Spencer Rutledge's Top 10 Games of 2025
10 Avowed
Massive Spoiler Warning for the end of Avowed. OK. You've been warned and read this far. What you do need know is Avowed is a fantasy game from Obsidian akin to an Elder Scrolls, but it's better. Now for the spoiler.
-- I killed the last boss with a conversation in Avowed. Enough said.
9 Echo Point Nova (2024)
Sure I could talk about how this game is filling the Titanfall shaped hole in our hearts, but why do that when this game wants to launch you into fucking space and touch the gawd dang stars themselves. Oh and you're going to look stylish as hell doing it.
The boss fights in this game are legendary turning Breath of the Wilds idea for bosses to 11.
8 QUp
It's ESports, baby! QUp is the deceptive trick in the bowl full of treats. This game will wrap around your head and worm it's why into your brain before you know it. Pretty soon your writing out exactly what the game tells you to because, no I'm not rage quitting due to multiple losses in a row even though its a game based around a coin flip giving me fifty fifty odds every time and NO YOUR RAGE QUITING... sorry sorry I have to get back to my Peska the Troll run. Getting close to level fifty with her; still can't crack the next rank I need and I'm stuck in the middle place of losing it all or gaining everything. You understand right? RIGHT? Wait don't go I have so much more I want to tell you about the hottest ESport around! QUP! UPSIDE!
7 Routine
I'm a sucker for detail. Turns out if you make a highly detailed world down to the most minute touches such as labeling on some wires, I'm going to be tripping over myself while drooling. Routine has the juice. When you squeeze this bad boy you can see every single pour opening up before you letting out that sweet sweet.... holy fucking shit what is that thing? What is that horrible thing?!
Routine might have been in development for thirteen years, with the original Routine even being scrapped. This shows in the type of horror game it is, not pushing the bounds of the genre playing more akin to Outlast from 2013. The way Routine plays doesn't hinder it in the least because the world will drape itself around you while scaring the pants of you. Routine also now has one of the best tools/weapons in video games bar-none. Lastly, Routine gives full meaning to hauntingly beautiful. I took a ludicrous amount of screen shots in between some of the tensest cat and mouse I've gotten from a horror game in a long while. Pro tip, the robots are the least of your problems.
6 The Forever Winter
Truth be told The Forever Winter was no where near my list until I was reminded of it seeing it on someone else's list. And I can say I have played enough of it and keep playing it to say it's earned a place even this high.
When I first came across The Forever Winter I was sold. It's a Dead Earth game in which the sun is sickly red thing hanging low in the sky buildings are now mountains callused over from time and the landscape is forever in constant struggle between waring factions who have long since forgotten what they're fighting for. You are nothing. In this world filled with metal giants. You are just trying to get by.
The Forever Winter is still in early access and watching it come along has been a treat. It's certainly rough around the edges but there is enough of it working that it makes for an easy gameplay loop that can be fun with friends. For anyone tired of Arc Raiders, while the world might be a bit bleaker a'la Terminator it's safer because no one is going to pretend to be friendly and then shoot later. It's just you, you're buddies and trying to stay alive.
5 Elden Ring Nightreign
Talk about a late comer making it big. I only started playing Elden Ring Nightreign a few weeks ago and holy hell what a game. I'll admit there was a part of me that was big skeptical around a Souls-like playing with what felt like battle royal mechanics. Nightreign is the furthest thing away from a Fortnite with the only shared interest being a circle that closes and how loot drops. Even then its only slightly similar.
Nightreign is something else entirely and it works. Fromsoft took all the best parts of really all its souls games and then applied excellent multiplayer on top of it. It makes me the multiplayer in there other games even more laughable by comparison. Like... they shouldn't have been able to pull this off - looks at FBC Firebreak (you could have been something!)
4 Abiotic Factor
Abiotic Factor is a weird game. I started playing Abiotic Factor in early access and now that save file exist in the 1.0+ whatever version of the game it's on now. Imagine if you were any other scientist in the Half Life, Black Mesa Facility except Gordon Freeman. Weirdly Abiotic Factor shares a similar goal to a game coming up on my list, climb to the top to escape. Except in Abiotic Factor your constantly taking detours through alternate dimensions and exploring a massive underground science facility. I am honestly impressed at how much content is in this game and how good it all is.
