There are so few of us that get our festive season game (or games) ticked off before the end of December, so it made sense to hold off on our annual Game of the Year awards. It also allowed our opinions to digest, hopefully resulting in worthy winners not skewed by the latest shiny release.
This year’s five accolade categories have been mixed up a little, with looking forward now included alongside the usual retrospective. And if you’re curious how things went down in the past, you can check out our 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 picks. Jeez, we’ve been doing this for quite some time.
For the record, this year’s Pfangirl.com GOTY contributors are:
- Darryn Bonthuys, Pfangirl.com reviewer, freelancer and Gamespot staff
- Noelle Adams, Pfangirl.com co-founder and editor-in-chief (Linktree)
- Matthew Figueira, Checkpoint Chat Podcast host (Podcast, YouTube)
- Tracy Benson, Pfangirl.com co-founder and writer (Bluesky)
Now onto the results. Feel free to reply in the comments, or on our social channels, with your personal 2025 standouts. Did we miss something you consider important?
Biggest surprise of 2025
Darryn – Skate Story
A few minutes into Skate Story, there’s a brief moment where the disembodied head of a philosopher asks you a question:
“How can skateboarding shake the cosmos, if it can’t even shake me?”
At that point, the stoic marble-sculpted head challenges you to perform tricks and pull off combos to make a point, but it’s a question that stays with you throughout the short-but-sweet runtime of Skate Story. Here is a game about a deal with the devil that challenges you to kickflip your way to the moon and eat the celestial body so that you can have at least one solid night’s rest in the bowels of hell. It’s a bonkers concept, but one that’s delivered in an immaculate presentation full of stylish graphics and a killer soundtrack.
But as good as Skate Story looks and sounds, it feels even better. It’s a game that understands why skateboarding is so cool, as it positions the camera according to the rule of cool and uses every trick in the book to make you feel like you’re tearing up the asphalt of the underworld on a quartet of plastic wheels. There is danger and excitement, a nostalgic atmosphere that makes the game feel like a love letter to early 2000s skateboarding videos as you move through the dreamy circles of Hell. Lo-fi vibes with a surprisingly grounded approach to sidewalk surfing, Skate Story is a grunge-fuelled work of art.
Noelle – Silent Hill f
I’m going to go with Silent Hill f. Not because I was surprised that this first Japan-set entry in the psychological horror series was good, but because it went so hard on its feminist themes – and somehow still (mostly) escaped the ire of the vocal anti-DEI crowd. It’s not always coherent, but as high schooler Hinako buckles under the pressure of social convention, Silent Hill f is a very meaty game at an analytical level; not to mention a visually memorable one as it draws heavily on striking Shinto iconography.
Matty – Blue Prince
The highest praise I can give Blue Prince is that it gave me a similar problem-solving satisfaction I got from one of my favourite games of all time, Outer Wilds. It’s a roguelike in structure, but unlike any other I’ve played because the only real tool is the journal and pen you (should) wield in real life. As the heir to Mt. Holly Estate, your primary objective is to find its hidden 46th room by carefully mapping your way to it. Each blueprint you choose to build your way forward, aside from granting some bonus or perk, holds a valuable clue or context for the wider story. Watching my brain put those pieces together was a truly unique, cathartic, and surprising experience.
Runner-up: The Rogue Prince of Persia
An early access game that randomly launched one day (straight to Xbox Game Pass even), there was a familiarity with The Rogue Prince of Persia that immediately clicked with me. Sure, the parkour leans straight into the roots of the franchise, and it’s polished, fast, and immensely satisfying to zip up walls and across platforms at speed. The combat has the DNA of Dead Cells, however, which I only later learnt was because, well, it was helmed by the same people (some of them at least) over at Evil Empire! I did not expect to like it as much as I did, truth be told, but it’s fantastic.
Tracy – Blue Prince
Though I would consider myself good at puzzle games, they aren’t my absolute favourite genre, mostly because when I’m gaming after work or on a weekend, I want to relax and have fun, not feel like I am doing homework. Which is why I was so surprised to get so hooked on Blue Prince. Part walking sim, part strategy puzzle game, Blue Prince’s ever-changing, sprawling manor, filled with endless rooms and uncountable secrets, somehow hooked me and refused to let go. Even after filling 5 pages of a notebook with diagrams and scrawled notes, and reaching the fabled 46th room, I still feel like I’m not even close to done, which is exciting and daunting in equal measure. There’s somehow always more to uncover in Blue Prince, which is the biggest, and most pleasant, surprise of all.
