Non-2025 Gaming of 2025
A few days ago, as of the time of writing, a report was shared by Mat Piscatella on BlueSky, and covered by IGN, that indicated that the most played games of 2025 were the exact same as the most played games of 2024. The potential reasons for this are too numerous to discuss at length here, but for us it is sufficient to establish that a lot of the gaming audience is content to enjoy the old and familiar.
In that respect, I am no different. However, I do also like playing old works that were either rereleased/remastered in 2025, or games that I never got around to playing when they were released for numerous reasons.
This space is dedicated to them, those older games that nonetheless graced my gaming diet this year. And as always, they are presented in random order.
Legends of Runeterra
Even though the PvP segment of Legends of Runeterra has completely fallen by the wayside, receiving no new cards or support for the past year, the PvE Path of Champions in Legends of Runeterra is still going strong. It’s that portion of it that keeps me coming back.
There just isn’t a digital card game out there with the same feeling that Legends of Runeterra has. It’s sad that the PvP withered and died, because even now it remains one of my favorite card games of all time. No game either before or since keeps me so consistently active and engaged at all times.
I don’t know when I’ll fully drop off of Runeterra, because my current plan is to collect all of the cards for PvP and fully upgrade at least one PvE Champion from each region before I retire for good, but until then it is so easy to fit one PvE campaign into the beginning of my workday that I’m more than happy to keep it installed on my phone.
And who knows, perhaps one day I will find some small community out there willing and eager to play some PvP once I complete my collection.
Assassin’s Creed: Mirage (Saudi-Funded Expansion)
It is likely that Assassin’s Creed: Mirage will be the last AC game I ever hold fondness for, given the sorry state of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. As I bid farewell to the series, a bizarre story came across my timeline, that Mirage would receive a free update, funded by Saudi Arabia. Between my own hesitancy to engage with Saudi-funded works for my own reasons, and having a few other games on my list, I ignored it at first.
However, as the year began to wind down in December, I had some amount of free time on my hands. I already had a copy of Mirage so I knew I wouldn’t be directly contributing to the Saudi coffers through playing this expansion. Thus, I figured it was as good an excuse as any to give a fond farewell to Assassin’s Creed: Mirage and the series as a whole.
And for the most part, it was just more Mirage, though I could tell that because this was just one assassination and the missions were in a set order, they could do more with Basim as a character than they could with most of the missions in the main game. It wasn’t enough for me to start getting invested, but it was an improvement over what had been before.
There’s a lesson in that, but it isn’t one Ubisoft will be interested in learning anytime soon.
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
This one I got on recommendation from a friend of mine, who showed me a few clips of it before I took the plunge. Despite the name, this plays more like a visual novel than an RPG, albeit one with extremely high production values for the genre, including an excellent musical score and a star-studded cast of vocal talent.
The premise, similar to American Gods, is that the Greek pantheon are still around, taking refuge in sunny California, living alongside, but distinct from, mortal society. Our protagonist Grace finds the Last Muse dead, and inherits her power, which naturally draws the ire of the remaining gods who believe she murdered the muse herself. By solving the crime, we exonerate ourselves and expose the dark underbelly of this secret society.
Yes, it is a murder mystery. As it turns out, I like murder mysteries, and this one hooked me almost immediately. Before long, I found myself eager to pick apart each character and what drove them forward, and how the gods responded to the world as it went on without them. Even beyond the mystery itself, there was a whole setting to dive into. Which is fortunate because it’s pretty easy to suss out who the likely culprit is from moment one, though the “how” and “why” are still their own reveals.
It’s the kind of game this list exists for, because the only knock against it is that I didn’t know about it when it came out, and it just so happened to be the first game I played this year.
Disco Elysium
“I wish there was a disco option.”
There’s not much more I have to say about Disco Elysium that I haven’t already said during my Let’s Play series on it. Very rarely does a piece of work wear its politics so nakedly on its sleeve like Disco does, in a way that’s honestly refreshing. Despite the ultimate fate of the studio and staff that created it, it will go down in history as one of the most important games ever produced, even if it will never be as profitable as something like Fortnite or GTA V.
