Happy Monday, folks, and welcome to the Weekly Video Games Thread—our last of 2025! I think we can end our year of gaming on a high note.
2025 had a lot of trends in gaming culture (I literally wrote about one of them last week), but one of the most fun was the sudden, dramatic reemergence. Hollow Knight: Silksong and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond both came out after years in development. Mario and Sonic got new racing games for the first time in a while, and even Mafia and Silent Hill got big, new sequels. We also got a few big, flashy remakes. But it wasn’t just games themselves, but the things in them. Like, I mentioned Mario Kart World being the first new home console entry since 2014, but within World itself, there are characters who haven’t been in a game in literal decades. Pokémon Legenda: Z-A brought back the “elemental monkeys,” who had been unobtainable since 2018. Sometimes, the thing that came back was another trend, like the dopey as fuck Call of Duty / Battlefield rivalry or no less dopey acts of carny barker-ass publicity stunts.
To me, the best example of this was King K. Rool, who appeared as the secret final boss of Donkey Kong Bananza. K. Rool’s last major appearance—not counting his obviously important, show-stopping return in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate—was Donkey Kong 64 back in 1999. He had been in a few Mario and Donkey Kong spin-offs and got into Smash straight off a popularity poll, but this character was firmly off the table when it came to the main franchise. He was for insiders only. So naturally, he comes into Bananza at the eleventh hour, displacing the actual main villain entirely and fully hijacking the plot. I’ve spoiled enough simply by talking about him, so I won’t go further into details for the sake of anyone who hasn’t gotten the game, but let it be said that his reappearance is gleeful. It’s demented and zany and led to one of the most wildly over the top things I saw in a work of art this year. Nintendo was clearly invested in giving him the biggest return possible, and it works really well. So in honor of that, today’s prompt is to ask: what was your favorite thing of 2025 to shockingly come back? And if you don’t have an answer, what are some memorable returns for you?
And, as always, what did you play this weekend? Oh, and don’t forget to vote in Part 1 and Part 2 of the Peely’s!