Favourite new time sink in 2025
Darryn – Hades 2
Trying to choose my favourite roguelike this year was like trying to decide which of my three nipples is my favourite. The Rogue Prince of Persia had some of my favourite flow-state gaming, and Clover Pit somehow managed to fuse the genre with gambling, but Hades 2? It’s a masterpiece of design and execution. The first Hades has been one of my favourite games for ages, but the sequel builds on that foundation with a captivating narrative and polished combat that always makes you feel like you’ve grown over the course of a run.
Exiting Steam Early Access this year, Hades 2 is a massive adventure to take on and is anchored by a satisfying combat loop. When you’re not slaying satyrs or striking deals with the personification of Chaos, Hades 2 also keeps you engrossed with its colourful cast of characters and narrative twists that are both shocking and heartfelt. 30 hours in, and I’m still discovering new things about this delightfully deep game as I experiment more. It’s a divine experience that raises the bar for what a video game sequel can be.
Runner-up: Borderlands 4
I’m a simple dude most of the time, and when I’m looking to zone out with a video game, I’m not always looking for cerebral entertainment. That’s where a game like Borderlands 4 comes into play, as it’s loud, stupid, and just a ton of fun to play. The last couple of months have seen some terrific improvements rolled out for Borderlands 4, smoothing out its performance and improving the overall balance of the game as we head into its post-launch era.
And like the games that came before it, Borderlands 4 is shaping up to be a ridiculous shoot-and-loot adventure.
While the core campaign is okay at best, it’s the tales that surround it that continue to deliver a buffet of narrative meat to chew on. Side-stories of suspense and DLC drops that pit you against a bastard of a festive season killjoy have been terrific so far, and I can’t wait to see what the expansions bring to the table throughout 2026. Throw in gameplay that pushes the Borderlands 4 formula to new heights, and you’ve got the perfect couch-potato game for those nights when you want to disengage your brain.
Noelle – Tiny Bookshop
There are those indie games that you can tick off in a play session or two. That isn’t 2025’s Tiny Bookshop, from neoludic games. It took me over 25 hours to technically roll credits on this management game powered by wish fulfilment energy and an infectious passion for reading. The gist of the game is that you escape from it all and move to the coastal haven of Bookstonbury-By-The-Sea to start up a mobile book store, which you strategically stock every day and decorate depending in reader tastes at each location to boost sales. Over the course of a year (and beyond), you strike up friendships with locals and change the community for the better. It can skirt repetitive territory at times, but Tiny Bookshop is a feel-good delight, and it’s impossible to end a session without discovering a new real-life title for your reading list.
Runner-up: Dredge
This one isn’t new – it came out in early 2023 – but as we’re talking about freshly discovered favourites, I’m going to go with the simultaneously sinister but soothing Dredge, which is best described as a Cthulhu fishing game. Suffering from a worrying case of amnesia, and facing secretive locals, you head out from harbour every day to trawl the oceans (and islands) for sea life, debris and treasure. It’s typical survival game stuff as you’re forced to work around limited hull space, look after your body and mind, and continually invest your catch profits in boat upgrades, but Dredge, from Black Salt Games, is weirdly compelling. Literally.
Matty – Elden Ring Nightreign
Take FROMSOFTWARE’s last big open world hit, remove most of its RPG elements, sprinkle in a healthy dose of roguelike ingredients and co-op shenanigans, and you’ve got yourself a little addictive something for those quiet moments between other big game releases. Elden Ring Nightreign seems like such a surefire winner on paper (and by this point, I’m sure you’ve realised that games with “ROGUE-ANYTHING” in their descriptor are my weakness), yet it’s a flawed experience. The times I spent cursing at unlucky RNG or seemingly impossible bosses balanced out perfectly with moments of jubilant victory – sometimes with friends, sometimes with complete strangers. I promise you I had no intention of spending more than 100 hours with this game, but here we are, and I know I’m still not done with Limgrave.
Runner-up: ARC Raiders
If I didn’t leave ARC Raiders until the end of 2025 (mid-December or so), I know for a fact it would’ve ranked higher on my favourite games list. In the space of 5 to 6 weeks, I’ve poured almost 100 hours into this stupidly addictive extraction shooter, which I’ll have you know is a genre I’ve had nothing to do with. What makes it so good? Besides being weirdly cathartic, it’s entirely unpredictable – you never quite know what will happen when you leave the safety of Speranza for a 30-minute run on the surface.
Tracy – PowerWash Simulator 2
2022’s PowerWash Simulator was one of those games that burrowed directly into my spinal column and tickled just the right neurons. It was easily my favourite game of that year and its sequel, PowerWash Simulator 2 is just as gratifying, if not more so. For the sequel, developers Futurlab took away what didn’t work, added in things you didn’t even know you needed, and gave the whole game a massive sprucing up. To me, it’s equally the most satisfying and relaxing game I can play, and I am looking forward to the planned DLC that I can sink more time into in 2026.
