Review - Games I Played in 2025

 For a little something different to kick off 2026, I wanted to take a look back at the games I played (or tried to play) during 2026, and give my thoughts on them.
This list will be in chronological order of when I played each game, and I'll provide my thoughts and a final rating for each.

Without further ado, the games.

Pit People

By: Behemoth

Rating: Did Not Finish

Pit People is the fourth game published by Behemoth (alongside Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers, and Battleblock Theater). I would describe it as a monster-collector (Pokémon-like) with a medieval fantasy-ish aesthetic. Instead of adorable monsters, you're recruiting units like Vampires, Reapers, and other more standard fantasy enemy types. The game is enjoyable, and definitely carries that Behemoth charm. The only complaint I remember having was that your units cannot be told to attack specific targets, but rather attack whoever is closest, which is often very unintuitive. Still, I enjoyed the game, and my failure to finish wasn't due to any fault of the game, but moreso my own predilection for becoming sidetracked.

If you like Behemoth games, I'd give Pit People a recommendation.

The Forest

By: Endnight

Rating: 4.5/10

I first found out about this game watching the excellent review by MandaloreGaming. I had tried playing with a few of my friends back in college, but we were never able to get far. The Forest ended up on this year's "list of games in my backlog I'll finally play" (which I did not get very far on, unfortunately). 

Ultimately, I was let down.

The main thing I took from the review was that the Cannibals were an extremely interesting enemy (moreso than the zombies common for most other games of this kind), and I was interested to have to interact with them while trying to survive. Unfortunately, I found the act of surviving to be rather tedious. Clean water is essential, and can only really be obtained in two ways (neither of which are easy or fun). The game is also quite short, so I didn't find much incentive to dig in to the base-building mechanics, especially with how quickly my brief, abortive attempt to do so incited the cannibal horde. The cannibals are certainly still more interesting than generic zombies, but the amount of time I spend staring at cannibals whose AI seemed to only be interested in aura-farming was matched only by the amount of time I spent spamming M1 and getting stunlocked in what is, frankly, extremely uninteresting combat. The final boss was especially guilty of this. That all being said, there were still moments I found myself immersed and enjoying the game, and I think it has some merits going for it - I just think the Forest falls short of its own potential.

Marvel Rivals

By: NetEase

Rating: 8/10

Marvel Rivals is one of the two games that is responsible for me not getting through more of my backlog. It was my second most played game this year, and one I'm certain I will be spending more time on going forward.

I do not play this game competitively - at the time of writing, I've only ever played enough competitive to get up to Gold III for the skins, and I spent a lot of my time in this game playing around with my friends in bot matches. I never played Overwatch competitively either, and ultimately I'm not a competitive-multiplayer kind of person. 

I really enjoy Marvel Rivals, both for what it is, and for my love of early Overwatch, before Blizzard became focused on making the game into an esport. I think the character designs are fun and poppy, there's a lot of nice characterization, even just in the few voicelines during a match, and I think the game plays pretty well. Before Rivals ever came out, I had been tinkering with an idea of my own for a Hero Shooter with more of a focus on the support characters, and I think Rivals accomplishes that goal (perhaps too well). 

Overall, if you miss early Overwatch, like Hero Shooters, or like Marvel, I'd give a recommendation for Marvel Rivals. Worst-case scenario, the game is free.

Wizard With A Gun

By: Galvanic Games

Rating: Did Not Finish

Wizard with a Gun is a twin-stick shooter in which your character repeatedly ventures into a dying world by resetting a time loop to gather artifacts by defeating bosses. I think the game's main loop is compelling enough, and its visuals and audio really sold me on the game (frankly, I'll try any game with a western-inspired soundtrack by Ryan Ike). The game's biggest downfall, in my experience, is that the game's survival elements (resource collection, crafting, exploration, etc.) are really held back by the tight time loop, bringing them into some friction with what would otherwise be a solid loop of time-limited boss hunting.

That being said, I am still determined to finish this game, and I do enjoy it for what it is.

Balatro

By: LocalThunk

Rating: 7.5/10

I'm a big fan of roguelites/roguelikes, and I think Balatro is one of the best new roguelikes I've played. The premise is so simple, it makes you wonder why you never thought of it, and it fits into the category of "you're supposed to break the game" roguelikes, which are my favorite kind. There's a ton of options in the game to refine your deck's potential, and it's really fun to just sit down and do a run when I need to kill a bit of a time. All the little complexities of the game make it a blast to master. My only real complaint is that it is far more RNG-based than many other roguelikes, and I often found little room for skill expression within the game. Knowing what cards you need to win doesn't help when the game just won't put them in the shop.

