Ghost of Yotei was Game of the Year. It wasn’t close. I played a fair number of really good games this year, but the sequel to the best game of 2020 and one of my favorite games of all time was the best game of 2025, and I feel like that’s probably not something that’s going to surprise anyone.

The big story for me this year was how much more use my Xbox got compared to every previous year; I leaned into Game Pass a lot more than I have in the past, and anything that I could get for free on Xbox ended up being played on that console. I’m still pretty agnostic as far as the virtues of the two consoles go; how well a game runs really seems to be more dependent on the game itself than the system I’m running it on, and I’m well beyond the point where gigaflorps and raytraces and whatever the graphical buzzword of the day might be is particularly impressive. The biggest graphical moments of the year for me were a character moment in Clair Obscur and realizing that the light coming through a stained glass window in a church was actually reflecting off my character in the right colors in whichever Sniper Elite I played this year. 6, maybe? Let’s say 6.

For the second year in a row, I did not touch the Switch, and my son showed no interest at all in picking up a Switch 2, so we haven’t. I am strongly considering a Steam Machine when it comes out in 2026, though.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was probably Yotei’s closest competition, and was definitely the most unique game I played this year, as damn near everything else was either a Soulslike or a Metroidvania or a combination of both– I am nothing if not consistent with my preferred genres. It had the best turn-based gameplay I’ve ever encountered and combined it with a stunningly good story and hauntingly beautiful graphics and if it wasn’t for the bit where it used up all of its goodwill in the amazingly misconceived grindfest that is Act III, I’d probably still be playing it.

Khazan: The First Berserker does not involve any berserking but hooooooooly shit was it a lot of fun and I put more hours into it than anything else I played this year, including Yotei. I played through it completely twice before moving on to the next game. That doesn’t happen very often. What kept this one from GOTY? The lack of depth to the story, mostly. The combat was exceptionally good but the story didn’t hold a candle to the emotional resonance of Yotei or Clair Obscur, leaving the game just a touch below both of them.

I also played the shit out of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, and loved 95% of it, and for the other 5% I was staring at a blurry mess of pixels as the game struggled to keep up with itself. There was also a bug in the platinum trophy, which meant that after doing absolutely everything in the game and getting all of the other trophies, I didn’t get the trophy that you get for getting all the trophies. Look, game, they’re right there. They did finally push through an update months later that gave me credit for everything, and I keep hearing there might be a big story DLC that will absolutely pull me back into the game, but a bug stopping me from getting the final trophy in this one stuck in my craw a bit. The game itself was great, though.

This is the entire map for Crypt Custodian, a game where you play a ghost cat that beats up enemies with a broom. I assume that you can tell how much I loved the game just from looking at how huge and complicated this map is. I love exploration-heavy games. This one was amazing.

And finally …

This is a screenshot from Crime Scene Cleaner, a ridiculous little game where you are tossed into the role of a guy whose job it is to clean up after heinous mob crimes. This includes getting rid of all the bodies, picking up anything broken, restoring anything that isn’t, and cleaning up every tiny little spot of blood. Upgrading your abilities includes things like getting better mops and bags that can hold larger volumes of garbage.

It was, and this is a great way to find out if you and I are people or not, one of the most relaxing games I played this year. Walk into utter fucking nightmare chaos and restore order? Sign me up. I want a sequel. They can do a new version of this game every year if they want to, I’ll keep playing it.

And, for the second day in a row, I’ve written “I want more of this” in a post, then gone and looked, and found out there was more! They apparently released a big DLC back in June and it never crossed my radar. Hooray!

What did you play this year?