The Rogueies winners, part 2 and our GOTY

With the new year here and our second round of audience votes tallied, it's time to crown our second round of Rogueie winners. Like last time, you can scroll to the bottom for our special GOTY podcast (including the free video version).

If you missed part 1 of the Rogueies, you can find them here.

Let's get into it.

Best Story — Look Outside

Look Outside is a very strange game. There’s a cosmic horror hanging outside your window, and to even glance at it is to surrender your flesh and sanity. The apartment building you live in has warped, growing larger than its physical limitations would otherwise allow. Strange visitors appear at your door every night, haggling for supplies and offering precious video games. There’s an evil, soul consuming hat you gotta watch out for.

And yet, all of this comes together into an incredibly compelling narrative. This is a game with many different endings, especially if you consider all of the terrible fates protagonist Sam can meet. Some of these endings are a fate worse than death, and some are these strangely optimistic and beautiful looks at how humanity might come together after an apocalypse. There are mysteries explained in just enough detail to leave the player satisfied, but with enough left up to the imagination to keep the setting strange and mysterious. Look Outside made me laugh and cry, and it owes that weight to its excellent story.

— CM

Best Story audience poll winner: Dispatch

Best Indie Game — Blue Prince

Blue Prince is the epitome of an indie game. It kind of had to be an indie title. The unexpected blend of point-n-click puzzler with a roguelike just isn’t worth the risk for a big studio. The painstakingly crafted world is so much more of a personal passion project than could be pulled off by a big group of developers.

And Blue Prince is just so, so good. Every part of it works so perfectly to create such a perfect whole — it was my personal game of the year and nothing else even came close.

— JP

Best Indie Game audience poll winner: Skate Story

Best AAA Game — Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

It’s really hard for this category not to come across like “most money,” and I really want to avoid doing that, because it does Kojima and his team a disservice here.

But Jesus, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach sure looks like it cost a boatload of money. There are the A-list actors from the last game back for more, George Miller’s facial capture is all over this damn thing, they got one of the rising (I know she’s been around for a long time, but she had a great year) stars of her generation in Elle Fanning, Chvrches runs a goddamn zoo. It’s crazy, man.

In 2025, AAA almost feels like something that makes people want to pull away for something in favor of indie or even AA games. But it’s important to remember what that AAA budget offers a game when used well: scope. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is better than its predecessor in every single way, and I love that original game. What Kojima Productions have managed to do with Sony’s money is nothing short of astounding here, turning what could be one of the most niche and strange video games ever made into a palatable title for the masses, all without losing what made Death Stranding Death Stranding? Come on, man.

Kojima has always impressed, and I’m not going to make any kind of grand claim that DS2 is his most impressive yet. But it’s a reminder of why I’m so glad he went the route he did with Sony and big publishers rather than scale down to a scrappier squad. Kojima is a man made to build epics, and Death Stranding 2 is the perfect case for that particular point.

— RG

Best AAA Game audience poll winner: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Most Innovative Game — Consume Me

Consume Me! Is familiar at first glance; it builds off the success of personal narrative games like Florence and Unpacking. What makes it innovative is the way that it adds RPG systems, mini-games, and little challenges to the game in order to simulate the day-to-day drama of a teenager’s life. Whether I’m playing a little game of Tetris with veggies and protein, scrubbing down the bathroom for some extra spending money, or planning a week of dates with a cute boy, I’m locked in. 

I’ve never played a game quite like Consume Me!, and while part of that is undoubtedly due to the deeply personal and autobiographical nature of the game, part of it is due to the harmony of minigames, RPG leveling systems, visual novel storytelling, and the unique cadence of following Jenny’s calendar.

There’s no game like Consume Me!, but I hope it serves as an inspiration for the next generations of developers. Its storytelling is fearless, funny, and deeply affecting. I’m glad to see an experiment turn out so well, and hopefully there are more games like this in our future.

