhythm game enthusiast.
Y'know, I'm not sure what else there is to be said about
Deltarune right now. I love the characters, the combat, the humor, the music, the story. I'm stoked to see where it all goes next. Played both of this year's chapters twice back to back and enjoyed them the whole time. But I'm always nervous to get too excited about a partial product. Hopefully the remaining chapters can keep the momentum & stick the landing.
Even as someone who never got that into the GameCube original,
Kirby Air Riders has enraptured me. I love playing as a bunch of weird little guys, and I love how every vehicle feels drastically different from each other, but still useful in their own niches. I really enjoy the racing mode, doing time trials with different machines, I love how detailed all the new tracks are. But we all know City Trial is the real meat of the game. And it's a blast. Matches come and go quick, losses don't sting too hard, and there's always something fresh happening. Giving that mode online was all the world really needed, and I can't stop playing it. I plan to keep coming back for the special weekend events, and I've already finished 3 of the 5 achievement grids. This one was also a serious GOTY contender.
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I didn't expect to write that much. But what the hell, I like writing. This year was exceptionally good for games. I've had to leave several great and interesting ones off this list for brevity, such as
Donkey Kong Bananza, Blue Prince, Bits & Bops and
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance. And then of course, there's the Big One, which I might have as much to say about as I did all the rest of these games combined. Air Riders, Silksong and Ragebound are all at least as good or better than many of my previous GOTY picks, and I would've been happy to choose any of them for this year. But I'm very comfortable saying that none of them hold up to my actual choice. I'll be writing more on it soon.
Unless DOOM ends up being better, somehow. But good fuckin' luck lmao