If anything, it only grows more relevant and topical as time passes, with its message of hope in an otherwise bleak world.
Pokemon TCG Pocket
As I said when I last talked about it, it is entirely possible to engage with Pokemon Pocket without building a deck or playing the game, just opening packs every day. And it is fortunate for Pokemon Pocket that only cracking packs is an option, because the game itself quickly grew too inaccessible for me to keep up with.
It didn’t take long for the problems to start. As new sets became available, it was simply too impractical to open or craft the cards needed to play with the latest strategies without investing large amounts of money, even moreso than other games like Magic Arena that I jam on the regular.
Still, for a few months at least, I kept it on my phone and at least logged in to crack my daily packs. The breaking point for me was when they released an event that required me to do battle against other players, and I realized I simply had no interest in doing so.
That was a strong sign that I needed to quit the game, and I have not looked back in the time since.
1000 X RESIST
Like Stray Gods, this was another recommendation from a friend of mine (though a different one). Also like Stray Gods, it is closer to a visual novel than most other games are, without being exactly like one.
This is a story that simply couldn’t be told as well as it was if it wasn’t presented in an interactive medium, taking full advantage of that fact to truly connect us, the player, with the Watcher as she delves into the memories of her mother/god. And without spoiling it, it is a game that asks us fundamental questions about topics like state authority, religious beliefs, the effects of generations worth of propaganda on an unsuspecting population, and how all of that might manifest after an apocalyptic event.
The only real knock I have against it is that the Hub world is too confusing to navigate and I frequently grew lost while trying to wander the space. In the grand scheme of things, that is a minor frustration at most for the gripping narrative I experienced.
Final Fantasy XIV
I have been playing FF XIV since the pandemic hit in 2020, making this the fifth year I’ve played, and Dawntrail the second expansion I was around for the launch of. I haven’t been playing it for as long as many of my friends have, but I have been around for a fairly long time now.
This is the year I have begun to feel myself cool on the game, without growing completely cold. I still login regularly, but I have clearly hit the point where I am out of old content to “catch up” on. Instead I wait for new dungeons, raids, and side activities to arrive so that people can complain about clearing them all in one day while I slowly chip away at it over the course of weeks and months because I am an ordinary human being with an ordinary human schedule.
It’s also, sadly, the year where I’ve begun to see problems within the FF XIV community that were probably always there, but just out of my sight. Though I have my own complaints about Dawntrail’s story, I began to suspect that if there wasn’t a major character in the expansion voiced by a trans woman, and if it wasn’t clearly inspired by central and South America, people in the community wouldn’t be so eager to openly, vitriolically criticize it. I can’t possibly prove this, but it is a gut feeling I can’t ignore as I listen to the way people levy complaints about minor issues that have always been a part of the game. Thankfully, those people aren’t the kind of players I encounter in my regular experiences with the game, but just seeing that kind of brazen hostility was enough to instill a sense of alienation I had never really experienced before with the FF XIV playerbase.
Things aren’t all bad, or even mostly bad. The Archadion raid series is probably one of my favorite raids out of all the ones I’ve played so far, with a storyline that fits right in with the professional wrestling that inspired it, giving us an incredible song to go with it that lives rent-free in my head. I also have a soft spot for Cosmic Exploration, and how cozy it is to login for about 15 minutes to do a few crafting and gathering quests before logging off and continuing with the rest of my day.
There might be less for me to do, but the game is far from dying.
Marvel Rivals
There are still a few live-service games I play semi-regularly, even after committing myself to being more judicious with my spare time, and Marvel Rivals is one of those games. I played Overwatch, the game that Rivals took most of its queues from, for a long time until they reworked the characters I liked playing (Mercy and Symmetra) to the point where they removed everything I liked about those characters. Through all of the updates, patches, and other additions made to Marvel Rivals in the time since launch, this has yet to happen. Rocket Raccoon and Scarlet Witch play the same as they always have, and I have confidence that’ll be the case even if they eventually get power crept.
