Thinking About Games (2025)
According to Steam I played 97 different games last year, which pales a bit in comparison to the year before, being almost 100 games more. Now, a lot changed between those two years: I got out of a not very healthy relationship, I finished school and started work in a call centre, and I think most importantly, all my friends went to uni. Playing games has always been a very social thing for me whether that’s playing Valorant or Overwatch together (I know, both horrible games) or if it was just being sat in a call chatting whilst doing our own thing, and I’ve never been able to recreate that sense of community.
But also Steam isn’t the only place to play games. I got really into Guild Wars 2 around August and oh my GOSH do I love that game. I also finally bought again the GBA that I had when I was much younger, and I treated myself to a New 3DSXL which I modded as soon as I could. I spent a lot of time playing Minecraft on and off, messing about with mods and starting what will be my forever world as well.
What I Played
Right at the start of the year, the sequel to one of my favourite games ever came out: Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector. I'd been following all the promo up to the release of the game, reading all the Helion Dispatches from the Jump Over The Age Substack and replaying the original for the first time since 2023. And oh boy did it live up to my expectations. With a wider cast of characters and a greater depth of gameplay I had a whale of a time navigating through the Starward Belt and learning about everyone's backstory, however I was missing the intimacy of the first game. The more limited environment and fewer people to care about really emerged you into the storytelling and be more invested in the lives of everyone. Lem and Mina stand out for me and most people who played the game as being really fleshed out and very human characters, but there was no-one like that for me in the sequel. I've seen the first game aptly described as feeling like 'hopeful melancholy' and I think that falls flat in Starward Vector due to the scope. Despite that it was still a lovely game and remains as one of my favourite games from 2025 - 7/10.
In April yet another game that I'd been waiting for released and it was another game that I knew what I was in for, not because it was a sequel or in the same series, but I had played the demo from a Steam Next Fest in 2023 fell in love with the gameplay and the gorgeous pixel art. I've been impatiently waiting for the full release since then and it doesn't disappoint. I'm a sucker for a platformer as it is (with Celeste being my favourite game of all time) but the movement here is so fluid, and the way that all the mechanics combine is so natural. Doing a ground roll into a jump into a time freeze into an air dive and being able to chain all of these together creates for such a satisfying loop once you've figured out how to clear the gap. Because not only is it a platformer, but its time freeze and swap elements make it a puzzle platformer - and suddenly I'm in heaven. A slight guilty admission here though is that I'm still yet to beat the game.... BUT I WILL THIS YEAR, I PROMISE. So I'm unable to give this a rating currently, but I'd love to do a shorter piece and give my rating once I've rectified my errors.
Silksong - 9/10 Next game. No but in all seriousness there isn't much to say about this game that hasn't already been hammered into you before. I'm reserving judgement slightly as there is already DLC confirmed that may change my opinion but I very much doubt it.
Finally I do want to talk a bit about Guild Wars 2. For those unaware, Guild Wars 2 is the sequel (I know, third one on this list) to the critically acclaimed MMORPG Guild Wars which released 20 years ago, and builds on its subscription free model, which is such a breath of air in this day and age. I stumbled across it whilst trying to find an MMO that I could play with some friends that didn't make me pay 10 quid a month for access to most of the features (looking at you Runescape) and I was recommended GW2 which has a lot of free to play content. Booting up the game and the amount of customisation was much welcome, with there being many races and professions (classes) to choose from, and in a predictable fashion I went for a Sylvari Ranger. And after a few cutscenes you are just thrust into this massive fantasy world with SO MUCH going on, but it wasn't overwhelming. Normally I hate open world games with a passion, I've never finished one and haven't been able to play any bar Breath of the Wild for more than a couple of hours. But the lands of Tyria are anything but barren. I could take the path to the quest marker, or I could go off and complete an event, or attempt (and die very quickly) to take down a champion. I could harvest some onions or make friends with some animals to get a new pet. And as you level up more and more options unlock. There've been multiple occasions where I spent 2 hours just cooking stuff and that's amazing; it really fits my playstyle and whatever I'm in the mood for there's bound to be something I can do.
What I'm Looking Forward To
So this is going to be a bit of a shorter section (said I, hopefully) just covering games that I really want to play this coming year. This isn't limited to games that release this year, although they will be included. Kingdom Hearts and Wanderstop are both games that I've started playing however I've ended up dropping both them previously not due to a dislike of the game, but from enforcing certain conditions that only when met can I play the game. It's things like they're both games I have to play with a controller, in my bed, with a cup of tea etc, whereas a lot of the time I spend on my computer is at my desk with a glass of water. And it's silly but that's why I've not played either of them past the first session. I'm going to get over this and play (and beat) both of them this year, mark my words!
(THIS IS THE ONLY SEQUEL IN THIS LIST I PROMISE) but I'm so excited for Coffee Talk Tokyo! The first two games were really good, and whilst I know it's technically a spin-off I hope you play as the same character in this one as you did in the former games; I think that continuity would be really fun but I'd be more that happy playing as someone completely new. I do wonder if any previous characters will show up again...
An RPG. I do not care which one. I just want to have beaten 1 (ONE!) RPG in my lifetime. Even if it's just to say that I don't like RPGs. Maybe RPG isn't the right term because I guess GW2 is an RPG, and Citizen Sleeper is an RPG. The style I'm on about is like your Octopath Travellers, or Fire Emblem Awakenings, or Sea of Stars - all of which are games that I'm going to be putting more effort into beating! I've at least started all of them before, getting about halfway through Awakening, getting to the port in Sea of Stars, and getting to the first boss on Octopath Traveller before dying twice and giving up (I was not in the mood for games that day). And I've enjoyed what I've played of all of them, I've just not seen them through to the end.
The State of the Industry
As anyone who has spent any time online recently in video game circles would know, the industry is kind of going to pot. Games-as-a-service models are taking over every multiplayer game it seems, and it's even seeping into single player mobile games - a sign of only darker things to come I'm sure. Triple A companies are losing a lot of money from rehashing and brutalising old IP into misshapen slop and never learning from their mistakes. Communities are falling apart with everyone holding their favourite franchise to ridiculously high standards, leading to every game released being trashed relentlessly by half of them with the other half making valid critiques, only for them to turn on each other and start spewing vitriol because they have different viewpoints. Preservation of games is hated by the companies as well, with The Crew being shut down back in 2024 and the community rallying around it to create a custom server to render it playable again. Like I get that this is still something that companies want to make money off of but because of the instant gratification brought around by platforms such as TikTok, the motivation to be creative when it comes to producing these games is gone, because it's been proven time and time again that people will buy the 247th iteration of Black Ops which is actually the exact same as the last but now the Goop Guy is in it. Which is how piracy and indie games are keeping the passion in the industry. Phenomenal games have been made by tiny teams over the past 5-10 years and it truly speaks volumes of the amount of love that people have for this medium. If anyone wants any recommendations of games to play, whether you've played games before or you're just looking for something new, please do email me and I'd be more than happy to have a chat with you about it!