The Best Games I Played in 2024/2025

Best Games I Played in 2025/2024

Created: 2026-01-01 11:53

It's been two years since the first time I wrote about my personal best games of the year. In that time I've played plenty of games, 2025 steam tells me I played 25 new games, and I'd imagine 2024 was likely 40ish. Including Xbox Gamepass I likely saw 100 total new games in the past year. Some stood head and shoulders over others and I'm certain there are plenty I have no memory of. I've become obsessed with mystery games (Thanks Outer Wilds) and they will likely have a large part of this list taken over. Here is a list of my favourite games I played over that time.

The Seance of Blake Manor
Hollow Knight
Hollow Knight Silksong
Return of the Obra Dinn
Blue Prince
Deltarune
Forgotten City
MGS2
Dredge
Paradise Killer
Outer Wilds
Helldivers 2
Inscryption
Expedition 33
Palworld
Powerwash Simulator
UFO 50
Disco Elysium
Balatro
Slay the Spire
Cyberpunk 2077
Elden Ring Shadows of the Erdtree
Oblivion Remastered
Crusader Kings III
Europa Universallis V
Animal Well
No Man's Sky
Mouthwashing
Space Marine II

All of these games are eligible for the top 10 games of the past 2 years.
Here's how the ranking shakes out and I will explain the tier list methodology. Numbers
9,10 are little outliers and could see themselves fall and rise based on my mood that day.
6-8 are incredibly solid gaming experiences everyone should play,
I'd wager 4 and 5 would genuinely end up in my top 50 games of all time and skew to the top of that list in fact. One game of these two grows on me even while I'm not playing it.
The top 3 games are 3 of, in my opinion, the greatest games of all time.

10: Paradise Killer

At the number 10 spot and rounding out the list is Paradise Killer. This was one of the first games I player in 2024. At the time I was on my first bout of COVID and I was shut in the house. Not knowing what to expect, but knowing I wanted to play a mystery game, I found myself on the store page for this game. My only knowledge of the game was that my music platform had recommended me one of the songs from the game. The song Paradise (Stay Forever) was the sorta funky city pop track was something I listened to for a little while. When I get sick for long periods of time, I just want to sit in front of an engrossing experience and this game was exactly that.
A mixture of eldritch horror, city pop and vaporwave aesthetics the game oozes style. The space of play incredibly liminal feeling, it offers very interesting vistas and locales. The character design, although not my personal style, is so intriguing and different that it certainly separates itself from anything else in the genre. The rise in this religious iconography in games is no doubt interesting and it's used to major effect in this game in specific.
You play as Lady Love Dies, previously exiled for three million days, the rank absurdity of the setting is blasted in your face. As you complete the opening introduction, you are summoned to Island 25 and are tasked with figuring out who committed the Crime to end all Crimes. The story watches as you interact with a whole host of different characters who call this paradise home and who have some role to play whether intentional or otherwise in the Crime to end all Crimes.
The game is highly stylized and requires a large amount of reading as, while there is voice acting for some sections, plenty of the game is only text.
I love the unwrapping of the conspiracy and learning about this incredibly unique world. Spoilers ahead.
The ending is so well executed, you have evidence and can make judgments, but nothing confirms your accusations and ultimately you have to trust the information you've gathered is correct. Much like truth in the real world, there's truly a limit to what you can know and learn.

9: Helldivers II

I have never played anything as genuinely cinematic in gameplay as Helldivers II. When it comes to multiplayer experiences, I believe PVE is far more engaging than PVP.
With Starship Trooper hyper-fascist aesthetic and ham-fisted propaganda, the game is a tinderbox for any sort of political discussion, but it's hard to argue that the art direction isn't absolutely perfect. The Terminids and Automatons are classic sci-fi large-scale threats and the Super Earth Helldivers are the perfect heroes to plant yourself in to fight against. ( I have not fought against the illuminate and am waiting for the perfect time to spring this game back onto my friends)
I think how stories were created by the community like Malevelon Creek is the perfect example of how this game is so vastly different from any other gaming experience as of previous, and should be looked at to make games going forward. (Gamers and developers already have an antagonistic relationship now, may as well utilize it.)
I've never felt a game that makes you feel like you are in a realistic conflict the way this game does. Without the perspective gimmicks of first person, this game creates incredible combat set pieces that remind me of pretending I was fighting in large-scale conflict in my naïve childhood. Pretending I was in Hoth when the snow would pile large enough to make pretend bunkers. I do think there are few things as fun as getting 4 friends and plowing through planetary campaigns in Helldivers II and that it why it finds itself on this list.

