Games I Finished in 2025

It seems the consensus by a landslide for the 2025 game of the year is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Not for me, though; I don't care for the JRPG combat and exploration style. I don't quite know what I would nominate as the game of the year myself. Atomfall and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers were fun and I actually played them. Of the ones I didn't, AI Limit is the highest on my wishlist. It's an anime-looking soulslike but it's not by a Japanese studio, so it gets a pass.

Sands of Aura

Sands of Aura is a top-down soulslike action RPG developed by Chashu Entertainment. The game was up for grabs on Prime Gaming (now Amazon Luna) about a year ago. After having beaten it, I feel free (Prime trial) was a fitting price for the game. It has some cool ability and item design but levels and gameplay have problems that make the experience occasionally rather infuriating. I suppose that's not uncommon for a soulslike, though.

Routine

Routine (stylized in caps as ROUTINE) is a first person (light-)survival horror game first announced all the way back in 2012 at Gamescom. The project disappeared into development hell until finally resurfacing a decade later to the surprise of those who had been aware of the game (which hadn't included me). The wait probably wasn't worth it and even without it, Routine hasn't much meat to it. The game released few days before my latest Game Pass month was up -- which was plenty of time to beat, and 100%, the around 7-hour experience.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a third person soulslike action roleplaying game developed by Leenzee. The game's Chinese name is 明末：渊虚之羽 (Míngmò: Yuānxū Zhī Yǔ) which Google translates to something along the lines of "Late Ming Era: Feathers of the Abyss". The first part certainly wouldn't have sounded good in English. 'Wuchang' comes from the (silent) protagonist's name: Bai Wuchang.

Assassin's Creed Mirage

Assassin's Creed Mirage was originally going to be DLC for AC Valhalla but ended up being released as a standalone title -- the latter was definitely massive enough without yet another addition. Mirage takes place before Valhalla, in the second half of the 800s in Baghdad, focusing on young Basim ibn Ishaq. At the beginning of Valhalla, Sigurd brought the Hidden Ones Basim and Hytham to Norway where Valhalla's protagonist Eivor met them the first time.

Hogwarts Legacy

I read the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling once back in the day when they were coming out hot off the press. Beyond that I have by happenstance watched maybe one of the film adaptations but otherwise that's where my following of the Wizarding World stopped. In 2023, Hogwarts Legacy by Avalanche Software (not to be confused with the Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios) provided an entirely new addition to the universe in the form of a third person action roleplaying game. It looked cool enough to play and was just recently added onto PC Game Pass.

Ghostrunner 2

At its core, Ghostrunner 2 provides largely the same first person action-platformer experience as the first game. However, about every aspect was touched in some way and these changes seem to have been divisive among the player base. Some sizeable additions are the game being bigger, having few large non-linear maps, and introducing a motorcycle.

Strayed Lights

I was sold on Strayed Lights for the same reason as Batora: Lost Haven -- shiny colors. Gameplay had seemed competent enough but once again it was proven that visuals alone won't carry a game. But pretty Strayed Lights is. There's again a duality of colors -- blue and orange -- but purple also makes an appearance as the color of corruption as is tradition.

The Wheel of Time

My first encounter with The Wheel of Time, a 1999 first person spell shooter by now-defunct Legend Entertainment, was an article in some gaming magazine around the time of the game's release: I remember the article appreciating the ceiling architecture in the game. The book series is awesome but I had never gotten to play this oddball of an adaptation. It was not being sold anywhere for years but GOG managed to get it on their store in 2022 and I bought it last year, solely due to the license: I doubted a shooter from that era would be very satisfying gameplay-wise now.

Lust from Beyond

My backlog coincidentally offering next a fitting game for Halloween, it was time to play Lust from Beyond. I wasn't expecting a great experience: I bought the game mostly because I was already invested in the series. On the way to Beyond's release, Movie Games Lunarium put out two shorter, prelude type of deals: Lust from Beyond: Prologue and Lust from Beyond: Scarlet. (Despite being free, they both count towards your Steam achievement stats, curiously enough.)