When we put together our top 20 games of last year, we specifically called out Civilization 7, Avowed, Doom: The Dark Ages, and Grand Theft Auto 6 as big franchise games we were already looking forward to for 2025. While one of those games has been delayed into 2026, the three others made this year’s list of Ars’ favorite games as expected. They join a handful of other highly anticipated sequels, ranging from big-budget blockbusters to long-gestating indies, on the “expected” side of this year’s list.
But the games that really stood out for me in 2025 were the ones that seemed to come out of nowhere. Those range from hard-to-categorize roguelike puzzle games to a gonzo, punishing mountainous walking simulation, the best Geometry Wars clone in years, and a touching look at the difficulties of adolescence through the surprisingly effective lens of mini-games.
As we look toward 2026, there are plenty of other big-budget projects that the industry is busy preparing for (the delayed Grand Theft Auto VI chief among them). If next year is anything like this year, though, we can look forward to plenty more games that no one saw coming suddenly vaulting into view as new classics.
I honestly don’t know anyone who has enjoyed Civ VII and my sample group is made up of people that really love strategy games. It’s such a mess compared to past entries in the series. I am surprised to see it in a top 20.
You know I was just thinking the other day about how badly Ars Technica needs to put out an article of their top video games because if anyone is an expert or can provide valuable ideas to the gaming industry it has to be the absolute garbage nearly tabloid and usually written by AI that never qualifies as real journalism from Ars Technica. I’m not sure if their goal has been to be the complete asses of tech news but they hands down take the cake and then providing this great list only solidifies them into the echos of history that literally no one will ever remember once they go bankrupt and no one cares to archive any piece of their trash of a site.
Honestly this list reads like the person who picked the games doesn’t actually play games and just listed the most popular/ most talked about games, but to make it not that obvious they asked that one “weird” person groupchat they were invited to once that is full of actual gamers to provide like 3 games for the list lol
I do feel like even if they skipped Clair Obscur because of recent controversies, the author should have addressed it. I think it’s certainly deserving of being in the list, so saying nothing kinda seems contrarian at best.
I played Clair Obscur, liked it, and it’s in my top 10 for the year out of about 18 games. But man, the reception of that game in the Game Awards and such is wildly out of sync with what I thought of it, and it makes perfect sense to me that it wouldn’t end up in an outlet’s top 20.
It has some really strong moments and a very powerful ending that means it leaves a very strong lasting impression in a lot of people. Also the music really carries it. I still think it’s a good game, but I was definitely a victim of this too and have found that my esteem of it has fallen a little bit as the “dust has settled” so to speak.
It’s still a great game, and I’d recommend people playing it but I don’t think I’d rank it as highly on my all-time list now as I would have when I sat and watched the credits roll the first time.
So all the big names plus a tohou style arknoid and a geometry wars meets robotron type deal.
I personally wasn’t awwed by avowed like some others were. But putting assassin’s creed at number one seems, well lazy. I kinda get why they didn’t include Claire obscura, given the recent backlash, but it was at least a better game than assassin’s creed. And ghosts of yontei being in the middle? Yeah, sorry ars. Gunna hard disagree with ya.
(I know you’re not the author, I’m just screaming into the ether
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I honestly don’t know anyone who has enjoyed Civ VII and my sample group is made up of people that really love strategy games. It’s such a mess compared to past entries in the series. I am surprised to see it in a top 20.
You know I was just thinking the other day about how badly Ars Technica needs to put out an article of their top video games because if anyone is an expert or can provide valuable ideas to the gaming industry it has to be the absolute garbage nearly tabloid and usually written by AI that never qualifies as real journalism from Ars Technica. I’m not sure if their goal has been to be the complete asses of tech news but they hands down take the cake and then providing this great list only solidifies them into the echos of history that literally no one will ever remember once they go bankrupt and no one cares to archive any piece of their trash of a site.
Honestly this list reads like the person who picked the games doesn’t actually play games and just listed the most popular/ most talked about games, but to make it not that obvious they asked that one “weird” person groupchat they were invited to once that is full of actual gamers to provide like 3 games for the list lol
I do feel like even if they skipped Clair Obscur because of recent controversies, the author should have addressed it. I think it’s certainly deserving of being in the list, so saying nothing kinda seems contrarian at best.
I played Clair Obscur, liked it, and it’s in my top 10 for the year out of about 18 games. But man, the reception of that game in the Game Awards and such is wildly out of sync with what I thought of it, and it makes perfect sense to me that it wouldn’t end up in an outlet’s top 20.
It has some really strong moments and a very powerful ending that means it leaves a very strong lasting impression in a lot of people. Also the music really carries it. I still think it’s a good game, but I was definitely a victim of this too and have found that my esteem of it has fallen a little bit as the “dust has settled” so to speak.
It’s still a great game, and I’d recommend people playing it but I don’t think I’d rank it as highly on my all-time list now as I would have when I sat and watched the credits roll the first time.
So all the big names plus a tohou style arknoid and a geometry wars meets robotron type deal.
I personally wasn’t awwed by avowed like some others were. But putting assassin’s creed at number one seems, well lazy. I kinda get why they didn’t include Claire obscura, given the recent backlash, but it was at least a better game than assassin’s creed. And ghosts of yontei being in the middle? Yeah, sorry ars. Gunna hard disagree with ya.
(I know you’re not the author, I’m just screaming into the ether
It’s not #1, it’s alphabetical. 😉
Makes more sense now. Still wish CO:E33 got at least a mention though. But I fucking love that game.
Yeah, weird how he skipped the universally acclaimed game of the year.
In the article linked.