Underachiever of the year
Noelle – Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Don’t get me wrong. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is as technically polished as it gets, and benefits from a pair of extremely likeable lead characters. However, the longer you spend with the game, the more the blinding dazzle wears off and Shadows’ fundamental flaws become apparent. Each area in this recreation of feudal Japan is just a copy-paste of quests from other zones, large parts of the map are impassable, and, in a particularly poor design choice, players are forced to invest over twenty hours before they can don the armour of legendary African samurai Yasuke. Ultimately, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is more of a chore than an exhilarating adventure.
Matty – Mario Kart World
Mario Kart World is not a bad game, not one bit. There are certainly improvements to the driving formula, not to mention a plethora of imaginative tracks and a diverse roster of familiar and new drivers (the best being Cow, of course). As a launch title for the Switch 2 though, let’s just say that the new Free Roam mode didn’t even come remotely close to touching the same level of “Breath of the Wild” magic we felt back in 2017, when the first Nintendo hybrid graced the world. I just expected a little more than “safe”, I suppose.
Tracy – Avowed
Having never played Obsidian Entertainments Pillars of Eternity, my first exposure to the fantasy land of Eora was in 2025’s Avowed, and the best I can say is that it’s… fine. The story was enough to tempt me into continuing along out of sheer curiosity, but so predictable that I had guessed a few of the twists in the early chapters. Companion characters are full of personality, which only shows in battle quips and fireside dialogue, because you don’t really get any interesting companion quests (except for Garrus Kai). Despite how massive each area is, with quite a few diversions, the Living Lands still feels empty and devoid of the drive to explore. I started Avowed as it came out, and only finished it now, at the end of January 2026, for no other reason than we needed to clear space on the Xbox. I wouldn’t say it was the worst game of the year, but for me it was sorely lacking in that certain something that would have taken it from fine to good, or even great.
Best game of 2025
Darryn – Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
There was no shortage of blockbuster games in 2025, but the biggest problem I have with them is that they started to feel a bit samey. Yes, Doom: The Dark Ages made me feel like a heavy metal Captain America as I ricocheted my shield through demons, and Ghost of Yotei is an obscenely beautiful samurai sandbox, but both suffer from Been There, Done That syndrome. That’s where a game like Death Stranding 2: On the Beach comes in, because there’s nothing quite like this post-apocalyptic gig economy simulator.
Sure, Death Stranding 2 does offer options for you to play like a gun-toting lunatic, but this is a game about fatherhood, loss, and connection. It’s an adventure built around the idea of the human condition, born from Covid-19 lockdowns and a longing to explore the world. It’s also downright bonkers, as game director Hideo Kojima isn’t afraid to throw a curveball into the mix. One moment you’re grappling with the frailty of human life, the next you’re engaged in a rock battle with a vengeful spectre from the past while all of existence is at stake. But throughout the weirdness, sadness, and at least one highly choreographed dance number with a robot puppet, there’s a sincerity to Death Stranding 2 that permeates the entire game.
It’s undeniably a polarizing experience, but as a tentpole PS5 game, it brings a blockbuster quality to a tale of reconnection.
Noelle – Split Fiction
Split Fiction released in March last year, which meant that, given ADHD gamer attention spans, combined with the non-stop pace of hyped industry releases, it would largely be forgotten by the time awards were being dished out. That said, Hazelight’s It Takes Two follow-up is a non-stop inventive delight. The cooperative gameplay may test your relationship at times (Split Fiction is absolutely more challenging than It Takes Two) but this action adventure is a giddying celebration of human creativity at both a design and narrative level, as you accompany sci-fi writer Mio and fantasy author Zoe as they’re forced to work together to free themselves from the idea-stealing machinations of techbro JD Rader. No two stages are alike in Split Fiction, which runs the full emotional gamut, from surreal comedy to a poignant look at impotent, rage-inducing grief. The final level, where the split-screen actually becomes incorporated in the gameplay, well, I don’t know that we’ll ever see anything like that again.
Runner-up: Shout-out to a fantastic year of deductive puzzle games
The Roottrees Are Dead. The Séance of Blake Manor. To a slightly lesser extent, The Case of the Worst Day Ever, and The Last Case of John Morley too. I was on a detective game kick in 2025, and every single one of these titles delivered the cerebrally satisfying and compelling goods, putting their own unique spin on the formula.