8: Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree

While Elden Ring remains a top 10 game for me, I can't in good conscience put Shadow of the Erdtree any higher without its accompanying base game.
Set in the land of shadow, the DLC is absolutely stunning in the way I only find Elden Ring gorgeous. The Scadu Tree is so much more mysterious as a backdrop than the grand and imposing Erdtree. The beautiful flowing veils that spread around the tree are confusing and awe-inspiring. The enemy and zone design are as interesting as the base game.
I find the challenge just right if you've fully completed Elden Ring, but it really does suffer from the Elden ring, I have a horse and can skip all of this open-world content problem. You feel rather powered down from how strong you likely are in the base game, and the only way to get stronger is through the scadu fragments, a system I bypassed using a guide (not proud, but it felt nearly necessary during the final fight)
Spoilers ahead: I'm utterly torn by the final fight. I expected anything but what we got, and while an interesting premise, I really did prefer something a touch more eldritch than what we got. The soundtrack for that boss, however, is likely the best single piece of music written in a Fromsoft game. The DLC builds incredibly well on the base game and like most pieces of Fromsoft adds more questions than answers and as someone loosely interested in the lore, I love that more than most would.

7: Blue Prince

Roguelike, mystery, puzzle, game, story heavy, environmental storytelling masterpiece. How one comes up with a premise such as this is proof enough of a creative vision, but I think what truly impressed me most is the levels to the puzzle solving. I would not consider this game a "difficult" puzzle game. However some of the end game puzzles are incredibly difficult. What the game does so well is start you out solving the easier puzzles in the game. You start out learning the mechanics and eventually you begin to... notice things. Why are there these pictures everywhere, what are the passwords to all these computers, and safes, and how the hell am I supposed to get to the end? Every discovery is a web that may connect to a previous mystery, or it may open up another puzzle entirely. After many hours of horribly failing at every puzzle thrown my way the first time I played, I put the game down as I was away on a trip last May. I didn't end up starting to play it again until the late summer. I have a notebook filled to the brim with codes, notes and other assorted scribblings because of this game. Blue Prince is inarguably one of the most interesting premises executed with such a high level of polish and I actually am looking forward to revisiting it.

6: UFO 50

I in no way have even scratched the surface in UFO 50. I haven't completed some of my favourite games yet and it still finds its way this high on the list for the feeling it gave me when I played it. It really reminded me of the first time I downloaded zsnes and finally got to play all the games that YouTubers I grew up watching idolized. The incredible thing about UFO 50 is how incredibly well modern game designed is snuck into these "retro" style games. The first game I completed was party house, a deck builder rogue like that is genuinely a pretty simple concept, and yet I wanted to continue to build my random win streak to the highest levels. Games like Grimstone feel handmade for me specifically. My love of the western genre blended with the Final Fantasy RPG vibe that makes gameplay easy to get into, but it's also a game that really requires you to pay attention to it to do well in the combat. Barbuta is such a perfect intro game, it's almost like Tunic in the way it barely presents its premise. I think playing Super Mario Bros for the first time and then playing Barbuta has such a similar vibe. My dad had a NES and we would watch him play Super Mario Bros growing up. Everything at that age was so engaging. What are the little mushroom guys walking around? Where are we going? The colours were so beautiful even on an old CRT television. There are things about gaming you never get back as you grow older. That sense of wonder and discovery goes away when you game as much as I have in my life. UFO 50 is a celebration of how far we've come, and also proves that we have so much more to do.

5: Hollow Knight Silk Song

I started making this ranking in January after finishing Silksong. I have a feeling that as time rolls on this game will claw its way up to one of my favourite games of all time. I consider myself pretty lucky. I first played Hollow Knight in early 2024. So my wait time until Silksong was minimal, and I did not go insane like the users on r/Silksong. I had no enjoyment for the metroidvania genre in 2D. I love all of the Metroid Primes (haven't played 4) and I consider Dark Souls 1 to also be a 3dvania as well in some aspects. I even tried playing the first hollow knight many years ago and I really didn't enjoy it. It was during a vacation and bad bout of COVID when I decided to play some of the games mentioned on this list. Giving Hollow Knight the focus and attention it deserved ended up being one of the most rewarding experiences of my year. It amazed me with both its beauty and its difficulty. When the game finally ended, I was craving more of that challenge.
Fast-forward to the summer of 2025 and low and behold Hollow Knight Silksong is not only announced, but it is arriving in September. Instantly I can see how much more has gone into this than Hollow Knight (In a way that respects both of these games). Where I was expecting a run time similar to the first one, I get an epic with a myriad of encounters each more difficult and interesting than the last. A world that keeps expanding in a way that makes me constantly question each wall and what secret extra area may be behind it. In tone it somehow manages to be both more inspiring and darker than the first. I think Hornet is such a great character to analyze through this game. She does undergo changes from being very cold and untrusting to really seeing the citizens and even land of Pharloom itself as something she is to protect and save.
I won't spoil the endings for you other than this fact. The first ending comes slightly past 2/3rds of the way through the actual run time of the game. Play past this ending.
I think my criticisms would be the same as anyone else's. There are some problems with the main antagonist. I would enjoy seeing that fleshed out more, but it does become incredibly difficult when you have as much to show in a game like Silk Song.

