Each year, GameSpot staff go into our annual top 10 and Game of the Year deliberations with their own favorites. Sometimes they’re games you’re sure are a shoo-in for the award; other times, you know it’ll be an uphill battle because few others have played your top pick. Those awards are ultimately a reflection of our team as a whole, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still cling to our own personal favorites.
With that in mind, below you’ll find a list of those favorites–the games an individual on our team loved the most from 2025 but that couldn’t crack our top 10. That might be because it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, or perhaps amid the flurry of nonstop releases, not enough people got around to playing it. Whatever the case, you can rest assured that at least one of us here would strongly encourage you to check out all of the games below.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy
Available on PC, Switch
I went into The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy knowing something about its twist. As with any good one, I would’ve preferred to not have any sense of what was coming, and yet even with the surprise slightly undercut, I still found myself blown away by The Hundred Line once it truly revealed itself. It’s one of the most audacious games I’ve ever played, and one I expect I’ll be playing for a long time to come.
The initial chunk of the game–which is substantial, clocking in at 30-40 hours–is good in its own right, fusing together a Danganronpa-style visual novel with a tactical strategy game. It tells a compelling story about a group of kids who are effectively trapped inside a school they must defend in order to protect humanity for reasons not fully explained to them. The tactics side is enjoyable as well, with just the right blend of approachability and nuance to keep you seeking out that perfect turn, as you rack up extra moves and carve up your opponent.
But make it to what is ostensibly the end and, rather than concluding after a few dozen hours, it reveals its scope to be dramatically larger than you’d been led to believe, allowing you to completely recontextualize the entire story in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. It’s a thrilling proposition, and one that you owe it to yourself to experience if the game’s basic concept appeals to you at all. — Chris Pereira
No, I’m Not A Human
Available on PC
No, I’m Not A Human made me question whether or not I am, in fact, a human being. The sun is potentially about to explode, and setting foot outside could lead to me being burnt alive–something I’m pretty keen to avoid. Strange Visitors keep coming to my house at night, mimicking the appearance of humans, and trying to get in for shelter from the deathly fireball in the sky. Their plights vary–some deliver a sob story to try to get me to take pity on them, some have descended into insanity from the intense fear, and some just seem a bit too blasé about the whole situation. It’s up to me to decide who to let in.
Thanks to a news broadcast, as I progress through the game’s 14-day playthrough length, I learn more about how to identify Visitors. Some might have red eyes, misshapen ears, or a rash–but then again so could a real human. I executed one suspected Visitor purely because of gut instinct. I was wrong. No, I’m Not A Human forces you to wrestle with human paranoia and morality through simple yet effective investigative gameplay with haunting artwork, and its multiple endings will have you approaching it from varying mindsets in an attempt to uncover them all. — Cheri Faulkner
Donkey Kong Bananza
Available on Nintendo Switch 2
Donkey Kong is having a moment. The Donkey Kong Country games are celebrated classics, his appearance in the Mario movie introduced him to a new generation of fans, and now he has helped to headline the new generation of Switch hardware. Donkey Kong Bananza is the great ape’s first 3D platformer since Donkey Kong 64, and it has helped redeem his star status.
In many ways, Bananza is recognizable in the lineage of Super Mario Odyssey–the game is composed of large open environments full of crystalline bananas to collect in whatever order you please. But the central hook of Bananza centers less on platforming challenges and more on environmental destruction. Just about everything in the world is deformable, using your powerful Kong fists or even explosives. Finding your way to your beloved bananas involves smashing your way through rock walls or finding clever ways through the environment. Plus you’ll gain access to powerful (and powerfully weird) transformations that make DK into a silverback gorilla, a zebra, and more. The game lets you transform into a swole-as-hell ostrich. What more do you want?
On top of all that, this also serves as a soft reboot for DK, incorporating a new origin story for Pauline as an aspiring young singer. The story of an unlikely friendship gives the bizarre tale of a banana-obsessed kong fighting his capitalist overlords an endearing amount of heart. It’s hard not to smile all the way through. — Steve Watts
The Rogue Prince of Persia
Available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and Switch
Life has been mostly good for Prince of Persia fans lately. While the remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has been stuck in development hell, the last few years have seen not one but two spin-offs that harken back to the series’ roots. Last year’s Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was an exciting addition to the franchise, but you don’t want to sleep on The Rogue of Prince of Persia, as it’s the franchise at its purest.
