The best new video games of 2025 so far
We’re a few months into 2025 now, and already we’ve played some all-timers. Several major studios pushed their games from 2024 to 2025, for one thing — the long-awaited Assassin’s Creed Shadows captured several of our hearts, as did the surprisingly deep fantasy lore of Avowed (featuring Garrus voice actor Brandon Keener as a beloved party member). There have also been some stellar smaller games in the mix that have made their mark on the year, like the delicious brainteaser factory that is Blue Prince and Cowboy Bebop simulator Citizen Sleeper 2. We play a lot of games here at Polygon, and we’ve got a range of genre experts here as well, all of whom have convened to tell you about the very best games that have come out so far this year. To help you keep up as the months go by, we’ve collected this list of the very best, and we’ll keep it updated through the end of the year. Games here are listed in reverse chronological order, so you’ll get to see the most recent ones up top. We’ve also included a short section at the bottom for one great game that came out late last year, after our staff voted on the best games of 2024.How we pick the best new games of the yearPolygon’s staff consistently keeps up with new video games, playing them as they are released and adding to this list with the best of the best across all platforms. We prioritize quality, unique artistic vision, and variety — different genres, different vibes, different approaches to the medium — to make sure every reader finds multiple options that interest them, as well as new games they may not have heard of.The best new games of 2025 so farBlue Prince$27$3010% off$27Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series XThe goal of Blue Prince is as simple as it is paradoxical: Find the 46th room in a home with 45 rooms. Each day, you will awake, enter the foyer of a yet-to-be-built mansion, and open one of the doors. Behind it, you will find three blueprints dealt from a deck of room types: kitchens, gardens, libraries, etc. You’ll construct the room, inspect it for clues, and then open a door to build another. You may try to arrange the rooms in such a way that a path winds from the south entrance toward the mysterious antechamber along the northern wall. On your journey from point A to point B, however, you will discover the 46th room is just one of dozens of mysteries. The path to the game’s conclusion isn’t set along a straight line of yarn, but found within a tangled knot.Bring a notepad and a pen. Create a screen capture folder on your computer desktop, because you’ll be spamming F12. And absolutely find a friend to play alongside you, so you don’t terrify your non-gaming friends and family with looping theories about tiny text hidden on the family photo in the dark room or the fertile dirt beneath the upper corners of the east wing that surely means something to the larger puzzle, if only you could deduce what. —Chris PlanteRead Jay Castello’s full review of Blue Prince.$40Where to play: Windows PCVille Kallio’s games are not for everyone. They are unabashedly idiosyncratic, visually abrasive, and mechanically dense to a confounding degree, and all the better for it. Psycho Patrol R is a strange beast of a game, a “policing and punishment” immersive sim set in a world teetering on the brink of collapse on a political, environmental, and psychological level. You’ll pilot a customizable bipedal mech, gather clues and investigate an emergent stream of cases, and ventilate whole swaths of deranged assailants who won’t hesitate to shoot twice and think never. It’s a nightmarish, mind-bending experience where every quest is a side quest and every moment of adversity is an opportunity for experimentation. —Toussaint Egan$40 at SteamAssassin’s Creed Shadows$70$70Where to play: PlayStation 5, Widnows PC, Xbox Series XAfter a lot of controversy about cultural accuracy in the lead-up to its release, Assassin’s Creed Shadows came out to critical and fan acclaim — including from Japanese journalists who enjoyed the game’s setting in feudal Japan and its inclusion of the historic figure Yasuke. The game is a worthy installment in the long-standing franchise due to its excellent stealth mechanics, beautiful visuals, and fascinating dual protagonists: Naoe, a shinobi assassin, and Yasuke, a Black samurai. While its pacing and repetitive quests could use some work, we can’t help but keep returning to the game to flip into some haystacks or decapitate a daimyo. —Zoë HannahRead Grant Stoner’s full review of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.$70Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series XLongtime Monster Hunter vets will assure you that Wilds is a lot easier and more streamlined than any previous entry in the series, and for some of them, that came as a bit of a surprise and a disappointment. But for those of us for whom this was our first Monster Hunter, such as the author of this blurb, the changes are very welcome. I can only imagine how much more complicated previous entries in this series were, since it’s got so much going on as it is; mastering its many text-packed UI screens is key to maximizing your effectiveness in combat, and combat is the main event here. This game series is exactly what it says on the tin — you fight a monster, you take its parts and turn them into gear to wear to better protect yourself in the next fight, and then you fight another monster — and that core gameplay loop is extraordinarily satisfying. Wilds is approachable and chock-full of the pure, undiluted fun of bopping a kaiju on the head with a comically large hammer over and over again until it falls down. —Maddy MyersRead Kazuma Hashimoto’s full review of Monster Hunter Wilds.