4: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

I won't dwell too much on the state of the world now, I know things are fucked up beyond belief and I view what is happening in the United States government as one of the most gravely concerning situations for western democracies ever experienced. Why I start with this notion is that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, for it's absolutely outlandish moments, feels so utterly grounded 24 years later. I think the standard way we go about praising Kojima nowadays is slobbing the proverbial knob about his ability to "predict." In my experience it's just recognizing the changes in the world when they present themselves. Death Stranding feels predictive, but we were already incredibly online before COVID lockdowns. The idea of people as archipelagos was inevitable, it was just heavily accelerated by lockdowns.
What MGS2 tells me is that reality was being fabricated to us around this time. I won't talk about the 757 sized elephant in the room during 2001. We had screens in our homes, TV and more new computers. These devices gave us the illusion of being more connected to the world, but we were only as connected as what our screens told us. "Create context." This is where the message Kojima gives us misses. In no way is this a criticism, when looking into speculative fiction, the areas where authors are wrong contrasted with their view is incredibly interesting. In this instance Kojima saw what the AI was doing as ultimately with the aim of assisting humanity. That "useless data and content" needed censoring to assist the evolution of humans. This is creating context. Nowadays we are inundated with content and misinformation to benefit those at the top. Blame the war for gas prices even though financial speculation and price gouging are the ones making it harder on US everyday consumers. Billions of dollars being funnelled towards products that are destroying communities and sapping unneeded resources. Regimes attempting to gut institutions that save people’s lives to appeal to a base that wants to see their country burn before they give another tax dollar.
This world becomes more stressful to live in as I get older. Even if I believe I have no power in this world, I do exist and can help make change a little at a time. While MGS2 scares us with the nefarious and conspiratorial musings of leading regimes. I can in my own life choose to go my own way. To be better to the people around me who I interact with daily. My biggest fear is that I will get to the end of my life and be as grumpy as other older people I've seen. I never want to be like that. I want to be a beacon of positivity in a community that sees me as much of a part of it as I see everyone else around me.

3: Balatro

In writing the previous entry it is almost entirely impossible to transition in any way that is meaningful to the next game, Balatro. While MGS2 is a game that speaks directly to my conscience, Balatro speaks to my dopamine receptors. It's been described as virtual cocaine. A game loop so deceptively simple and yet vastly complex I've spent 700+ hours and never felt like the game was anywhere near close to being done surprising me. It's certainly the game I've played the most out of the past 2 years and for good reason. I can't even recall why I purchased it, probably a Northern Lion recommendation. I was instantly hooked and worked towards beating the stakes. Now I am playing the game on my phone on flights and in moments of respite. I'm trying to slowly beat all decks all stakes.
I can't talk much more about Balatro than that, I think it's as simple as the premise is, and yet the amount of fun and variety there is trying to make every hand and build work is where the grind of this game comes to life. I've found equal amounts of fun trying to break the game as I have trying to barely squeak by on gold stake runs.

2: Disco Elysium

It's funnier and funnier to me that Balatro is jammed in the middle of these two games.
Disco Elysium is a game I heavily resisted playing due to my political past. Not prepared to be confronted politically like that I assumed the game was a piece of communist propaganda. That the things it would say about me were trite and meaningless and that there was no way it could be a good game if it was going to shout at me so politically. What ended up being true about Disco Elysium is that it was to me, a transcendental experience in gaming. Disco Elysium is a game about a murder, it takes place in an alternate world where not only are continents separated by oceans, but they are also separated by a tear in time and space that few can traverse safely. You are a detective sent to an old revolutionary city that has fallen on hard times to solve the murder of a mercenary sent by a massive corporation to work towards ending strikes by the dockworkers union. Disco Elysium is a game where you play as detective Dick Mulle- Tequila Sunri- Harrier Dubois, lieutenant double yefrator. Disco Elysium is a game that takes a deep dive into the politics of communism, liberalism, fascism. Disco Elysium has the best writing of any game I've ever played. Disco Elysium has the greatest sidekick ever created for a video game.
I think what's actually most interesting about Disco Elysium is the vast number of events and lines that can and can't happen in the game. Disco Elysium contains 1.2 million words of dialogue. That's over twice as many words as Infinite Jest. There is no way through one play through that you will experience all of those lines of dialogue. The game is filled with interesting characters including the main character himself. Learning your back story is equal parts sad and humbling. Kim Kitsuragi is where the game shines, however. I have to say at the beginning of my playthrough it felt as if he was cramping my style, but seeing him loosen up and open up to you to become your strongest ally is incredible.
For my mind, there's a moment at the end so beautiful it is what convinced me that this was a piece of art I was happy to work through. For a game so dark in its presentation to have an ending that uplifting was incredible. Games that make me a better person for having played them will always hold a strong position on any list I can make.