This game was always going to be a lock for me even if I didn't know it sharing the DNA of some of my favorite games Control and the Half Life series. I don't want to spoil to much but again there is some weird stuff in this game. Make sure to bring your handheld X-Ray Lamp.
3 The Outlast Trials
You're probably noticing a theme or maybe there are just more multiplayer games now and days. Anyways, The Outlast Trials continues to be one of my most played games through 2025.
Horror is largely over looked in gaming and too often I hear the refrain "we go to games to escape and relax" key word on that last word there because I know some absolute sickos who's version of a relaxing game is playing beat saber on the highest difficulty. It's a weak argument that is largely thrown against horror games while every other game is forgotten as if horror is the only stressful thing in life. Which is why The Outlast Trials is so good.
The Outlast Trials is doing what the Destiny franchise couldn't, making an excellent community driven game that meets the needs of its players while constantly adding new engaging content. What more could you ask for?
What started as Red Barrels take on cooperative task based multiplayer has a morphed in to something greater. The Outlast Trials recently added an Invasion mode their take on PvP mixing Dead By Daylight with Dark Souls. They've added two new Prime Assests (there version of bosses) that are a perfect fit while being delightfully unique. They continue to add cosmetics, lore and anything else with loving detail.
All this to say while games are flying out left and right being praised for this or that Red Barrel has been quietly working in the corner for years, engaging with it's audience and producing results Dr. Easterman would give an A+ too.
2 Peak
Yo, Peak... what the hell, man.
On December 23 around 10 pm my friend and I completed Ascent 7. It was one of the greatest feelings I've had in gaming all year. I had achieved something and not only that but with a friend by my side the whole time. Peak is an achievement. Giving meaning to such sayings as "sometimes the simplest solution is the answer" Peak is that simple answer. All it ask is that you go to the top of a mountain. Easy right?
Peak is so much more than the climb though. It's the entire gawd dang journey the laughs, the pitfalls, the moments of saving your friend with a hand grab as they fall by you. Peak combines all the things I love about gaming and puts it into an easy to digest package. Combing puzzling solving and team work creates some of the best game play in my opinion always. It's why I played Destiny for so long. So when my friend and I got to the end of Ascent 7 it felt like we did something and we did!
As you climb each ascent the game adds more and more modifiers until what you thought was Peak on that first climb becomes an inventory management game between you and your friends racing against multiple clocks. Did I mention I love clocks? All you can do is pray to the mountain that it bless you with no bullshit. God speed climber, don't forget to bring a flare.
1 Silent Hill f
Horror is a big part of who I am, it's also something I'm constantly reminded that I deeply love. Like, as in, I forget that I love horror as much as I do. It's a way for me to explore the world and myself. And then a new Silent Hill comes along...
Something always I happens when I play horror games, especially ones that turn out to be great, where I'm truly reminded of my love for this genre. Silent Hill f feels like it ambled right out of the fog to shake me loose once again. A series that has long been comatose suddenly waking up fresh with new horrors and holy shit did they nail it. Knocking it out of the park as hard as Hinako coming down on a doll monster, metal pipe in hand.
Silent Hill f introduces us to Hinako a young woman living in rural japan her town quickly being over taken by fog and thrusting her into the Silent Hill nightmare. And then Silent Hill f does something profound for horror games, it tells an amazing story weaving between narrative and gameplay effortlessly. Above all, especially other horror games where multiple playthroughs are encouraged, Silent Hill f gives reason to see those playthroughs through. To not see this game three times through is doing a disservice to Hinako because you will never truly know her full story and those of the people in her life. It's some of the best writing I've encountered in a game all year and the Japanese cast brings the characters to life in heartfelt and chilling ways. And for anyone complaining about the combat, it sounds like you hardly touched the systems because by the third playthrough I was a god with a single kitchen knife. And the true final boss fight is now an all timer in boss fights for me. Lets just say Silent Hill f learned a thing or two from Fromsoft it looks like.
It pains me to know and as has already happened with game of the year list going out, is that Silent Hill f will not get the dues it desereves. It did not get them during the game awards. It did not get them in games medias end of year list. So, it gets love from me to you, saying, please please give this game a shot. If you've played it once already play again and then again. For all the "we want games to tell human stories" Silent Hill f is a master class. Finally, in an extremely difficult year for me personally, Hinako helped me in lessons of forgiveness of self and others, of always choosing the life that makes you happy even if it might bring hardship — I'm so thankful for it.