Matty – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
A part of me wanted to put Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as my biggest surprise, because this game was barely on my radar. As a wholly original IP packed with some of the best characters, story strokes, art direction, and music I’ve encountered in recent years – the first game from a new studio, I might add – it deserves all the praise I can muster. One minute you’re grappling with the theme of grief, the next you’re giggling at a silly line from Esquie (who then immediately surprises you with some truly profound food for thought), and before you know it, you’re embroiled in an ABSOLUTE CINEMA boss battle… one of so, so many. Many titles make excellent cases for the “games are art” discussion, but Clair Obscur: Expedition 33? I’d argue it’s THE definitive one.
Runner-up: Hollow Knight: Silksong
The only reason Hollow Knight: Silksong places second in this category is because it committed the unavoidable sin of not being a brand-new, original title like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. That aside, as a sequel to one of the best games ever made, Team Cherry had their work cut out for them. Holy hell, though, did they deliver! That seven-year development cycle shines through in every inch of this title, from its impeccable map design and tight platforming to its challenging combat and gorgeous environments.
Tracy – Split Fiction
If you think Overcooked is a relationship test, you haven’t had to play pass-the-bomb with your couch co-op partner while you’re both navigating a futuristic obstacle course in split screen. But then again, no other game has you frantically outrunning the bad guys on a motorbike while your partner riding pillion is hacking a system by solving CAPTCHAs; or transforms you both into teeth to navigate a level filled with all manner of cakes and sweet treats. And the less said about the level with sausages, the better. Split Fiction was a genre-defying experience in couch co-op, joyfully jumping between fantasy and science fiction settings while switching from split screen to side scrolling to top-down arcade style, with cooperative problem solving that left me cheering when we got it right. And that’s not even touching on the fantastic storytelling and immersive gameplay mechanics. Many late nights were had because neither Noelle nor I could bear to put it down.
Most anticipated game of 2026
Darryn – 007 First Light
After an era of glum and unenjoyable James Bond movies starring Daniel Craig as a joyless thug in a suit, I’m hoping that IO Interactive can earn its license to thrill with 007 First Light. Billed as an origin story for the suave MI6 operative, early previews suggest that this is going to be precisely what I want from a James Bond game: Action gameplay that leaves thugs shaken and stirred, copious amounts of product placement, high-speed car chases, and an arsenal of quips that’ll make you feel like a 00 agent.
Noelle – 007 First Light
It’s not that we haven’t had James Bond games before, but 007 First Light looks like the full AAA single-player action-adventure experience, from Hitman developer IO Interactive. Come 27 May we’ll see if it lives up to the substantial expectation on its shoulders, but I’m looking forward to a bells-and-whistles globetrotting adventure, full of the exotic Bond universe flavour that I love and grew up with.
Runner-up: Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis
I bet you expected me to list remake/reimagining Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, which revisits Lara Croft’s pioneering 1996 adventure, as my most anticipated game of 2026. While I’m very excited for that, it’s my runner-up in this category – alongside grim medieval lesbian knight game 1348: Ex Voto, which came out of nowhere, plus similarly dark vampire action-adventure The Blood of Dawnwalker, from former The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt developers.
Matty – Resident Evil Requiem
Grand Theft Auto VI might change the world, Fable could be the next big definitive RPG, and Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet may surprise us with a sneaky 2026 release. Yet it’s Resident Evil: Requiem in my sights currently – with launch a few short weeks away on February 27, it’s within arm’s reach. Trying to do too much in one title has bitten CAPCOM in the past (see: Resident Evil 6), yet I’m eager to see how ”I’m super cool look at my hair” Leon balances out with the unfamiliar “OH MY GOD AAAAAH I DON’T WANT TO DIE!” Grace Ashcroft. I still can’t decide if I’m playing in first or third person, but I know for a fact that I’m ready for another visit to this long-running franchise.
Runner-up: No Rest for the Wicked
If you had to push me for a real answer in this category, I’d say No Rest for the Wicked – the next game from the studio that gave us the excellent Ori and the Blind Forest and even better sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps – has my undivided attention. It’s been in early access for a long time now, teasing me with what looks to be a gorgeous, albeit unexpectedly dark action RPG.
Tracy – Fable
Mostly I am still trying to clear a backlog from 2025, and in all honesty haven’t thought much about what’s coming this year. Maybe I’ll finally find time for The Alters, or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. If I get those out of the way in time, I’m most looking forward to the upcoming Fable. Having never played the original trilogy, I might be buying into the hype that has my friends, and a lot more people, very excited. For me, the upcoming reboot seems like the perfect jumping on point for newcomers, so I guess that’s where I’ll start.