— CM

Most Innovative Game audience poll winner: Consume Me

Game of the Year runners up

Before we announce our winner, let's get through the rest of our top ten list. Every one of these games have been on our other Rogueie lists, so we won't belabor the point that they're all great any further here.

Game of the Year 10th place — Donkey Kong Bananza

Game of the Year 9th place — 9 Kings

Game of the Year 8th place — Absolum

Game of the Year 7th place — Look Outside

Game of the Year 6th place — Dispatch

Game of the Year 5th place — Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Game of the Year 4th place — Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Game of the Year 3rd place — Blue Prince

Game of the Year runner up — Hades 2

Game of the Year winner — Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Let me clue you in to an industry secret: the memory of the gaming press is very, very short.

In order to do this gig, you have to play a lot of different games. This is a blessing 95% of the time, don’t get me wrong (and we thank you all for your support), but it does mean that things you really want to spend more time with tend to pass you by. And games that came out even last year don’t stick in the memory the way they did before you started working in the industry.

With that in mind, you must understand how incredible it is that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is our Game of the Year for 2025.

I have been voting for my GOTY at a major site every November for nearly a decade. And at the end of every year, people go “everyone remember that X game came out in December so it’s eligible for next year’s awards. Make sure to write that down to vote if you liked it next year,” and nobody ever remembers. But MachineGames did such perfect work with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle that at least three of us at Rogue remembered to bring up that it should be eligible for our awards this year.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle benefits from a bunch of different things, all of which have helped make the movie franchise a massive success. First, it’s filled with great performances from people that know just the right line to walk between serious historical fiction and whimsical action. Second, it has some astounding set pieces that allow the globe trotting adventure to really shine. And third, punching Nazis will never go out of fashion (no matter what Twitter tries to tell me).

I always had faith that this game would be great, because I can’t imagine anyone better than those who revived Wolfenstein to build an Indiana Jones game. But the way they perfectly nailed the dungeons and the puzzles, the way Indy talks to himself like Harrison Ford does while also offering hints to the player. Even the combat, which mostly relies on fisticuffs over firearms. It’s all stellar.

I wouldn’t tell you off the top of my head that Indiana Jones is one of the more important film franchises to my childhood, but when I play this game, it reminds me of all the times I watched the movies with my dad. I grew up religious, and my dad used to work with the church to teach classes to people looking into getting baptized. He always tried to make stuff like that fun, so when my parents would do marriage mentoring to people, they’d show scenes from The Princess Bride, stuff like that. For baptism class, my dad would bring in our Last Crusade VHS to show Indy conquering the faith-based challenges in the temple of the grail. And I remember sitting in that room, after church, waiting to leave and watching that part of the movie over and over again. It’s burned into my brain, and I loved sharing it with my dad. 

But I think about moments from The Great Circle the same way, like the confrontation with the giant snake, navigating the submarine lost in the mountains, or the fountain puzzle hidden inside Vatican City. And it makes me want to share those moments with my dad the way we shared the movies together when I was young.

Everyone recognizes that power in movies, but games don’t often click that same way with the older generations. Thankfully my dad is more open to games (he loved God of War’s 2018 reboot, and my wife regularly quote the text he sent me when he finished it: my son is Loki?), but to be able to share with him a game like this from a franchise that we’ve loved together for decades? And for me to be able to share it with him knowing it’s an amazing video game and one of the best Indy stories ever made? That’s a true gift. And it’s just one of many reasons why 2024’s Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is Rogue’s 2025 Game of the Year.

— RG

Game of the Year audience poll winner: Blue Prince

Rogue Signal's GOTY special, pt. 2

Check out our video podcast (above) or the audio version (below)!

We discuss each of the awards, what our criteria was, why each game got nominated, and why we ultimately went with the winners we did. We also go through each of the games in our top 10 list of best games, including our GOTY!

You can find the audio version of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and many other podcast services!

The podcast will be back later this month, and the website return to normal from GOTY time on Jan. 5. Thanks for all of your support in 2025. We look forward to bringing you more Rogue recommendations, reviews, guides, and news in 2026.