Now out of early access–and on console to boot–The Rogue Prince of Persia harkens back to what made creator Jordan Mechner’s original game so special. Developer Evil Empire has honed in on how that classic game encouraged players to keep moving, deftly dodging traps and using skill to overcome deadly guards looking to halt your progress.
The genius here is that Evil Empire has injected a healthy amount of roguelike DNA into The Rogue Prince of Persia, using its expertise honed from working on Dead Cells to create a game that feels like a delightful expression of speed, agility, and cunning combat.
That free-flow state of chaining together acrobatics and the perfect build is hard to beat, and once you find your groove, The Rogue Prince of Persia becomes a deeply satisfying expression of skill. Add in a surprisingly touching story about honesty, family, and legacy, a digestible playtime, and one of the best soundtracks of the year, and you’ve got a game that can hold its own next to some of the best Prince of Persia titles and roguelites out there. — Darryn Bonthuys
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
Available on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch 2, Switch
I had a lot of things written down for my 2025 video games bingo card–like being disappointed at the complete lack of a Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 remaster or Metal Gear Rising 2 announcement–but I did not expect to wish harm on a fictional character. That’s just what happened this year with Sonic Racing CrossWorlds, an arcade-racer that put Miles “Tails” Prowler in my crosshairs. Like Chris Jericho’s 2017 WWE run, Tails made it onto my list, thanks to the game regularly making him my rival in races.
It’s a neat gameplay mechanic in CrossWorlds, one that makes a supposedly random character race harder, faster, and with the intent to kill (your current position on the grid). When combined with everything else that makes CrossWorlds a superb blast of speed and fun, you’ve got a game that constantly challenges you, looks great, and is full of surprises.
With Mario Kart World hogging the spotlight in this genre, it’s a crying shame that CrossWorlds hasn’t gotten more attention. A rock-solid racing game with several novel ideas under the hood, it’s the game that had me grinning like a pinhead as I burned rubber and activated intergalactic hops onto new courses.
And once I manage to shunt Tails into the jaws of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, then I can retire happily from my current racing game season. — Darryn Bonthuys
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds review
Goodnight Universe
Available on Switch 2, PS5, PC, Xbox Series X|S
In 2021, Before Your Eyes surprised players with its pairing of a devastating, heartfelt story and novel game mechanics designed around an eye-tracking camera. The team behind that game, now known as Nice Dream, returned to that creative space to create Goodnight Universe, an unrelated game that nonetheless toys with a lot of the same ideas, both in gameplay and story.
Goodnight Universe casts you in the novel role of a baby, but more than that, you’re a psychic, telekinetic baby. You’ll (optionally) use your camera to move things with your mind and read the minds of your family members, among others. Where the story goes from this intriguing setup definitely won’t be easily predicted.
Even more than Before Your Eyes, this is a game that uses a small cast of characters and a relatively simple story–albeit more complicated than the team’s previous game–to grapple with universal, messy emotions and situations. As the four-hour game unwinds and goes to some surprising places, it always retains and ultimately settles on that important, emotional core of the story. This small indie studio remains obsessed with themes of time and love, and seeing them pull at those familiar threads in new ways made for one of my favorite experiences of 2025. This is another game that’ll emotionally mess you up from a team that loves to make its players ugly-cry, and I love it for that. — Mark Delaney
Cabernet
Available on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, PC
Cabernet won my heart in February, and no other game managed to quite sink its fangs in me with the same level of fervor throughout 2025. A 2D narrative-driven role-playing game set in 19th century Eastern Europe, Cabernet tells an incredible drama that frames one woman’s struggle to find love and agency within the seductive hunger and freeing power that comes with being a vampire.
In Cabernet, you play as Liza, a would-be doctor who must reevaluate her life after she awakens in a dungeon, makes a pact with an unseen and silent presence for her freedom, and then accidentally wanders into a party where the hosts inform her that she’s now a vampire. It’s a whirlwind of an opening that makes clear your most powerful weapon is not the ability to transform into a bat or hypnotize humans, but calculating the outcome of difficult choices and carefully executing well-prepared plans.
The impact of each choice you make can have ramifications that continue to affect Liza’s story until the final moments of the game. I can’t point to many games this year that rewarded my actions to the same extent as Cabernet, encouraging me to fully invest in actually getting immersed in the roleplaying, not opt for certain choices just to get the “good” ending. Choices are framed within the duality of humanity and nihilism, a far more nuanced distinction than most other game’s straightforward good versus evil structure, which creates memorable conflicts that are less about being morally right and more about doing what feels right for the Liza that you’re embodying. And no matter which choices you make, Cabernet ends up being such a well-written and fantastically-paced story, made all the better by an incredible cast of voiced characters and a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack composed by Jim Fowler (Bloodborne, LittleBigPlanet).