That said, I am also learning to look for quality of hours played more than quantity. So while I continue to log in, I’m taking a more active role in policing whether or not I’m doing it because it’s fun or because it’s busiwork that I can use to idle away my time. Sometimes, that means I put it down for a month or two, coming back when I’m interested again.
I’m not perfect, but I’ll improve more and more as time goes on.
Dislyte
It is a cruel joke for the random number gods to put this directly below my promise to do better about playing games that I don’t enjoy. This is the only non-card gacha game that I play, and I’m not even sure if I like it.
Well, that’s actually a lie. I know exactly why I’m playing, and it’s because the character designs are immaculate, even if the game has literally nothing else going for it in terms of story or playable content. Grinding is the entire game, and the whole illusion breaks down when you see that. I go through cycles of playing it because a cool new character is part of the big major event, getting bored, logging off for months, and then coming back when the next cool new character I like is part of a major event special months down the line.
Other gacha games in this space occasionally have rad designs that I’m interested in, but nowhere near to the same level of consistency that Dislyte does, and nowhere near often enough to even consider playing them.
One day, I will summon up enough willpower to make the number of gacha games I play 0 instead of 1, but today sadly isn’t that day.
Slitterhead
“This looks and feels like a PS3 game” could be considered a term of endearment or an insult depending on the context. In Slitterhead’s case, it was the former. While this is absolutely a janky game with awkward controls and a few really frustrating moments, it is also one of the most fascinating games I played this year.
I don’t know if I would call it a “horror game” in the strict sense, but it absolutely takes inspiration from Junji Ito-style horror as ordinary citizens of “Kowlong” are possessed by and transformed into monsters called “Slitterheads”, which go on to hunger for blood. We are a disembodied spirit that only knows that our goal is to kill Slitterheads, and we do that by also possessing humans to transform and control them. Is it an irony that game makes no effort to hide, bringing it front and center in a plot that constantly kept me thinking about both what it was trying to say and where it was aiming to go.
But that is also in service of a combat system that is wholly unique, forcing the player to juggle between civilians and unique characters called “rarities”, that have special abilities when possessed, spilling as much blood as possible since that is both our source of damage and healing. I’ve never played anything like it before, and that sense of novelty carried me all the way to the end.
It’s the kind of game I recommend if you’re bored of big AAA offerings and need something wholly unique to fill a weekend or two.
Astro Bot
Even since it came out, Astro Bot has remained permanently installed on my PS5. As I said during my Let’s Play, every time I heard a free update was on the way, I was ready and willing to dive back in and compete with friends for the best possible times. Whenever I have company over, Astro Bot is the game I show them because I know they’ll have a good time playing it for themselves.
There’s not much more to be said. It is a game that always makes me smile, no matter how sour my mood.
Vampire Survivors/Balatro
Just like Astro Bot, these games remain permanently installed on my Steam Deck. Whenever I’m in for a long day of traveling, usually by plane on my way to a furcon, I plug in a pair of headphones to listen to podcasts on my phone. Depending on my mood, I will then launch either Vampire Survivors or Balatro on my Steam Deck as a way to idly pass the time.
And I imagine that’ll be just as true this upcoming year as it was in the last.
Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel
After a series of dogshit formats, word on the street is that the current Yu-Gi-Oh format is solid, with multiple viable archetypes and a ton of interesting gameplay patterns and decision trees. My old phone was capable of running it, but with an upgraded device I figured this meant it might be a good opportunity to return to Master Duel.
Unfortunately, as people more plugged into the YGO space can tell you better than I, Master Duel’s economy is in a rough shape. Almost every major archetype requires significant investment in either time or money to make a viable deck, even ones that aren’t very good.
Realizing this, I thought I could at least clear all the new solo mode missions, but then I got bored of those quickly.
Between the TCG cleaning up its act and the advent of Genesys, I was excited to dive back in. Unfortunately, it appears that the platform and business surrounding YGO just wasn’t ready to bring me back in.
Perhaps I can try to convince my friends to do more frequent YGO tournaments again. Our last one didn’t do so well, but maybe there’s room for a comeback.
