The Best Games of 2025
Tom Breedveld
Illustratie: Pieter Bruegel de Oude.
Video games are becoming more normalized in pop culture, with movies and series based on them that actually don’t suck ass, and the biggest hits getting some mainstream notice. Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding 2 (I haven’t played it yet, since it’s a PS5 exclusive, and I don’t have one) even boasts the star power of Elle Fanning, Léa Seydoux, Guillermo del Toro, and Nicholas Winding Refn, of all people.
However, the sad thing about mainstream notice is all the opinionating that comes with it. Several payment processors required Steam and itch.io (the biggest online game stores, and until now not beholden to outside interests) to remove a slew of adult games, for no other reason than an Australian anti-porn protest group had a bee in their bonnet.
The fairly horrific, but nonetheless brilliantly metaphoric, Italian game Horses has also been banned from most game stores for its unflinching look at slavery and sexual exploitation, through a narrative where people holiday at a resort where naked slaves with horseheads sewn unto their faces. Think Pasolini meets Haneke. A scene that drew particular ire was one where a young girl is guided by her parents to ride on the back of one the slaves, having a great time as she does so. America and their look at nudity, sexuality and children is more damaging than that scene, if you ask me.
Artificial Intelligence
And then there is (generative) Artificial Intelligence also leaking into video games, with many publishers not understanding the issue with taking jobs away from hard-working artists looking for recognition in exchange for terrible games that saturate the dying AAA-market.
Video games’ biggest hurdle towards a bigger consumer base is that it takes some getting used to, with all those buttons and sticks – it’s a bit like driving a car, in that regard. Still, many indie games require no more than one or two buttons to press, and focus more on narrative than on honing your hand-eye coordination, so there’s plenty to enjoy for even the biggest amateur.
Moneyed interests
Sometimes we forget what it is really about in gaming – finding a world everyone can lose themselves in, where you get to live a unique experience in a fantastical place, and which is unburdened by moneyed interests so it can deliver a story that is unflinchingly confronting in its integrity, whether beautiful or terrifying. It can be a stronger, loving world to die in, to learn in, to connect in, especially with the real world having less and less to offer. Here are the five greatest games of 2025 that live up to that ideal.
5. Spilled! By Lente (Netherlands)
I recently filmed my second short film (in the editing stages now!) for which I took out an entire loan and which I hope can serve as a proof of concept to get funding for my feature script. I know what it’s like to be a poor adult trying to get his dreams financed, to build something with your own sweat and blood. Although it must of course be said I had the help of a very experienced and professional crew, without whom the entire endeavour would have been an exercise in futility.
So I am honored, obligated and happy to do my small part in spreading the word about somebody else’s hard work to make their dream come true by putting Spilled! as the first game on my list – a cute little cleaning simulator created by Lente, a young woman living on a boat in Utrecht, working at the Albert Heijn to pay rent, who made this game entirely on her own on her laptop.
After a successful Kickstarter, she could hire an artist to help with the look, but the design and gameplay of controlling a cute little boat to clean up oil spills, after which the world around you starts looking cleaner and brighter, is all her. It’s wonderful how the world of game design does have, in the end, a nicely inviting bar of entry.
€ 5,89 on Steam.
4. LUTO by Broken Bird Games (Gran Canaria)
Ever since we got scammed out of Hideo Kojima’s version of Silent Hills, only leaving us his small demo P.T., the haunted-house-walking-simulator genre of game has seen a real upswing. LUTO is the next great incarnation of that genre. You play in first-person as somebody who is not able to leave his house, and as you get confronted with non-Euclidean hallucinations and artful spooky moments that remind me of 2017’s A Ghost Story, the thing turns, as it so often does, into an exercise in depression, grief, and trauma processing.
Beautiful scenes, touching moments, and of course, exercises in pants-shitting terror, make a very intriguing, and very Spanish, horror game.
€ 19,99 on Steam.
3. Blue Prince by Dogubomb (US)
I like puzzle games, always have. As a kid I loved puzzle books, my favorites being the ones that incorporated a storyline, as if I followed in the footsteps of Indiana Jones and Scrooge McDuck, using my intelligence and wiles to find treasures untold. In games, point-and-clicks like SPY Fox amazed me as a child, the Professor Layton-series took over when I was a teen, and of course, games like Portal and The Witness changed contemporary video games as a whole.