I also want to take a quick tangent to discuss mods, because Balatro has a lot of very fun mods. Almost all of them are overpowered in one way or another, and I think that's alright, because at the end of the day, Balatro is a game that asks you to try and break it as hard as you can.

If you like roguelikes, want something easy to pick up but with a lot of depth, or want to see what all the buzz is about, I highly recommend Balatro.

Stardew Valley

By: ConcernedApe

Rating: 9.5/10

I had played Stardew Valley before this year, but I decided I was going to finally sit down and get the Perfection achievement. I know lots of people love this game for being relaxing, but frankly, I do not find it relaxing. The fact that there's always a time limit, be that for the day's activities, the week's gifting, or the season's crops leads me to micromanage my actions and try and squeeze as much out of the game as I can. Despite saying all that, I do find the game to be extremely cozy and charming, and I always love returning to the valley for another playthrough. The game's got enough well-integrated, in-depth systems to give plenty of options for one's preferred playstyle while providing alternatives for those who want to try something new. My only real complaint is that it's so information-dense that the wiki practically lives on my second monitor while I'm playing.

I highly recommend Stardew Valley.

Alan Wake

By: Remedy Entertainment

Rating: The best 6.5/10 I've ever played

I'm a huge fan of Control, so I decided I wanted to take the time to play Remedy's cult classic, Alan Wake.

The game is a mess. It has a terrible habit of mixing sections where you need to be extremely conservative with your resource usage (ammo, flashbangs, etc.) and sections where the game removes all your gear, making you feel stupid for not using it when you had the chance. Half the enemies are the most obnoxious designs I could think of, pairing quick enemies who stunlock you with ranged axe-throwers who mess up your attempts to dodge. The movement doesn't feel great, and there's a lot of sections that drag on for way too long.

But with all those complaints still very much present, this game rocks. Bright Falls has such a clear Twin-Peaks feeling to it, and I love Twin Peaks. The game's obligatory "Remedy scene where you kick ass to an Old Gods of Asgard song" section is phenomenal, and I really liked the concept of using the flashlight to make enemies vulnerable. There's also some absolutely phenomenal writing in this game.

Overall, I do recommend Alan Wake, just know what you're getting yourself into.

Control

By: Remedy Entertainment

Rating: 9/10

Now, Control? Control is one of my favorite games of all time. I played it immediately after playing Alan Wake, and man, it's so good. Movement feels good, throwing rocks at people always feels punchy, the Service Weapon's forms are cool to use, and the aesthetic of the game is probably one of my favorite from any piece of media, period. I love the Oldest House and its Brutalist government-building aesthetic, especially with all the red contrasting the presence of the Hiss. I do think this game's Remedy-Old-Gods-of-Asgard sequence is the best out of all of them. The Ashtray Maze is peak gaming. When I played the game originally, I didn't do a lot of the sidequests, and that was a mistake. The sidequests are a lot of fun.

I recommend Control wholeheartedly and unashamedly. This game rules, give it a try.

Cyberpunk 2077

By: CD Projekt RED

Rating: 8.5/10

Besides roguelikes, open-world style RPGs are probably my other most played genre of games (I think Skyrim is still in my top 5, just because of how much I played when I was younger). I think Cyberpunk 2077 does a pretty good job of being one, especially since it's the only open-world RPG I can think of where I've never used the fast-travel system. I exclusively drive places, listening to the radio. I know that the game has a lot of controversy because of its release, and that it's largely been patched into a better game, but I definitely feel like it is now that better game. 

Having played through the game three times (once per lifepath), I really feel like I've become fond of many of the characters (this year's playthrough was the Streetkid/Silverhand fanboy playthrough, and I really found myself liking Johnny's character). I'll almost certainly be back to Night City before too long.

Minecraft

By: Mojang

Rating: Foundational Childhood Experience/10

This was my two-week Minecraft phase, with a new set of mods I put together (as I find making modpacks almost as much fun as playing them). I list Minecraft on here not really to review it - it's the best selling game of all time, for good reason - but because I played it this year, and so it gets to have its spot on my yearly review. I don't need to sell the game to you - go do another two-week Minecraft phase with your friends, it's always worth it.