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations/Assassin’s Creed 3 (and DLC)/Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
As I alluded to when talking about AC: Shadows last week, this year I finished the LP series I started last year, continuing off Brotherhood to play AC: Revelations, AC 3, and Black Flag. It was enlightening to play these games alongside Shadows, because the act brings into stark relief the contrast between old and new Assassin’s Creed.
Even more interesting is the fact that I went in thinking I would hate Assassin’s Creed 3 and adore Black Flag, and I came out with the exact opposite opinion. For about as long as I can remember, I resented Assassin’s Creed 3 for some of its narrative and gameplay choices, and adored Black Flag for the way it brought the pirate fantasy into Assassin’s Creed. But those opinions were formed in my youth, when I was a college kid over a decade ago.
Now, as an adult, I can appreciate the nuances to Ratonhnhaké꞉ton’s performance and character in a way my younger self simply wasn’t able to. While it’s not perfect, and there’s still room for improvement, the game tackles the theme of American Colonialism with the kind of respect that I couldn’t realistically expect from an American-development team, raised in the propagandized, jingoistic, back-of-cereal-box version of events frequently taught in my own history classes. This is the type of writing that could only come from “a multicultural team of various religious faiths and beliefs”.
The other big difference between how I played then versus how I played now, which I suspect is a major contributor to my opinion shift, is that I played both games in the context of a main story-focused Let’s Play. One of the biggest problems with Assassin’s Creed 3 is that a lot of its side content, aside from the Homestead and ship battles, simply isn’t that interesting. Exploring the sprawling colonial landscape looking for Eagle Feathers is one of the world’s most boring tasks, and I do not believe I could bring myself to repeat it. But as it turns out, if one focuses on just the critical path, as I did, AC3 quickly becomes one of the best Assassin’s Creed games of all time. Not the best, because that will always go to the original Assassin’s Creed, but one of the best.
Black Flag, on the other hand, suffers greatly if the player is purely focused on the critical path. Specifically, the offender is the ship combat. Like any pirate game, there will inevitably be missions where we’re forced to fight other ships. If you play like I did as a college student, working the map and completing all of the optional side objectives that I could, then these fights are trivial because your ship, the Jackdaw, would be almost fully upgraded.
However, when I mainlined the story in my adult years, for the Let’s Play, I had an absolutely miserable experience. In fairness, the game did warn me that my Jackdaw was underpowered, but that wasn’t a great salve when the alternative to getting my ass beat until I could scum out a win was to aimlessly wander live, on air, once that warning popped up on screen. This was only a problem for ship combat, since on the ground the equipment and stats are almost completely meaningless for this early period of Assassin’s Creed.
It was experienced that soured me on the game, less so for the game itself (because eventually I did start doing side missions off air and I was enjoying myself), but more for the fact that it’s the first time in the series that it was truly impossible to just play the story as it is without having to grind. That was the start of the transition, when the series began to shift towards the model it’s become today.
This is why Black Flag will be the last AC game I play for the channel. I don’t think I’ll have anywhere near as much fun playing Unity and onward than I did going back to the Desmond games. That appears to be the pinnacle of the series.
As for Revelations… it’s not as good as you remember. Watch the series if you don’t trust me on that.
Lies of P: Overture
The developers of Lies of P kept proving that they have learned more from the example set by From Software than any other developer out there (even FromSoft itself) as they updated the game. In the lead up to the DLC, they even patched in an adjustable difficult mode so that players who are having trouble with the combat could still enjoy the exploration and world-building of the city of Krat.
Overture, the expansion released this year for the game, further demonstrates their skill, acting as the equivalent to Bloodborne’s “The Old Hunters” expansion, delving deep into the lore to supplement the story told in the base game. It may have been “more Lies of P”, but considering that Lies of P already sits head and shoulders above most other games in the genre there’s not much more I could ask for.