And now there is Blue Prince, a nicely cel-shaded game about a young man who will inherit his great-uncle’s 45-room estate if he can find the fabled 46th room. The rooms are ever shifting, and as the player, you can visit them in any order you want, looking for the perfect way to reach Room 46 and discovering puzzles and lore along the way.
Blue Prince is one of those slow-burn games that stick with you and distract you from your work long after you have stopped playing. One of my favourite anecdotes is from a person who was a child in the eighties, playing Legend of Zelda. As he couldn’t find the final dungeon to explore, he dreamt about circling all the found dungeons on the game map, and when he woke up, realized he had to search in the place where he would not yet have placed a circle.
In the same way, I can be showering or cleaning and suddenly realize the next step in my Blue Prince adventure, sprinting to my PC to see if my brain blast will give results. The internet becomes a minefield, where I hate the fact that posts and YouTube-videos seem insistent on spoiling me. I don’t care if it takes me a year – I will solve these puzzles myself!
Wait, Blue Prince, ‘blueprints’. I just got that.
€ 29,99 on Steam.
2. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 by Sandfall Interactive (France)
What started as a couple of game designers who were tired of working for Ubisoft, and so decided to strike out on their own, even hiring people through Reddit posts to grow their ranks, ended with a great and unique RPG that won a record nine prizes at the Game Awards, from another record thirteen nominations (the creators accepted their awards in typical French garb, with striped shirts, berets, and carrying baguettes).
I don’t even like RPGs of this ilk, but I love Clair Obscur. The soundtrack is great, the style is amazing, the characters are well-rounded and intriguing, and the story hooks me.
In the dark Belle Époque city of Lumière, which has been cut off from the rest of the continent, a yearly event occurs where the ‘Paintress’ performs the ‘Gommage’, which makes all the inhabitants of a certain, ever-decreasing age disappear. This year, Expedition 33, made up of volunteers, will go into the land to try and stop the Paintress.
Starting with Hellblade, recent years have shown that even triple A-games are better when made by indie teams, who get to work out all their creativity into experiences that are sure to keep you entertained for weeks. What a pearl.
€ 49,99 on Steam.
1. No, I’m Not a Human by Trioskaz (Russian)
Violently Russian, violently weird, and a really interesting creepfest, No, I’m Not A Human is an exercise in paranoia.
In a country obviously inspired by the Eastern Bloc, people have been forced to live nocturnally, as the sun is so hot during the day that walking outside leads to third degree burns. To make matters worse, entities called Visitors have started appearing, hiding amongst the humans and either murdering or kidnapping them. As the main character, you have to decide who you let into your house during the night for safety – staying alone is deadly, but let in the wrong people, and you’ll regret it…
The style is like a nightmarish visual novel, where every character is disconcertingly strange enough to trigger your uncanny valley. The dialogues are pessimistic and harsh, but some need to continue does seem to shine through; think Dostoevsky meets Robert Crumb.
It gets extra frustrating when you want to sympathize with a person, but also get hints that they might be Visitors. Nothing is certain, tests can lead to false positives, and there are no real answers to anything. When the government comes knocking, their incompetence offers no real solutions.
After COVID, and with fascism being the new popular item, No, I’m Not A Human is a correct and frustrating representation of how our community suffers under the fracturing of society. There are 11 endings and many, many characters who don’t always show up, so there’s plenty of replay value.
€ 14,79 on Steam.
That’s it for this year! There are some games that, unfortunately, I haven’t played enough yet to be able to add them, guiltlessly, to my list; such as the cookily sexy Sorry We’re Closed, or the funny and unique Baby Steps, so be sure to check those out.
This year, 2026, looks to become another brilliant year for gaming, with the blockbusters Control Resonant and Frictional Games’ newest existential horror ONTOS on the horizon. Games were always art, but these days, they’re giving us real masterpieces.
Tom Breedveld is finally finishing his university studies and is working on a novel and a second film project. He enjoys teaching and has a New Year’s resolution to create a video game.
Eindlijstjes, Games, Tom Breedveld, 09.01.2026 @ 11:03
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