The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

By: CD Projekt RED

Rating: 8.5/10, but a slightly lower 8.5/10 than I gave CP2077

I haven't ever gotten around to playing the first two Witcher games, and I hardly remembered anything from my first playthrough of W3, so after Cyberpunk and a brief upset in my real life, I decided to spend time in another open world RPG. I ended up really enjoying it. I think Geralt's performance carries the game (which is good, since he's the main character!). His interactions with Ciri are especially good (having a snowball fight at Caer Morhen or trashing Avalac'h's lab were my favorites), and really sell their father-daughter dynamic. My only real complaints are with the difficulty. I found myself dying quite frequently in the early game, before I had access to potions. and I barely felt at risk in the late game. I think the difficulty curve could use a tweak, but otherwise the game play's quite well. I used the Vladimir UI mod for this playthrough, and I cannot recommend it highly enough (although any time I loaded the game, I would have to fix my Rotate Minimap settings, but even then, it was still worthwhile).

I also played the two DLCs (Heart of Stone and Blood and Wine) for the first time, and they were exceptional. The cutscenes were much more dynamic, and the new content was great. Heart of Stone gives you Geralt of Rivia in an Oceans 11 heist, which is stellar, and the entirety of Blood and Wine, with its fairytale-chivalric-France setting, excellent main quest, and some great characters and fights felt like a great capstone to the game.

If you haven't played the DLCs, they're definitely worth it.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

By: Sandfall Interactive

Rating: 9.5/10

I don't need to sing this game's praises, Geoff Keighley already did enough of that at the Game Awards. I do think the game lives up to the praise it was given, and I was really captivated by it. It's not a perfect game - there are parts which lack cohesion, and feel arbitrary from a worldbuilding perspective (why are some of the game mechanics real physical objects while others aren't?), but nothing ever took me out of it. Act 2 definitely does a lot to help contextualize things. Overall, I found the gameplay enjoyable, the voice acting work was stellar, the music was wonderful, and the environments picturesque. I'm not sure what else I can say, other than that Esquie is my favorite character, and I did cry at the end.

Deltarune (Chapters 3 & 4)

By: Toby Fox (and crew)

Rating: 9/10

Deltarune, vis-a-vis Undertale, is a game with a lot of personal significance to me, so I was thrilled to play more of it. Having played Chapters 1 and 2 previously, this review is mostly about the two new chapters. 

I found Chapters 3 to be charming in a big-picture view, but man did those adventure boards drag. I would have much preferred more time in the backstage (especially since TV World is one of my favorite songs in the game). I was quite charmed by Mr. Ant Tenna (as, it seems, were most), and I easily found him to be the strongest part of the chapter. The Chapter 3 "secret" boss was an absolute menace, but beating it made me feel godlike.

I think Chapter 4 is the strongest chapter thusfar, with some great new lore, an amazing Dark World, and a really cinematic boss with a great theme. I actually think Chapter 4's secret boss might be harder than Chapter 3's (but I'm probably just bad at it's special mechanic).

I cannot wait for Chapter 5 (this year!).

Metaphor: ReFantazio

By: Atlus

Rating: Did Not Finish

I won't speak much on Metaphor, because I haven't played much of Metaphor. I got a bit sidetracked (as you'll see soon). I did enjoy what I had played, and I am excited to return to it.

Umamusume: Pretty Derby

By: Cygames

Rating: Eternal Love for my Daughters/10

Umamusume (alongside Marvel Rivals) is the reason I didn't get more done this year. I fell in love with this game. This is the first gacha game I've ever played (and likely will ever play, I don't care for them), and boy does it have some terrible gacha mechanics (200 pulls for pity?! Cygames, please!). However, it has a gameplay loop of training that I greatly enjoy, and more importantly, I became extremely invested in these characters and the real-life horses they were based on. Umamusume got me into actual horse racing (which might have been the point), and now I have a general interest in horses. I started playing this game in July, and I don't think I've missed more than a single day. The funny horse game has consumed my time, and I'm alright with it.

Terraria: Calamity + Wrath of the Gods + Infernum

By: ReLogic (and mod makers!)

Rating: 9/10

Terraria itself is a phenomenal game. This isn't really a review of Terraria.

The Calamity Mod for Terraria is a phenomenal mod, probably one of the best mods for a game I can think of. This isn't really a review of Calamity.

Infernum is a mod to make Calamity harder. It's quite good. This also isn't really a review of Infernum.