Friends of mine would tell you that Lies of P and its DLC are some of the best Souls games ever made, even including those made by FromSoft. I will tell you that they are right.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
I would not have touched this game had my friend group not bought my copy for me on Steam and promised that they would play the whole campaign alongside me. I had a ton of fun shooting the shit with them and making fun of how bad Suicide Squad is.
But make no mistake, this game is boring. You should have enough self-respect in your body to avoid playing this game. My friends were the only thing that kept the bland mission design and mediocre script from putting me to sleep.
If you don’t know the people you’re playing Suicide Squad with, you are wasting your time.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1/2 (And Blood Omen 1/2 and Defiance)
I am a child of the 90s who grew up with a PlayStation in my house: I obviously knew about Soul Reaver growing up. I remember playing a demo of the first Soul Reaver game when I was a child, and again later on when I had access to a version on GoG, but both times I remember getting lost in one of the early sections of the game and getting bored. I dropped it without putting too much stake into it, thinking it simply wasn’t the kind of game for me. Years later, when the rerelease dropped in December of 2024, I again wouldn’t put much thought into it. After all, “Isn’t that Soul Reaver game the one I just couldn’t understand?”
Then, on a typical Friday night, when my friends and I hang out together on a Discord call before one of us hosts movie night, someone played it again over screen share. Not only were they farther than I remembered ever getting, but they were having fun, patiently answering my questions as I asked them about the game and its mechanics. Another of our mutual friends also chimed in, talking about how much they loved playing Soul Reaver back in the day, and how they were about to buy the remaster for themselves.
That got the wheels turning in the back of my head. The remaster was as good a reason as any to give the series one more chance to wow me, and this time it stuck. Whether it was my friends’ encouragement or just a simple change in temperament between my younger self and the adult I’ve grown into, this time I was able to see why so many before me swore by Soul Reaver and the Legacy of Kain.
It wasn’t just that they were great platforming games (although they certainly were). Just as important was the combination of Amy Hennig’s incredible grasp of the English language when penning the script for the game, and the cavalcade of legendary voice talent who lent their performances to the roles of iconic characters like Razeal and Kain. I could listen to Micheal Bell’s Razeal internally monologuing for hours, gripped by every word. It was the rare total package of the PS1 era and I’m glad I didn’t let it pass me by for a third time.
Of course, this led me to at least brush up on the other games in the Legacy of Kain series, starting with Blood Omen 1 and 2. I put them on this list, though technically I did not play either one. I watched a Let’s Play of them both. While I think Blood Omen 1 is worth discussing, it’s not the kind of game I would want to play, and Blood Omen 2 seems like a mistake.
Which brings me to Defiance. I started playing Defiance, despite the difficulties I had running it on my PC (which is the version I had access to). When I eventually got it working, after a few hours it was painfully clear that I was getting bored with playing it, though still loving the writing and performance on display. Thus, I would again turn to the art of the noble Let’s Play, watching the rest to see a satisfying, if bittersweet end to the Legacy of Kain.
Ultimately, I was left with a sense of fascination. Though Blood Omen 1 and Defiance have their positives, this is a series that strongly resembles Hitman before the 2016 soft reboot. Where Hitman back then was propped up almost entirely by Blood Money, the Legacy of Kain series was elevated similarly, exclusively, by the Soul Reaver games. Nothing else in the franchise even comes close to that level of greatness, which is a shame because both of them end in massive cliffhangers. Without Defiance at least, Legacy of Kain doesn’t have anything approaching a satisfactory end.
I can see why fans of the series are sad it never continued after Defiance, but perhaps that’s for the best. Perhaps the ending in their hearts is better than anything that could be put to paper.
Magic: Arena
This has been a terrible year for Magic players who use Arena primarily. The two most popular formats, aside from Draft, for Arena players are Standard and Brawl, and both have been woefully mistreated by Wizards of the Coast in 2025.
Between Cori-Steel Cutter in Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and Vivi Ornitier from the Final Fantasy set, the vast majority of 2025 Standard was defined by Red/Blue decks that were so powerful that there was no reason to play anything else in the format. Up until Vivi was hit with the ban hammer, months after he became a known terror, jamming matches on the Arena ladder was a miserable experience.
