Underrated games to play in 2025

In a gaming world dominated by blockbusters and multi-million dollar marketing campaigns, some titles that don’t enjoy as much visibility unfairly fly under the radar. Although appreciated by those who have tried them, these underrated games tend to remain in the shadows, even though they’re regularly updated. In this article, we’ll highlight a few of them, because they probably deserve your attention.

Let’s start our list with an original and colorful roguelike: Crab Champions. This title invites us to become a crab and navigate levels filled with little creatures, set in a tropical island environment. Numerous builds are possible thanks to the generous amount of weapons and skills available, making each game unique. Several game modes are available, including a PvP mode and a parkour mode. Interestingly, this title was developed by a single person, who is also the creator of the music for Crab Rave.

Our second recommendation is Marvel’s Midnight Suns, which is a relatively exotic but pleasant game. This RPG adventure combines turn-based strategy, deck building, and even some narrative choices. With surprising staging and depth, it also requires you to develop relationships with the superheroes who accompany you. While this aspect may seem superficial at first glance, it actually allows you to unlock passive skills and new game elements.

On a completely different note, Shapez 2 awaits fans of machining and optimization. Production, conveyors, and calculations are all part of this highly enjoyable title, which is intuitive and satisfying to play. Unlike Satisfactory, Shapez 2 offers top-down management and creative mode, i.e., without any survival aspect, allowing players to focus purely on their creations.

Three other titles are part of our selection: Vampyr, a narrative game with multiple choices, Mad Max, an adventure in a post-apocalyptic world, and Psychonauts 2, a psychological 3D platformer. Released several years ago, they are good representatives of their respective genres and are still enjoyable to discover today.

While Payday 3 didn’t receive unanimous praise when it was released in 2023, Crime Boss: Rockay City is an excellent alternative. This heist game offers a roguelite single-player campaign in which you must fight against the city’s gangs to take its control. It is also possible to play cooperatively with up to four players in all other game modes and DLCs, which are just as interesting. The title has an impressive following and is still being updated every month since its release in 2024.

Dinkum and Temtem are names that are starting to become familiar, but they haven’t had a large number of players. However, both games are really good in their genres and offer an excellent alternative to Animal Crossing and Pokémon, which are stuck in the Nintendo ecosystem. The Medium is a very successful production released in 2021 by Bloober Team, the studio behind the famous Silent Hill 2 Remake. You play as a woman with psychic powers who must solve mysteries by exploring two realities at the same time.

Finally, The Alters is worth checking out. It’s a bold mix of space survival, management, and storytelling. By trying to focus on these three different genres, there is a risk of losing the whole essence and ending up with something mediocre in every aspect. However, 11 BIT Studios has succeeded in this challenge by offering us something sophisticated and functional. With its splendid environments, original self-cloning mechanics, and very satisfying duration, this game will captivate anyone who tries it.

This selection of underrated games offers a good variety of genres and hours of fun if one of these games is your next choice. Each one offers a unique experience that has gone relatively unnoticed and easily deserves a second chance. Which game in your library deserves more visibility?