So what is this a review of? It's mostly a review of Wrath of the Gods, a mod for Calamity (itself a mod of Terraria) which adds two whole bosses. They are the two wildest, most over-the-top bosses in any game I've played, and really need to be experienced to convey why. The most I can really say is that if you want to know what a Shonen Anime feels like to play, Wrath of Gods is the closest thing I've found.

Hollow Knight: Silksong

By: Team Cherry

Rating: The worst 8.5/10 I've played

I loved Hollow Knight. I played a ton of it. I was very excited for Silksong (though I avoided anything Hollow Knight related because frankly I found their desperation and impatience annoying). So, nine years later, what's the verdict?

I hate this game. It made me so mad, and there's so much in the game that makes me curse Team Cherry. But man, it's so good. I rate it "the worst 8.5/10 I've played" in contrast to Alan Wake's "best 6.5/10 I've played". Alan Wake is objectively not that good, but I still love it. Silksong is objectively really good, but man it makes me want to pound sand. I think they really overused enemies doing 2 masks of damage or double-hitting you. Frankly, with both Steel Soul and 100% completion behind me, I'm probably not returning to the game without heavily modding it to change some decisions I disagree with.

That all aside, from a narrative and setting perspective, I do think that having Hornet be a voices protagonist was a fantastic choice - she brings a lot of character to the game and I like her a lot more in Silksong than in Hollow Knight. The kingdom of Pharloom has a great design, and a lot of areas, especially Mosshome, Coral Tower, Greymoor, and Deep Docks felt quite different from Hollow Knight in a way I greatly appreciated.

FlipWitch: Forbidden Sex Hex

By: Momo Games

Rating: 7.5/10

For my most questionable inclusion on this list, Flipwitch is a very simple metroidvania that I found to be quite charming. Yes, it's a game with sex scenes in it, but I also thought it was quite the fun arcade-style platformer. Movement is a bit floaty, but I got used to it very quickly. The art and animation is well-done, and the music is fantastic. I 100% completed the game in under 9 hours, so it's not a long game, but it was a fun little gem.

Warframe

By: Digital Extremes

Rating: My Most Played Game/10

Warframe is a game I have well over 1000 hours in, and I only played a bit of it this year - specifically coinciding with the release of the new Old Peace update. I won't be giving a particularly in-depth review of Warframe, but I really enjoyed the new update - I found Descendia and Perita Rebellion to be fun new modes, and I really liked the new main quest.

Play Warframe, it's a ton of fun.

Weird West

By: WolfEye Studios

Rating: Still Playing

So I'm not really an immersive sim guy, and Weird West reminded me of that. However, I am a big Westerns guy, so we'll see if that balances things out. As of now, I've only completed the first of the five character stories, so I'll withold most of my judgements until I play more of the game. It certainly has a very appealing style though.

Closing Thoughts

Out of everything I played this year, I think I would place Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Umamusume: Pretty Derby as my two highlights, as both of them really blew my expectations out of the water. That being said, I have accrued a lot of very enjoyable playtime in Terraria, Stardew Valley, Cyberpunk 2077, and Control, so those games also get to sit highly on my list. My biggest letdown of the year was definitely the Forest, a game which I wish I liked more.

What's on the docket for next year? Well, I'm hoping to pick up the DLCs for Dredge, another one of my all-time favorites, so I'll likely be replaying that. I'd also like to grab Songs of Conquest, Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Pacific Drive. My "to-do" list on Steam includes the Dead Space remake, Dusk, Frostpunk, Ori and the Blind Forest, Outer Wilds, Potionomics, and Titanfall 2. And I'm sure I'll end up replaying plenty of my old favorites.

I'm excited for 2026! Let me know what your favorite game you played this years was!

-Rabbit

Fogbank - The Five Syndicates

 When the world fell to flame and fire and war, many fled to the perceived safety of the subterranean world, especially the gargantuan caverns which hold the Blackwaters, a massive underground sea with its own ecology. The greatest of the subterranean cities was Fogbank - so named for the rolling fogs that surround the island most of the time. The island on which the city is built rests in utter blackness, so the dark and the fog are pierced by the bright lights of the city, a city which never sleeps. This is the city of Fogbank, the bright jewel of the Blackwaters, the greatest city under the earth.

The Elves of Saga

 Previously, we've discussed the Dwarves of Saga, the world's most powerful and advanced people (according to the Dwarves, anyways). In that post, I mentioned how many fantasy settings seem to have an overabundance of different kinds of Elves - wood elves, dark elves, blood elves, sea elves, and so on. This is my take on Elves, or at least the Elves found in the world of Saga.