And if you want relief, and started playing Brawl, that had its own problems. Many of the bonus cards released alongside sets this year have found their way into Brawl, supercharging what was supposed to be a casual format into a mode where most people can confidently scoop on turn two once they realize their opponent managed to get an insurmountable opening. With the Arena exclusive Alchemy cards thrown in too, it’s a format too powerful for the casual fun advertised by Wizards of the Coast.
Since we’re specifically discussing Arena, it is also pertinent to reflect on Universes Beyond and its effect on the game. Since Wizards failed to secure the rights for Spider-man, I have to remember that Superior Spider-man is actually Kavaero, Mind-Bitten in the Arena client. With more than half of next year’s sets being crossovers, and another Marvel set on the way, I became increasingly concerned about the “Fortnitification” of one of my favorite card games.
But at least I have my Commander playgroup. No matter how bad WotC is at curating their own formats, we can curate ours.
Wordle
This was the year I finally gave up Wordle. My streak shall hold at 201 consecutive wins, and I am comfortable with that number.
What I became less comfortable with was tacitly supporting the New York Times, who owns and operates it, with ad revenue, since at this point there’s multiple reasons to suspect that they don’t have the best interests of the people at heart.
It was time for me to move on.
Dread Delusion
Technically, this came out in 2024, but I include it in the trifecta of “Oblivion-like” that I played this year, along with Tainted Grail and Avowed, because I wasn’t able to get to it until early 2025.
Where Tainted Grail takes a maximalist approach to the genre, Dread Delusions distills it into its essential essence. The dev team clearly understood that it did not have the resources to build a high-resolution world, and flesh out a complicated character development system with perks and skill trees, so it simply opted not to do that. Instead, they relied on simple character models and architecture, reminiscent of the PS1/PS2 era, to craft an intriguing and alien world, destroyed in the wake of the eradication of its eldritch gods.
Like both Avowed and Tainted Grail, this landmass can be neatly segmented into regions. Unlike those games, this is done more for the sake of player guidance than performance reasons. After the initial load, there is never a single moment of load time, even on my Steam Deck where I played it almost exclusively. The ruined islands of this world are a contiguous mass, which given their total size is an impressive feat.
And because there wasn’t much to my character aside from my four major stats and the equipment I chose to wear, I was free to luxuriate far more in the act of wandering this space than I was able to in either of the other Elder Scrolls-likes discussed on the other lists. Tainted Grail was more successful at cleanly porting over the experience of playing an Elder Scrolls game, but Dread Delusions scaled back, minimalist nature endeared me far more.
It is the one I still have installed, and the one I am likely to go back to if the itch finds me again.
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles
There could not possibly be a more appropriate time than the present moment to remaster and rerelease Final Fantasy Tactics. On a fundamental level, Tactics is a story about power, and the way it is wielded by the wealthy, and used to manipulate and oppress those who lack it.The original script was penned almost thirty years ago, and if anything it’s only more relevant now than it was then. That alone justifies The Ivalice Chronicles.
Beyond that, the original Final Fantasy Tactics remains the gold standard by which all other Tactical RPGs are judged, and for good reason.Though many games certainly aspire to its heights, very few, before or since, have even come close to rivaling it. If you have played a Tactical RPG in the past two decades, and it was not borrowing heavily from XCOM, it was almost certainly borrowing from Final Fantasy Tactics. It may not have created the genre, but it codified and popularized it.
With full-voice acting (by a stellar cast), and all of the quality-of-life improvements I could reasonably ask for, this is by far the best version of the game, for anyone looking to experience the work that has stuck with me long after I played it for the first time in my high school years, with the PSP version, The War of the Lions.
I implore you to play it at least once if you haven’t already. It is next to Disco Elysium as one of the most important video games of all time.
And with that, we are finally ready to say “Adieu” to 2025. Though it has been a great year for me personally, I acknowledge that for many out there it’s been disastrous, especially if you follow the news.
I hope you, the person reading this, are able to carve out your own happiness in the year to come. We’re all in this together.
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