When I first reviewed Cabernet, my only major qualms with the game were the glitches that messed with progression in two side quests and one moment in the main story’s finale. Those issues have been addressed in post-launch patches, which leaves me at a loss when pressed to say anything bad about the game. Cabernet is just that good, making it not only my personal favorite game of 2025, but one that I’ll be regularly telling my friends they need to play going into 2026. — Jordan Ramée
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
Available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2
I have been, and forever will be, a big fan of what I call “number-go-up” games. You know the ones; games like Diablo, Borderlands, Vampire Survivors, and even Balatro fit into this absurd little category of mine. So does Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, though that’s hardly all this charming and highly compulsive RPG has going for it.
In The Girl Who Steals Time, you take on the role of a time-jumping expeditioner tasked with tracking down their friend, Edward the archaeologist, after a dark-dragon attack separates the two of you. Naturally, your character is quickly swept up into an even larger adventure, one that will ultimately shape both the future and the past. The game’s setup and story are cute and perfectly serviceable, if a bit cliched, but the real magic of The Girl Who Steals Time lies in all the tiny, moving pieces that make up the game, and how shockingly well they work together.
On top of providing the same sense of immediate gratification as the games listed above, The Girl Who Steals Time combines Animal Crossing-esque town building and resource gathering, a robust job system, simple-yet-engaging dungeon crawling, adorable art, and quirky characters to craft a surprisingly deep experience. Although “The Girl Who Steals Time” refers to something quite different (and spoilery, so I won’t say it here), I’d argue that title could just as easily be referring to the amount of time it steals away from its players. Despite there being a frankly absurd number of wonderful games released in 2025, it took quite a bit of effort to pry myself away from my Steam Deck and move on from the world of Ginormosia. — Jessica Cogswell
Once Upon A Katamari
Available on PC, Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S
Lying on a hospital bed before going in for a heart procedure nearly a decade ago, I had the Katamari leitmotif playing in my head. “We’ve had some great times together,” I told my wife. “If this is it, I’ve had a good life. I just wish there would have been more Katamari in it,” I joked. Nine years later to the very day, Katamari not only returned, but did so with the best game the series has ever seen.
Once Upon a Katamari delivers beloved staples of the franchise, such as stages that immediately end when you roll up a single bear or cow (while raising your blood pressure in the process), and the trademark “get as big as you can in this amount of time” directives. Once Upon a Katamari truly shines with its new additions, however, throwing objectives at the player in the form of collecting yokai in a graveyard, digging a hole straight to the center of the Earth, and… rolling up Greek philosophers?! Bringing the world of Katamari to such illustrious settings as the Wild West, Ancient Egypt, and the Stone Age mixes up the tried-and-true Japanese formula to keep things fresh.
It all comes back to that music, though, doesn’t it? Something important to long-time fans of the franchise is that not only does the new soundtrack rock, but they’ve brought back many of the artists responsible for it, some of whom are still making those tunes in their 70s. Ultimately, that level of care sums up this new benchmark entry for the series: It’s a love letter to the folks who love Katamari, and they’ve created a game that’s so easy to love. Now excuse me, these Greek philosophers are not going to roll up themselves. — David McCutcheon
Doom: The Dark Ages
Available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Doom: The Dark Ages is the best Nintendo* game I played this year. It’s the game whose smashing never wore out its welcome, whose playful level design always made exploration a joy, and whose over-the-top visuals looked like something right out of my childhood bedroom. As the third game in id Software’s series reboot, eyebrows were fully raised when the developers shared that they wanted to slow down the game’s trademark speed, and … they did. But not really. Doom Guy is more grounded, yes. He feels heavy, sure. But thanks to level designs that play to this, and the introduction of a new “shield bash” move that sends you quite literally flying across the battlefield straight into an enemy’s meaty bits, that weight never translates to feeling slow.
Not everything lands in Doom: The Dark Ages. The score is great, but it’s hard not to compare it to the high-water work from composer Mick Gordon that graced the first two games. The dragon flying levels, while looking undeniably badass … feel decidedly less so. And the mech suit sections are similarly limp, but thankfully brief and scant. But the parts where you’re a heavy metal ping pong ball bouncing from meat bumper to meat bumper, while also shooting heavy metal guns is exactly as rad as it sounds. — Chris Grant