Outer Wilds

I don't believe I have the words to describe how incredibly beautiful this game is. As an experience it activated for me, all the parts of myself I love the most. Curiousity, love, a sense of responsibility to the space I inhabit, and an unending resolve in the vastness of the cosmos. It's an experience that I think everyone on this planet should have.
The hook is pretty simple, you have just joined your fledgling planets space program to try and understand your solar system a little bit better. You are given a spacesuit, space ship, a translator and a shootable camera drone and you're sent off into space to find out, whatever you want.
Anything further would 100% be spoilers so please, I urge you, if there's even the smallest bit of inclination towards what I consider to be the greatest gaming experience bar none, then stop reading this and go and play Outer Wilds. If you had any idea of how jealous I am now that you haven't played the game you'd get why I'm urging this upon you.
As you first take off you may be tempted, as I was to explore the planets in order of their orbits. Naturally, I checked the moon first, and then the pair of planets orbiting one another along with vast amounts of sand being pulled from one to the other. Or maybe you decide to venture further out, and try to land of the comet that is on the edge of the solar system. Maybe you are intrigued by the massive Jupiter-like planet. There's so much to be pulled towards and thankfully there are no wrong answers. The best way I can describe the game is that it is a sandbox puzzle game. In theory you could, from the very beginning of the game, make it all the way to the end and roll credits as soon as you take off for the first time. Of course, there's a catch. Roughly 20 minutes into your first flight, you'll notice something starts to happen. There is music, and not the lighter hear like Timber Hearth, but something far more foreboding. The song, End Times, is not only an appropriate name, but let's you know what is happening. You see, if you were paying particular attention to the space around your solar system, and even the centre of your own solar system you'd notice, something was going on with those distant stars, and eventually, your own sun. In a brilliant blue flash, it's all over. Your brief adventure has come to an end, right at the beginning.
Of course this isn't actually the end. If you recall, in the museum at the beginning of the game, you interfaced with a goat-like statue. You are taken back to the moment you woke up. Completely confused, this is the true gameplay loop you are given. You now have to solve the mystery of what is going on in your world in hopes to save your little solar system, and maybe even the galaxy at large.
There's so much to explore and discover in the solar system, but I'll fast forward now to the moment that made me fall in love with this game, the ending. Once you gain the necessary knowledge to traverse to the end of the game, you prepare one final loop, in your head you understand the order of operations now that seems to be the only option you have left. You must traverse to the eye of the universe.
Upon arriving there, you are greeted with a cold and standard quantum environment. Your time working out on the quantum moon has prepared you for this. Off in the distance, a bright orange star glows in the darkened sky, but that's not your home anymore; at least it won't be for long. It's obvious now that this is the point of no return. Ominous noises, and a thunderstorm like atmosphere let's you know you were not supposed to make it here, but of course, as you had before, you persist on, towards the south pole of the Eye. If you equip your signal scope, you will see your objective, "Quantum Fluctuations." It rises along the horizon as you move forward towards it. Finally, you make it to the point where you can go no further. Unless you scale the arches towards the eye of a quantum storm. When present with the opportunity, you jump in. The ending sequence after this is only done justice by playing the game, but I want to point out the end as something of cosmic importance. That I'd choose 1 trillion times over to start something new for the chance that someone could have experiences like I have again. It can be so incredibly easy to look out at the universe and see its vastness and note its indifference to you and believe yourself to be worthless, but in its unfolding the universe made you. Allowed you to see and experience it in the unique way you can. The universe holds to and you behold it. It's this message that really helped me see the world in a far more positive light than I had been seeing it. And I'm thankful for Outer Wilds because of that.

There was a time where I felt like my enjoyment of games had waned. I think my experience these past 2 years is that is drastically. I'm happy that I'm enjoying games moreso as a form of art, than as a competition. The ego driven multiplayer experiences are not for me anymore I think online culture has ruined online competition. If you want a sample of my feelings on this you can refer back to my "I wish there was beauty in Valorant" article from 2024.