I spent far too much time this year writing about the business and production of video games. That left me with far less time to dwell on the joys of creativity in game development. I aim to correct that with this list.
My picks for 2025 are the most narrative-heavy selections I’ve picked in the last few years. As ever, I’m attracted to games with wonderfully dense systems but through a whim of circumstance, the most impactful games I played this year were mostly made possible by teams that—at least on some level—valued the work of writers and narrative designers (given my side projects, there may be some bias at play).
Does our industry value them enough? The 2025 GDC State of the Industry Report indicated that these developers are among the most likely to have been laid off in the last few years. In the back halls of game conferences I hear stories of studios grumbling at the time needed to make narrative content, game directors tossing out years of work at the drop of the hat, and executives declaring that AI-driven NPCs will be more immersive than anything a human could craft.
All workers in the game industry should be equally valued, but today I raise a toast to all my fellow writers deep in the trenches and everyone who makes great storytelling possible.
Image via Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 made me feel like a kid again. Not out of nostalgia, but because it gloriously embodies everything that made me fall in love with video games.
Its story is over-the-top and operatic, filled with amazing characters. Its turn-based strategic play rewards experimenting with character builds. Its combat is juicy and makes complex parrying systems fun.
But more importantly? It feels as new now as role-playing games like Tales of Symphonia and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance did back then. Sandfall’s decision to anchor the game’s visuals and music in the aesthetics of 20th century French art—but with inspiration drawn from Studio Ghibli to Spongebob Squarepants—made even familiar interactive moments feel remarkable.
When I think about Clair Obscur, I think about love. The love poured into the game, the love felt by the characters, and the love it draws in from the player.
Image via Dogubomb/Raw Fury.
I am not particularly fond of puzzle games, but Blue Prince lured me in with its run-based metaprogression and ominous, deliberate atmosphere. The depth of its design and storytelling is staggering—to make it to the “final room” in the mansion is to only dip your toes into the shallows of an ocean of emotions and brain teasers.
Beneath the brain teasers and hidden clues is a world drowning in loss and trauma—a family’s tale of pain and politics drip-fed through notes buried in randomly appearing rooms and the haunting whispers of an animatronic fortune teller. It’s a tale told through the process of solving puzzles, itself becoming a puzzle that your brain sorts out while you sleep.
This game is truly special, the product of someone experimenting with physical space, the player’s attention span, and the politics and social dynamics of a wealthy family of an alternate Earth. A momentous achievement—a game that will go down for the ages.
News Tower (Sparrow Night/Twin Sails Interactive)
Image via Sparrow Night/Twin Sails Interactive
News Tower is a delightful surprise! I realized it had its claws in me when I told my spouse (a fellow journalist) “Hang on a second, I need to get this story in by deadline!” Journalism isn’t a topic tackled often in games—actually it’s increasingly an underexplored topic across all media—and most depictions don’t introduce the player to the nuances of the profession.
Not only does News Tower do just that, it also hides a complex simulation system worthy of Frostpunk. It juggles fictionalized and real-world historical events to keep players on their toes about the kind of paper they want to run. Sure, I may have an objective to print crime stories this week, but hold up—a chance to cover the debut of Universal’s Frankenstein appeared! How could I not want to run that?
In another “I bothered my spouse so much they wanted to play the game” moment, I turned to them and with a deadpan voice declared “the Lindbergh Baby event just dropped.”
“You can’t just say things like that!” They declared. But I could. And more than that, I could put it on the front page.
Image via Supergiant Games
Supergiant Games’ second dip into the well of Greek mythology was a fantastic first experience on the Nintendo Switch 2. I relished the chance to slash at Satyrs, Wastels, and Pinheads in a quest to build the most disgusting and broken builds that would let me way waste to Cronos and the tyrannical Typhon.
Once again, Supergiant built a combat system so clever it lured me into tuning the difficulty higher and higher until my fingers cramped. Once again the jams of Darren Korb sent shivers down my spine. And to my greatest delight, once again did Supergiant reimagine the Greek Pantheon as a mesmerizing (and sometimes horny) cast of characters that I wanted to constantly learn more about.
It’s the characters I keep coming back to when I think about Hades II. Encountering each new god, shade, and demigod was a reward for breaking the backs of hordes of monsters. Truly, an adventure like Hades 2 isn’t about the (unusually retconned) destination, it’s about the people you meet along the way.
Image via Obsidian Entertainment/Microsoft
I’m cramming both of Obsidian Entertainment’s excellent role-playing games into one slot because I frankly can’t pick which one compelled me more.
Avowed encouraged meditation on fate, identity, and authority. The Outer Worlds 2 introduced me to a batch of companions whose journeys I found more relatable, being so rooted in the dysfunction of our real world.
