The Pits: Best in Video Games 2025

Before I present my list, a short disclaimer: This list is a work in progress and won’t necessarily be my actual ballot. I’m still playing Digimon Story Time Stranger, which has a good chance of earning a place in my Top 10.

10. Dear Me, I Was…

A wordless watercolour adventure tracing the life of a woman from childhood to old age.

9. Dispatch

A stunning showcase of animation, paired with a choice-and-consequences experience that allows players to shape their idea of heroism.

8. Mario Kart World

At its best, a hyperkinetic white-knuckle racing experience that dazzles players with its aural and visual splendour. At its worst, you just got blue-shelled.

7. Many Nights a Whisper

What if all the wishes of the world were in your hands? What if you could decide who was worthy or unworthy of having their desires fulfilled? Should one person even have that much power? Many Nights a Whisper has you ponder those questions and more as you train to grant wishes with a single shot of your slingshot.

6. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

The Yakuza/Like a Dragon series has always had a tenuous relationship with reality. (Rugby baby, anyone?) However, with Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s franchise moves fully into the fantastical, sending series mainstay Gorō Majima on a high-seas adventure. There are of course swordfights and fisticuffs, as well as an abundance of naval battles. But the game’s true appeal is in how it juxtaposes the outlandish and the mundane, imagining a world where brigantines set sail from Hawaii, pirate treasure can be found on the awnings of Honolulu apartments, and car mechanics install laser cannons on galleons. Does it make any sense? Not one bit. But who cares when you’re having this much fun?

5. Strange Jigsaws

FLEB’s follow-up to the excellent 20 Small Mazes sees the developer pushing the idea of variations on a common puzzle to its limit and beyond. The game gets increasingly weird and meta as it progresses, like a Daniel Mullins joint minus the horror. It crescendos to a peak and denouement that are at once bizarre and moving. Puzzles are powerful, indeed.

4. Keeper

This surreal, wordless adventure isn’t just a psychedelic explosion of brightness and colour. It’s also a showcase for some genuinely daring gameplay ideas that never could have found their way into a Psychonauts or a Costume Quest. I’ll leave it there lest I spoil the surprises.

3. Donkey Kong Bananza

OH! BANANA! Donkey Kong Bananza feels like Nintendo fully unbound, dumping every gameplay idea too ridiculous for Mario or Zelda into a delicious stew. If a typical Nintendo game is a Michelin-star meal, then Bananza is an unexpected delight from an experimental food truck — sloppy, wildly imaginative, and oh so delicious. So grab some plastic cutlery, a mountain of napkins, and a takeout container overflowing with banana lasagna, and dig in.

2. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

It would have been impressive if Sandfall Interactive had created a merely competent high-fidelity turn-based RPG. That they created an RPG with a highly fun and flexible combat system, a memorable score, and stunning art direction that also doubled as a meditation on grief is nothing short of a miracle. I can’t wait to see where Sandfall goes next.

1. Road to Empress I

Don’t speak out of turn. Don’t insult the Consort of Preciousness. Don’t drop your hairpin on the ground. Don’t drink the sweet osmanthus soup. Don’t eat the bread (it’s poisoned). But also, don’t not eat the bread (you’ll starve). Don’t get complacent. Don’t get on your aunt’s bad side. Don’t you dare defy the Emperor. And whatever you do, don’t even try to play the pipa (you suck at it).

It’s remarkable that a game built on a mountain of “don’t”s could be so compelling, but Road to Empress I is deliciously addictive. Each fail state ranges from shocking to laugh-out-loud hilarious, gamifying the tightrope walk of navigating the Chinese imperial palace in the 7th century CE in wildly entertaining fashion. Top-notch costuming and set design turn what could have felt cheap and corny into a genuinely impressive, TV-quality production. Never has palace intrigue been so much fun.

Honourable mentions: No Sleep for Kaname Date – From AI: The Somnium Files; You Have Billions Invested in Generative AI; Urban Myth Dissolution Center

My list has a few additions compared to last year.

1. individualism in the dead-internet age: an anti-big tech asset flip shovelware rant manifesto
2. I Am Your Beast
3. 20 Small Mazes
4. Echo Point Nova
5. Children of the Sun
6. Dungeons of Hinterberg
7. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
8. Misericorde Volume Two: White Wool & Snow
9. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
10. 1000xRESIST