The Elves of Saga are the most widely varied of any folk in the world. While there are broad trends in Elvish culture, Elves are so fiercely individualistic and ever-changing that establishing a single truth about Elves as a whole is nearly impossible. While Dwarves and Men are consigned to labor under the established laws of reality (Men have some sway over such things, but that is a subject for another time), Elves shape reality with their belief, making it conform to them, rather than the other way around. 

The Ghostly Magic of Ectophagy

 Though part of human culture for many centuries prior, the existence of Ghosts was not conclusively proven until 1886, when famed Occultist and Spiritualist leader Charles Cornelius Ward was able to produce a "physical" sample - the world's first Ectoplasm. This discovery led to a boom in popularity for the Spiritualist movement, which swept across the United States and Europe as interest in the world of Spirits became part of the public zeitgeist. As increased study of the newly discovered phenomenon continued, the production of Ectoplasm became cheaper and more widespread. It wasn't long before the first "Ghost-Eater" was born - a human being with the ability to utilize injested Ectoplasm to accomplish wild supernatural effects.

The increased interaction between the Spirit World and Earth began to weaken barriers which had kept the two worlds apart, and creatures of Spirit would occasionally begin to cross over, manifesting as monstrous Ectoplasmic forms, and wreaking havoc in their confusion and frustration. Humanity addressed this problem the way they knew best - not by ceasing to explore their new discovery, but by weaponizing the abilities of the Ghost-Eaters, putting them to work against wandering Ghosts, as well as utilizing them in more human-focused conflicts, be those military or against rogue Ghost-Eaters involved with criminal elements.

Redesigning D&D 5th Edition - Starting with Classes!

 I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons since I was a child, but I didn't really come to understand the mechanics and design of the game until I started DMing using the newly-released 5th Edition in 2015. That was when I started taking an interest in not only running the game, but changing it, making my own additions and modifications to the core in order to turn it into the experience I wanted it to be.

Since the release of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (2020), I've been unimpressed or outright disappointed by most of the new releases for 5th Edition, including the outright revision of some existing mechanics, advertised as "optional", but taken as the default option going forward. Suffice to say, it got me thinking about what I actually wanted from the game, from its core options, and from its future. It got me to re-examine some of my assumptions about what worked and what didn't, and how I might change things to work more to my liking. I decided that, even if nothing more than a design challenge for myself, I wanted to redesign 5th Edition into something I was happy with. This series will be doing just that.

Infernalis - A Hierarchy of Demons

Though they may seem wild and chaotic (and in truth, they certainly are), Demons also have a hierarchy by which they operate. It is not a construct of society or logic, but an immutable part of their being, forcing them into an eternal contest of strength, wits, and the unrelenting drive to raise their own station at the expense of others. This organization is known as the Infernal Hierarchy, and a Demon's place in it determines their power.

When a Demon is spawned, it comes into being with a number. The higher a demon's number, the less powerul the Demon is, and the lower the number, the stronger the Demon. The only way a Demon can rise in power is to wholly consume the essence of a higher-ranking Demon - their body, memories, and even personality. In doing so, the Demon's number rises to that of their prey. However, they do not only inherit the power of their prey's former number, but also imprints and fragments of their memories and personality. In this way, higher-numbered Demons are almost immortal amongst their kind, as the higher the number and power of the Demon consumed, the more powerfully it will imprint upon its new host. The cruelty of the Infernal Hierarchy ensures that even when Demons of weaker numbers triumph, that victory is short-lived.

Infernalis - Devils That Dwell Among Us

 The Demons first arrived during an event that would come to be known as the Infernal Incursion. It is still unknown exactly what caused the Incursion event, though a number of high-ranking Demons are suspected as culprits. The exact motivation behind the triggering of the Incursion event is also unclear, though it is believed to be part of some larger infernal power play, introducing living mortal souls to mix as some form of trick or advantage in a grander scheme. Whatever the cause may have been, the results have been clear - a partial merging of the mortal and demonic planes, an overlap allowing Demons to escape the tortures of Hell and find greener pastures preying upon the living. Millions upon millions of Demons swept from their home and into ours, bringing with them chaos, destruction, and a total upheaval to the world as it existed before. To many religious types, this event was the prophesied end of days, the scouring of the sinful from the world. For a time, lots of people bought into that idea. Wars raged against supernatural creatures once thought to dwell only in heavy-handed morals and nightmares. Famines and disease killed nearly as many.