Topic: Game of the Year 2025

Nintendo Life already has one of these, so I thought I'd make one here as well, since goty season is approaching fast. What was all of your favorite games that came out this year, and what game do you think will win the Game Awards in December?

For me, game of the year will most likely be Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1+ (PS4) or Pokémon Legends Z-A (Switch 1 / 2).

As for the Game Awards, I don't have much of an interest in it, but I have seen and decent amount of people wanting Expedition 33 to win.

It is funny, cause I keep waiting for something to throw Expedition 33 off of the top of my mountain cause I disliked the core combat of that game (mostly souls parrying, get that out of my JRPG! 😂) but nothing has really come close for me, in all the ways in which that game sang.

As ever, I’m making hay in my ever-increasing backlog and therefore have not played any games that actually released this year… therefore my GotY is… Lords of the Fallen (2023)!

I hope to get a couple more games on the ledger before year end, but if we’re talking about games released in 2025, I’ve only played two: Sword of the Sea, and Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. Of those two Sword of the Sea would be my GOTY so far.

But counting all games played, my personal GOTY has gotta be Baldur’s Gate 3, although I’ve not quite finished it yet. Still, 170 hours invested should qualify me to pass judgement on it. The only other serious contender for me is Resident Evil 4 Remake. Dear me, was that a good game. Just top shelf, indeed.

Haven't played any games that have been released this year. But, personal favourite game that has been previously released, that I've played this year, was Sekiro, for sure. Highly recommend.

@Elfuggingjefe My pick is usually on a two tier basis. The main qualifier is "did this move me" which maybe sounds kinda weird and pretentious, but I am in my mid 30s, I have consumed so much media in my life that a lot of video game characters, or stories, just wash over me at this point. We don't get an Arthur Morgan every year.

Then tier 2, is in the absence of a game that really moved me in that given year, I usually pick the game that had the combination of the most fun had and the most hours spent. So like if I played a 30 hour single player game I had fun with, or I also spent 300 hours that year playing some coop game with my friends, the 300 hour one will likely win by default.

@Elfuggingjefe My criteria are very similar to @Pizzamorg's, though a bit more simplistic: does it stay with me after I've played it? Does it enter my mind often when I'm not playing it and make me itch to get back in? This applies to movies, TV series and books, as well (though movies are typically consumed in one go, how long they occupy my mind afterward is still a good measurement).
Though, having almost another extra 20 years of media consumption on @Pizzamorg, I find my patience for "artsy" endeavours where the director is so far up his/her own butt (which is crowded by fawning critics and pretentious fans) is low and a movie I find "dumb fun" may quite possibly win out over a critics darling (see my upcoming review of "One Battle After Another" in the movie thread - coming soon! )

Back to GotY, though: Like many of the others, I am focusing on my backlog and rarely get around to playing a game in its release year, so while I've yet to play a single second of Ghost of Yotei, I can confidently say it will be my 2025 GotY by virtue of being the only 2025 game I've played, other than Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which I didn't love. (Funnily, most people who didn't love it seem to point to the combat, which was, along with the story and art direction, one thing I really enjoyed - it was the exploration/game traversal, which I found quite boring, that did me in)

I'll come back after having played Yotei, though... I mind end up hating it, but that seems very unlikely

@Elfuggingjefe Yeah, and I too lavished praise on it when I started playing it, mainly for the reasons I mentioned: The combat, story and art direction. Though it didn't take too long before I realised that in spite of those things I wasn't really enjoying it. Some of it came down to UI decisions that made speccing out a character a chore rather than fun, so much so that I started dreading picking up new things which I then felt obligated to respecc my characters with. Stopped doing it altogether after a while. The killer, though, came when I was looking at the overworld map and realised I had zero interest in exploring. This game was one of those where it almost hurt that couldn't unabashedly love it, because it had so much else going for it, but I couldn't get over that hurdle (Banishers was another such experience; with that it was the combat that did me in).