$8Where to play: Windows PCIn a year already jam-packed with exciting AAA releases, it’s a narrative desktop simulator quietly released back in February that’s left one of the most lasting impressions on me so far. In Faceminer, players assume the role of a contract employee for a data harvesting firm, clicking through batches of human faces mined from social media and other less savory sources. As I elaborated in my review, Wristwork’s game critiques the ethics of artificial intelligence, surveillance capitalism, and indiscriminate data collection by implicating the player as one of these industries’ beneficiaries, amassing vast quantities of wealth and influence as the world quite literally burns around you. It may not be the best game of 2025, but it’s certainly the most 2025 game I’ve played this year so far. —TE$8 at SteamLike a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii$50$6017% off$50Where to play: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series XIt would have been so, so easy for Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii to feel like an empty asset flip, just an opportunity to capitalize on Infinite Wealth’s success in bringing the franchise to Hawaii. Instead, the latest idiosyncratic open-world delight from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio redefined what an asset flip can mean, bringing new life, new character, and new stories to the intricately designed Hawaii environment Infinite Wealth introduced.Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii has everything you’d want from a game in this franchise with that title: a wacky premise, familiar characters, racing minigames, dating minigames, Pokémon-inspired minigames, video game minigames, animals you can summon in battle, animals you can keep as pets, eyepatches, a hidden pirate city with a pirate coliseum, and thrilling pirate battle mechanics that lack the required grind of other pirate games. It’s the best time I’ve had playing an open-world game this year; even though I had already explored a good chunk of its world last year, I did it all again happily. To make something so familiar feel so fresh is quite the feat. —Pete VolkRead Kaile Hultner’s full review of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.Avowed$90$90Where to play: Windows PC, Xbox Series XAvowed might present as Skyrim: New Vegas, and while it’s reductive to sum it up as such, it’s… Look, that’s a very efficient way to describe it. The high-fantasy trappings, the first-person perspective, the Bethesda-fied art of swinging a sword in one hand and shooting lightning out of the other — Avowed quite effectively fills the 14-year-long Elder Scrolls void. But Avowed is tighter and more intentionally crafted. Across a handful of distinct biomes (rather than one “if you see that mountain, you can go to it”-sized open world), you travel with four sharply written companions, including the guy who voices Mass Effect’s Garrus (Brandon Keener). Most nooks and dungeons lead to something interesting, whether an item for the game’s confounding crafting system or a side quest with a legitimate narrative arc. To wit, nearly every quest in the game results in a true moral quandary of a choice, the consequences of which you’ll have to deal with one way or another. Like the most unforgettable RPGs, while there’s a fairly compelling overarching story here (about raging hallucinogenic tree gods or whatever), it’s not nearly as compelling as the unique one you’ll tell yourself along the way. —Ari NotisRead Jay Castello’s full review of Avowed.Keep Driving$00Where to play: Windows PCThere’s nostalgia for a specific time or period — and there’s also nostalgia for a specific time of life. Keep Driving is a funny, capricious, and poetic indie game about what it feels like to go on a rootless, aimless road trip in your early 20s, when dreams are big, money is short, hitchhikers are annoying, and anything is possible. It has an immaculately scuzzy soundtrack, atmospheric pixel art, and turn-based road events; they gel with a clever rule system, randomized events, and a randomized road map into a machine for generating the random encounters, minor disasters, and beautiful boredom of the perfect lost summer. —Oli WelshRead Oli’s full review of Keep Driving.$0 at Steam$60Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series XKingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a massive buffet of a game, and I spent my first 15 hours or so just skulking around the edges, sneaking in and grabbing a stray dinner roll or a handful of mashed potato before getting relentlessly beat up by a pack of wolves, a lone soldier, or a pair of brigands. I play as Henry, the luckless protagonist of the first game, fresh off that massive campaign. My simple mission as a messenger goes wrong, my companions are killed, and I’m left in rural Bohemia with a sword, a rude nobleman, and none of the tools or experience from the first game.Before long, I find myself mired in the stories of the local village folk. I agree to steal a fancy lute, find my friendly dog, and learn how to pick my fights. Slowly, Henry becomes a capable combatant, and developer Warhorse did an excellent job making a sword fight feel like a back-and-forth between opponents. I find myself relishing the opportunity to fight instead of fleeing at the first sign of conflict. The more I explore, the more I’m rewarded with an incredibly rich world full of clever quest design. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a hefty time investment, and the journey is complicated by some jank and rough edges, but it’s a memorable experience. The epic, historical storyline is punctuated by random encounters, ridiculous scenarios, and the occasional stop to enjoy the beautiful scenery. —Cass Marshall$25Where to play: Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series XCitizen Sleeper was one of my favorite games of 2022, and the sequel, Starward Vector, lived up to the lofty expectations set by the original. Once again, I found myself completely gripped by the evocative writing, colorful characters, and fleshed-out world design from designer Gareth Damian Martin. They are one of the most fascinating creators working in games today, combining the kind of thoughtful prose you might find in a novel with TTRPG-style dice mechanics to keep things strategically interesting.Picking up directly after the events of the first game, Starward Vector takes you to new corners of the evocative sci-fi setting, meeting new people and new challenges. Like the first game, the overall thrust of the narrative