When we recently looked back at The Game Awards' most anticipated game, it's clear that the biggest game tends to be the one we're all looking forward to. Shocking, I know. Allowing for a few game delays and one massive bug (looking at you, No Man's Sky), the Most Anticipated game is doing very well in GOTY next year. So it stands to reason that we consider Grand Theft Auto 6 to be the frontrunner for the game of 2025. But I'm not sure it'll be mine.
I have nothing against GTA per se, but I thought 4 was better than 5, and I think the two best games Rockstar has made are the two Red Dead Redemptions. I'd be much more excited about the prospect of RDR 3 than I am GTA 6, and I'd consider the cowboy adventure to top it this year. I will be playing GTA 6, I expect to like GTA 6, but I am not sure if it is for my own GOTY. I actually have no idea what my GOTY might be next year.
My game of the year is usually unexpected
On the one hand, it is again obvious. The whole point of Game of the Year is to say “this is the best game of all the games I've played” and if I haven't played them yet I can't pick a favorite. But the best games tend to be the ones that surprise me, and that makes waiting for 2025 an exciting prospect. They are always the ones you least suspect.
I named Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth as my game of the year this year, and while I enjoyed Ichiban's previous outing, I didn't go into 2024 with eyes just for him. While it's great as a unique experience, my personal emotional connection to it (and especially the time I played it) was a major factor in its placement. In second place was 1000xResist, which I had no idea about at the beginning of the year. Third place was Balatro and the like.
In 2023 it was (along with roughly 80 percent of the population) Baldur's Gate 3. I didn't play in Early Access – and I rarely do, as a rule – and while I'd heard good things and expected it to scratch the D&D itch, I never expected that it will take over the world. No one did. Remember when he moved to avoid a collision with the Starfield?
In 2022 it was Marvel's Midnight Suns, another game I wasn't expecting when the game started, but on reflection I wish I'd named Immortality as my number one. No, I haven't heard of that before either. In 2021, the first time I picked on TheGamer was Life is Strange: True Colors. I don't remember if it was announced before 2021, but if you gave me a list of 20 random games from the year before I played them and asked me to pick the one I liked, I think that's the only year . I would be right.
I haven't even heard of the best games of 2025 yet
I don't seem to have a personal best on my way to 2025. GTA 6 might well end up in controversy, but it won't run away with it. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is clearly one to watch after Infinite Wealth, as is Lost Records after True Colors. Split Fiction, Avowed, Doom: The Dark Ages and Pokemon Legends: ZA are also available at all good bookies with relatively short odds.
There's another obvious factor in the latter game – we're getting the Switch 2 (hybrid console by any other name) in 2025, and I expect it to launch with a mammoth catalog. Who doesn't love a 3D Mario game, right? Animal Crossing would be a contender if I made a list in 2020, so the sequel is worth watching, and maybe we'll get a fantastic Kirby, or Fire Emblem, or Kid Icarus, which would all be in the mix. if it lives up to its predecessors.
But between Immortality, 1000xResist, and Balatro, it's very likely that at least one major contender for the crown won't be on my radar at all. It could be an indie game I only vaguely know about, like Despelote, Time Flies, or Bye Sweet Carole, or a game I've never heard of, missed at launch, and played it months later when someone on the site it annoys me. Eric or Ben, probably.
My brain is still in GOTY mode, and while I know it's important to appreciate a game for the experience of playing it and not put it on some arbitrary annual list, doing said list pushes me into new experiences to appreciate, so I think it balances out. Maybe my GOTY 2025 is Yakuza, maybe it's GTA 6, maybe it's a game you and I and everyone but the three-person team that makes it have never heard of. But this coming year is an all-you-can-eat buffet, and I'm ready to pile my plate high.
- Platforms
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PS5, Xbox Series X|S
- Released
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2025-00-00