So if you think it looks intriguing I would definitely recommend giving it a go. As I said, it has a lot going for it and you might not mind the things that put me off it and I truly believe that if that is the case you may have a superb experience with it (provided you don't mind the combat as well, of course)

And, yeah, preconceived notions, especially unrealistically heightened expectations, is the biggest enemy to enjoying a game, movie, book or TV show and I fall prey to it way too often (again: see my upcoming review of "One Battle After Another" )

Well, it is easy for me:

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

I'm loving Yotei, but there is no way it tops it, as a fully fleshed RPG is usually my preferred choice (choice being a fitting word) and I rate the KCD series up there with The Witcher 3, BG3, RDR1&2, GTA4 and Elden Ring as my all time favourites anyway.

I'm yet to play Clair Obscur Expedition 33 and Death Stranding 2, and I do want to start at least one before GotY season/the end of the year.

I think 33 will win most of the GotY awards, it seems people really got drawn in to that, but i'm happy that the small franchise I love has been talked about as at least competing with the critical darlings of the year. And seemingly has grabbed people that had previously not even tried or stuck with KCD initially (And I still think that KCD is still the better game overall 😱 and people will continue to realise this and go back to it, despite 2 being far more polished)

@Elfuggingjefe As I was pondering your valid and salient question, @FuriousMachine and @Pizzamorg posted some great responses which I really agree with. So suffice it to say, that I’m judging the overall worth of a game primarily based on emotional impact, personal enjoyment, and then as secondary criteria — the technical achievement, innovation, and overall zeitgeist it creates. I don’t have an objective scoring method but subconsciously I run those things through my head. At the end of the day it’s a subjective assessment of overall enjoyment and impression.

Because there’s definitely great games I’ve played and I can recognize the technical achievement but would never call my GOTY because they didn’t grab me. A perfect example would be Cyberpunk 2077. I wouldn’t begrudge anyone calling it their GOTY but I’ve tried twice and I just don’t get it. It’s maybe a ‘right time and place’ issue, but there wasn’t enough compelling me to keep playing it.

This discussion got me thinking about what were my GOTY’s the last few years and if I recall correctly, they were (and this is merely games I played that year, not necessarily released that year) :
2024 - Dark Souls 2: SotFS
2023 - Hogwart’s Legacy
2022 - The Last of Us Part II
2021 - Returnal
2020 - Death Stranding

And in each case there were definitely games I played for longer hours (like the trudge through Persona 5 in 2021, or the countless hours racing in GT7 in 2022) but other games won out because of emotional impact and that je ne sais quoi that makes a game stick in your soul and cause some sort of emotional response, be it giddy nostalgia (Hogwart’s Legacy) or gut-wrenching introspection of the human psyche (TLoU2).

So for me, time spent in the game is not a good marker for whether it’s worth the accolades, although certainly it’s a secondary marker for enjoyment. Sometimes game length can eventually become a negative in a single player game, and it basically ruined the aforementioned Persona 5 for me after it started to drag too long. Baldur’s Gate 3 is teetering right there for me but it’s keeping things fresh enough that I don’t think the colossal length will detract from my final impressions. We’ll see.

And just a final thought (sorry for the rambling and long-windedness) about when a character annoys you to the point it ruins the overall experience, Jefe, as you mentioned with Kratos. It pleases me to see you say that because it rings true for me also. I really don’t like the young Kratos from the older games, the angry raging one-note vengeful one. I do like old Kratos though, the wizened fatherly grumpy but reflective version, and it made GoW 2018 (I’ve yet to play Ragnarok) so much more enjoyable to me than the original series. I’ve mentioned many times that Geralt’s personality is one large reason I fell off Witcher 3. So I’m glad I’m not the only one.

Anyway, TLDR; I lean toward choosing a GOTY based on personal experience (however one decides to define that), regardless of technical achievement, cultural impact, or anything else.

I do think time spent (derogative) is an important part of this conversation, too. The one game that was maybe going to overthrow Expedition 33 for me this year was Xenoblade Chronicles X, but some eighty hours in with three chapters left and whatever post game it included, I just gave up in the end. I probably spent some of the longest hours I've spent this year in a single game in that one, and it is a negative for me.

