(Image credit: Kaizen Game Works)

I am sure for many, 2025 will go down as the year of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It utterly swept the Game Awards, becoming the highest winner in the show's 11-year history and being the first studio debut to nab the coveted Game of the Year award.

We love to look back on years by the games that defined them: 2023 was very much The Year of Baldur's Gate, and Elden Ring was the videogame mascot of 2022. But honestly? It doesn't feel quite right doing that this year. 2025 has been home to a dizzying array of incredibly cool, and interesting concepts nailed by development studios of all sizes. And I kind of love that, at least for me, I can't pinpoint a single game that has represented my entire year.

(Image credit: Sandfall Interactive)

Clair Obscur is not excluded from this praise—its homage to JRPGs of the late '90s with Sandfall's French twist is well-deserving of its success—but I don't remember the last time I was able to dive into so many new games that were, well, different. Stuff I had just not seen before, or refined concepts that were able to breathe new life into existing spaces.

Blue Prince is a game that received zero awards at Geoff Keighley's trailer bonanza—it lost out on both to Clair Obscur—but is one of the most unique things I played this year. An ever-changing mansion where I have to slot random rooms together in the hopes of making it to the end, puzzling out mysteries along the way. It's a game that I admittedly wasn't able to gel with in the end, but one that I feel was absolutely deserving of our very own Best Design award.

(Image credit: Raw Fury)

Blending an RNG-heavy roguelite with a puzzler where I could spend several runs just trying to get the right rooms I needed for the solution is a bold design choice, one that paid off for so many people on our team. Were I not to have a dopamine-addled rat living in my brain and a little more patience, I am sure it would have for me too. Despite not being in love with everything Blue Prince put my way, it's hard to deny just how excellent its entire premise and execution is.

To a T is another game that didn't quite land with me but I couldn't help but appreciate it for how much it tried to do something different. Less of a videogame and more of an interactive TV show from the Katamari Damacy creator, it's an endearing story about embracing your differences and occasionally using your teen protagonist's T-shaped build to fly on top of the school roof.