So I picked them both. Because while Obsidian again turned out a pair of narratively excellent tales (nothing new for the company), it’s the technical polish on traversal and combat that bound both games together.
The company once known for ambitious-but-buggy releases has evolved its production practices so that it now can release games that blend the best of many gameplay styles. Smashing bugs, shooting guns, detonating explosives—forget the mysteries and sidequests, I wanted to keep playing because the sound of pistols, rifles, and lightning bolts was like candy across both games.
Dispatch (Adhoc Studios/Critical Role)
Image via Adhoc Studio/Critical Role
I’m generally leery of superhero stories that are “mature” riffs on the DC/Marvel dynamic, but Adhoc Studios won me over. Dispatch is an accomplishment for the modern game development age, a game made by a studio of talented storytellers who could only execute their vision with the help of external collaborators, fighting for their lives in a business environment skeptical about narrative-first titles.
They succeeded because their vision of a down-and-out superhero struggling to find himself in a chaotic world is such a wonderful fit for the medium. Player character Robert Robertson III captures the frustration of feeling like your life is unstable and you can’t figure out how you fit amongst the people around you. The titular “dispatch” system isn’t a gimmick—it’s a nice bite-sized strategy game to give you a breather on the game’s story.
It’s infuriating that Adhoc was put through the wringer getting this game made. May its outstanding quality be a bullhorn for the game industry: players love strong interactive stories. Help teams make great ones—stop telling themselves to hold back or compromise on what makes their stories special.
Back To The Dawn (Metal Head Games/Spiral Up Games)
Image via Metal Head Games/ Spiral Up Games
I spotted Back To The Dawn in a GameDiscoverCo newsletter mentioning surprise Steam hits—this one fueled by a Chinese audience. I checked it out. And it was magnificent?
Few in the Western game development world probably played this one, so I urge you to seek it out. Metal Head Games cooked up a game that blends simulation and linear narrative, as players take on the role of a journalist or undercover cop racing to escape from prison in a gritty, Zootopia-inspired world filled with a pulpy cast of characters.
I admire the game not just for its structure—a fixed month-long event cycle with specific events that the player can influence—but also its tone. Prison break stories can be exploitative, either subjecting characters to horrific violence or casting prisoners as irredeemable villains. At their worst, they sand over the edges of a real-world devastating system that ruins lives and often fails to enact justice.
Back To The Dawn is pulpy but laden with depth. Characters can switch from friendly to ferocious on a dime. It simulates violence without glorifying abuse or rewarding the player’s basest instincts. It’s a game where kindness and collaboration plays as much a role as subterfuge and blackmail. That’s not an easy tone to strike—and that it came through even in localization speaks to how considerate the developers were about the difficulties of prison life.
Demonschool (Necrosoft Games/Ysbyrd Games)
Image via Necrosoft Games/Ysbyrd Games.
Disclaimer: Necrosoft founder Brandon Sheffield is a former Game Developer contributor and friend of the site.
I want more games like Demonschool. That’s not just because I want colorful turn-based RPGs with devilish combat systems and giant skeletons (though hey, if you’ve got one, bring em on). It’s because I want more games that so thoroughly ooze with their creators’ point of view and sense of style.
We spoke with director Brandon Sheffield last year about how the tastes of the Necrosoft team influence everything—its visuals, the combat, even the in-game reviews of real cult classic films. This game benefits from its makers being willing to wander out in the world, find weird influences, and bring them back into a turn-based tactics experience
Doing so proves something that Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles director Kazutoyo Maehiro brought up in a recent conversation with Game Developer: tactics games with a wide cast of characters are a template for great storytelling. To have Demonschool release in the same year as a remake of Final Fantasy Tactics only proves his point.
.jpg?width=1280&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale "Samus Aran raises her arm as a glowing light surrounds it")
Image via Retro Studios/Nintendo
All right this one is partly about nostalgia.
From ages 14 through 17, the soundscape of a Metroid Prime game was regularly humming away somewhere in my house. Hearing those sound effects again triggered not just a return to a supposedly simpler time, but also a sensation of intensity and being overwhelmed by the enormity of a dead science fiction world.
I thought that feeling was lost—and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond brought it back.
It helps that Retro didn’t abandon many solid design principles of the early 2000s games. Combat is often more of a puzzle than a test of skill. Save stations are (mostly) religiously enforced. And when the chatty Federation soldiers aren’t around, the game builds mood by encouraging players to think through puzzles themselves.
The many “a-ha!” moments I’ve felt are still so unique to Metroid’s morph balls, missiles, and mysteries. What a joy to feel 14 again.