It is even happening to me right now with Ghost of Yotei. The first 15 or so hours I loved it, ten hours later that burnout is creeping in and I've barely made a dent. I ended up picking up Digimon to break things up.

Someone mentioned Banishers either here or the Expedition 33 thread and I think that is a great example of this. Had that game between 12 - 15 hours, it would have been my GOTY that year unquestionably. But it wasn't, it was like 45 hours long and I hated it by the end.

So I really should qualify that while I use time spent as a measurement category for where to rank one title over another, I also use it to qualify why a game also doesn't work, too.

Everyone has their own criteria when judging the GotY (or GoaT even) but this:

… rings the truest for me personally. I’d also add something to this for my own personal appraisal… do I continue to think about and jones to play more of it, after the game is well and truly wrapped? Even though I’ve sunk well over 100 hours into the vast majority of my top 10 games of all time, I often think about the experiences years after the fact and want to dive back in.

I love this!

Reading about everyone’s process is cool. For me, what elevates something from great to masterpiece-or for the sake of this discussion-game of the year, is unification of concept: systems, design, scenario, art, narrative, sound… all need to be thematically unified in such a way that the whole ends up greater than the sum of its parts. There are many amazing games with many amazing aspects to them that can’t quite achieve this, and it is almost always down to thematic incongruence.

It is in this way that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a masterpiece, and my current reigning game of the year. When taken as a whole, it is an inspired work of creative genius in which every aspect of its design and narrative work together in service of exploring its themes, leaving the player to emotionally reconcile a human conflict in a way that is uniquely bolstered by the interactive medium. It is a challenging, deeply moving and utterly unforgettable expression of empathy and human ingenuity.

Current runner ups and subject to change:
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
Sword of the Sea

@Pizzamorg Definitely agree.

@Elfuggingjefe Yeah, I really enjoy the discussion and seeing people’s thought processes.

I have a Persona conundrum, whereby the series (and the mega-ten games in general) were some of my favorites through the PS2 era and beyond, mainly because of the characters and social aspects you mentioned, but excitement for the formula has dulled. I haven’t felt even a faint desire to try Metaphor ReFantazio. Maybe P6 can re-engage me with the series.

@graymamba It warms your heart, doesn’t it? I was going to skip DS2 if not for you and some other users selling me on trying it. It beat out some good games I played last year like Spider-Man 2, Final Fantasy XVI, and Inscryption.

I played Dark Souls 1 in ‘23 but I just couldn’t put anything else above Hogwarts for me that year. In my experience, HL was an example of what @Metonymy mentioned about the sum of its parts just hitting me in a unified wonderfully realized vision of the HP universe.

I’m not sure if my schedule will hold, as I’ve been less prolific with gaming this year, but my goal was to play Dark Souls 3 the end of 2025. If I get to squeeze it in, it could crack into my GOTY discussion, but I don’t think I’ll get to it.

@Th3solution well, there is certainly no rush to play 3 after 2… in fact I think a sizeable break between the two would only serve to elevate the experience.

All I would advise, in much the same way that I suggested that you skill-up adaptation to 25 as a priority and think about weapon degradation in 2… is to make sure that you play the two Dark Souls 3 dlc’s (and in chronological order too).

I’m relatively confidant that you would’ve played them anyway but just in case… they are imho the best From Soft content ever produced (I’m aware of how triggering that probably is for many… but it’s my opinion and I stand by it). The Ringed City in particular is incredible and has the most memorable boss fights of all From Soft games.

@graymamba Roger that, Colonel. High praise indeed for that DLC. The copy I purchased is the Fire Fades Edition which contains all the DLC. The way FromSoft includes their DLC into the flow of the game, I’m sure I’d be playing it regardless, but now I’ll be double sure to cover that extra content.

@Th3solution 🫡 well, absolutely no rush bud… but… I look forward to reading all about it when you do 😉 🍻

Battlefield 6 for me but the only other 2025 game I've played is Sword of the Sea.

My GOTY 2025 choice is FANTASY LIFE I for PS5.

It's a cute Chibi action RPG with changeable jobs, village building like Animal Crossing New Horizons and open world area like zelda breath if the wild.
My personal score is 95 from 100.