is a quest for freedom and a desire to break away from the shackles of corporate control. The game’s systems evoke a sense of danger around every corner, with a clock constantly ticking down to the arrival of the next threat, meaning it can exude a sense of hope in the face of despair without feeling saccharine. —PVRead Diego Nicolás Argüello’s full review of Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector.The Forever Winter$30$30Where to play: Windows PCThe Forever Winter might have technically been released back in September of last year, but it’s only as of the game’s 0.3 update in March that the survival-horror extraction shooter has begun to come into its own. The debut title from Washington-based Fun Dog Studios pits players in a battle of attrition, combing through the detritus of a war-torn Earth picked apart by monstrous factions in order to survive. While the game’s moment-to-moment combat and exploration mechanics are exhilarating, it’s The Forever Winter’s phantasmagorical art design that keeps me crawling back for just one more run after another. And with several revamped systems, including an update to the game’s controversial water system, it’s never been easier to enlist your friends to come along for the ride. Scavenge for resources, loot the dead, and outgun (or outrun) man-made horrors beyond your comprehension to survive long enough to tell the tale. —TERead Toussaint’s full review of The Forever Winter.$30 at Steam$40Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series XThe debut title from Yellow Brick Games punches above its weight — in a human-sized-warrior-versus-titan-robot way. Eternal Strands melds familiar elements, from Shadow of the Colossus-like encounters to dystopian backdrops and RPG skill trees, into a physics-focused adventure game that kept me tearing through every stray fetch quest. A proper-noun-heavy fantasy tale, the game follows “weaver” Brynn as she explores “The Enclave,” a city walled off by “The Veil” that was decimated by “The Surge.” The lore and quirky characters populating the game might be overload if not for the engrossing play, which pushes environmental destruction, magical interaction, and chaotic jank to pull the rug out from expectations. Battling ice creatures with fire magic, or using telekinetic grabbing techniques to whip boulders across a plain in the heat of battle, is all the more fun because of how it might not go exactly according to plan. It’s realism that goes beyond graphics, and an absolute thrill in Eternal Strands’ vivid sandbox. —Matt PatchesRead Ari Notis’ full impressions of Eternal Strands.$70Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series XKoei Tecmo’s long-running hack-and-slash series, which is based on the famous Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, went in a new direction with Origins. This time, you play as just one character — named Ziluan, aka the Wanderer — which means the story is given a lot more room than in previous entries. The result is stellar, as our reviewer Jason Rodriguez wrote: “Dynasty Warriors: Origins, without a doubt, still captures the essence of the tumultuous time period that saw the fall of the Han dynasty and the rise of rival warlords. For the first time in a long while, the franchise has an entry that makes you feel like you’re truly part of the action, a lone hero against a thousand hostiles. As someone who has played numerous Dynasty Warriors games and spinoffs over the years, it’s rare for one of these titles to surprise me, but Origins has managed to astonish me many times over in my 35-hour playthrough.” —MMRead Jason Rodriguez’s full review of Dynasty Warriors: Origins.0Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series XIt’s not entirely unfair to call Marvel Rivals an Overwatch ripoff; however, it earns its place on this list not through the strength of its concept (Overwatch with Marvel characters), but by the strength of its execution. Marvel Rivals is a shockingly great multiplayer game that, with season 2 now out, has impressive staying power. While there are a dozen things to point to that make Rivals so fun. Perhaps the most impressive is the creativity developer NetEase has been able to find around its roster of characters. Rather than stressing over making every Marvel comics character perfectly unique, the developers cleverly recognized that overlap in certain abilities is exactly what makes building team comps fun — sure, you need a tank that can block damage, but do you need that in the form of Groot’s walls, Magneto’s shield, or The Thing’s hulking mass? It’s a simple philosophy that allows for huge amounts of variation in every match, and a roster of characters that can be expanded quickly. That’s a big reason why Rivals has stood head and shoulders above the multiplayer crowd so far this year. —Austen GoslinRead Michael McWhertor’s full impressions of Marvel Rivals.$0 at SteamLate 2024 gems we couldn’t ignore$76Where to play: Windows PC, Xbox Series XI’m in the camp of Indiana Jones fans who thought Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was pretty good, but even if that film left a bad taste in your mouth, you’ll find that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has got the goods.MachineGames packed in everything you could ask for from an Indy adventure. There’s a globe-trotting journey with a terrific story at its heart. There are plenty of history’s greatest/dumbest assholes to bonk on the head — both Italian fascists and German Nazis! — at a time when doing so is particularly cathartic. There’s the palpable sense of doing archaeology, of unearthing ancient treasures and learning about the cultures that produced them. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s all anchored by a vocal performance from Troy Baker that’s so astounding that it somehow feels reductive to call it a Harrison Ford impression.It’s not just the artifacts that Indy finds; Indiana Jones and the Great Circle itself belongs in a museum. —Samit SarkarRead Diego Nicolás Argüello’s full review of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.$76 at QVCSee More:
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