The Rogueies: Cass' Choice

The big success story from this year is obviously Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which enjoyed a nine-award sweep at The Game Awards. I’m a pedestrian, uncultured gamer, so I haven’t found the time to dive into Expedition 33 quite yet. Please, forgive me – I’ll get to it eventually. In my defense, this has been a tremendous year for games, and I dabbled in a ton of titles across various genres. My favorites of 2025 include one very big game, and four smaller gems.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

I love an immersive sim, and few are as broad yet flexible as the Kingdom Come games. Henry returns after the events of the first campaign, now secure in his position as a noble’s son and a knight. Unfortunately, war is brewing, and a mission that seems like it’ll be a simple milk run goes astray. Henry’s companions are slaughtered, his horse and dog lost, and he’s stuck with failson Hans Capon. 

Once the lengthy tutorial ends and Henry is unleashed onto the world, I was surprised by how much depth and character there was to the world of Bohemia in 1403. I stumble across a courier who lost a letter; I ask him for details, and he admits he doesn’t know how to read so he can’t tell you anything. Instead, he asks that I beat him up so he can play it off as a mugging, and I’m happy to oblige. I sneak into an inn and sneakily slurp a few ladles of stew; I’m too broke to maintain my own rations. I steal a wealth of goods, which I think is my ticket to stability, but the storekeep can tell I stole all this stuff, so he is able to gouge me on the price. I’ve never had so much fun wandering the countryside, running from wolves, and counting my coppers.

As Henry finds his horse and dog, arms back up, and builds a reputation, I stumble into the semi-historical main story of Wenceslaus IV fighting off the invading Sigismund, King of Hungary. This is about more than just lines on a map — Henry wants revenge on Sigismund, holding him responsible for murdering Henry’s parents. How I pursue those goals is up to me; there are so many systems, working so well in concert, that Bohemia feels like a real world filled with likable characters and intriguing side quests.

Jump Space

Sea of Thieves used to be a mainstay in my library, and it’s given me so many fond memories that I have to say it’s one of my favorite games of all time. But the inability to escape from PvP, combined with some development decisions from Rare, means the game now sits on my shelf. Enter Jump Space, a similar style of game that focuses on PvE, while offering the same kind of challenge.

In Jump Space, me and three friends set off on a space journey. We all work together to maintain the ship and, when a space battle breaks out, that can get fairly hectic. We have to manage our supplies, keep turrets armed and the hull repaired, and keep a pilot at the helm ... all while boarding their ship or trying to blast them to the void. 

Our crew also makes stops planet-side to explore old facilities and complete missions, but this is just as dangerous as staying aboard the ship. Developer Keepsake Games does a fantastic job at keeping the action seamless, making a round of Jump Space feel like I’m locked in as a sci-fi adventurer. The game is still in early access, but the core loop is so strong that I’m buckled in for the ride.

Expelled!

Expelled! is a companion piece to inkle’s previous game, Overboard!, released in 2021. Overboard! is a delightfully cheeky game about throwing your terrible husband in the sea and getting away with it, and Expelled! opens with considerably lower stakes. You are Verity Amersham, a scholarship student at Miss Mulligatawney's School for Promising Girls. 

The year is 1922, this school is your shot at higher society, and everyone thinks that you threw a prefect out of the stained glass window in the library. In order to prevent your expulsion, you need to find someone else to blame. While framing another suspect, you might start to realize that this school hides dark secrets beneath the surface, and your seemingly uncomplicated classmates all hold a key to the conspiracy.

I love a good mystery game, and Expelled! manages to keep the plot interesting with lots of twists and turns, sympathetic characters, and a protagonist who refuses to take the blame. Both Expelled! and Overboard! are a hoot, and I thoroughly enjoyed unraveling the mysteries hidden in Miss Mulligatawney's School for Promising Girls.

Consume Me!

Being a teenager sucks, but it’s also a time in your life where you have the freedom to experiment with fashion, figure out your friendships, and cultivate an identity. Consume Me! is an autobiographical tale from this complicated life stage starring Jenny. The player navigates through Jenny’s life one day at a time. Similar to titles like Florence and Unpacking, daily activities and conversations play out through simple mini-games. 

Through these minigames and the connective cutscenes, we get to learn more about Jenny’s relationship with her family, her struggle with maintaining a diet, and the anxiety that defines her social life. I’ve left teenage stresses behind, but Jenny’s story is presented so honestly and clearly that I felt teleported back to that time in my life. Jenny’s struggle with food and healthy eating habits felt very familiar, and there were simple moments where the mechanics conspired to make me incredibly sad. I, too, have woken up in the middle of the night after not eating all day and shamefully binged on convenience store snacks. It’s not something I’ve seen reflected in a game before, but Consume Me! manages to pull it off.

Consume Me! is absolutely packed with character; every frame of each minigame is bursting with joy. I regularly laughed out loud at the silly Jenny drawings that pop up after doing some light aerobics or walking the dog, and there’s a sense of lighthearted humor throughout most of the game which is wonderfully balanced with an authentic, earnest, and personal story of a disordered relationship with food.

Cass’ Game of the Year - Look Outside

Look Outside puts the player in an apartment building seemingly under siege by some potent cosmic force. To look outside, even through a reflection or photograph, is to become hideously mutated and perhaps lose all humanity. The protagonist is Sam, an unemployed hermit with a few friends in the building, must survive for fifteen days.

If you’re familiar with classic JRPGs, then you’ll be able to pick up Look Outside right away. Sam scavenges the building when he can, collecting party members and defeating the building's denizens who have turned hostile after witnessing the Visitor outside. After finding supplies, survivors, and earning some experience, Sam heads back to his home base. The apartment slowly becomes filled with friends, and it provides Sam a place to rest. He can also play video games, cook, and prepare his arsenal for the next trip out. 

The building itself is warping under the influence of the Visitor, creating spaces that should be too big for the structure and binding hapless witnesses to massive pieces of machinery. Look Outside offers some phenomenal boss fights, often building up suspense by having the creature advance upon the player over the course of the fight. There are many ways for the story to end, and even more ways for Sam to die — or fall into some hideous fate worse than death. 

Despite the onslaught of horror, Look Outside is a fundamentally empathetic and optimistic game. It is beautiful, it is horrible, and it is awe-inspiring all at once. It was made by a small team over the course of months, and yet this game hit me harder than competitors with ten times the budget and manpower. Look Outside is a perfect example of making art for sickos instead of chasing crowds, and I’m glad the game was rewarded with a successful launch and critical acclaim.