Nine months into the year, 2025 has already provided an unexpectedly banger run of video games. We’ve gotten lost in blue-hued mansions and wielded baguettes in fights against god. We’ve punched our way through layers of the underworld and cloned ourselves on hostile exoplanets. We’ve cooked pork. Who needs Grand Theft Auto 6?
But here’s the scary thing: If you look at 2025 through the lens of new game releases, the year’s only getting started. Even beyond next week’s Hollow Knight: Silksong nuke, there are still, frankly, enough fascinating-looking games to fill a backlog for the remainder of this console generation. Here are just 25 we’re most excited to play through the rest of 2025, organized by release date.
1. Garfield Kart 2 — All You Can Drift (Sept. 10)
You want your five-star games? You want your Game of the Year-winning classics? Not me! I want Garfield Kart 2 – All You Can Drift. While Microids’ upcoming Mario Kart riff is unlikely to win any awards this year, I plan to play the heck out of it. I’m not going to pretend like there’s a complex reason for it; I just like Garfield, OK? And with a kart-racing sequel that feels much better than its memetic predecessor thanks to drifting, that’s as good a reason as any to check in with my dude Garf. —Giovanni Colantonio
2. Borderlands 4 (Sept. 12)
For perhaps the first time in series history, the next Borderlands can’t be described as simply “morederlands.” (Get it? Because “more” plus… OK, cool.) An actually open open-world. A stated aversion to toilet humor. A focus on RPG build-crafting. Sure, the core Borderlands ingredients of 87 bajillion guns and an intoxicating loot grind haven’t gone anyway. But for Borderlands 4, developer Gearbox is radically reinventing parts of the series after 15 years of creative inertia. Regardless of how fun it is (it looks quite fun), that’s a delight to see. —Ari Notis
3. Lego Voyagers (Sept. 15)
In between licensed Lego games like 2024’s Lego Horizon Adventures and the upcoming Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, a whimsical co-op adventure is set to steal the Lego spotlight. Lego Voyagers casts you and your gaming partner as sentient Lego bricks, one red, the other blue. Like the work of Hazelight Studios (It Takes Two, Split Fiction), players will have to work together to advance in Lego Voyagers via puzzle solving and platforming. And in a pro-consumer move, Lego Voyagers will include a Friend’s Pass, meaning two players can play through the entire co-op adventure online, but only one needs to own the game. — Austin Manchester
4. Baby Steps (Sept. 23)
Ghost of Yōtei may be this fall’s biggest open-world game, but I’d wager that Baby Steps will be its funniest. The new collaboration between Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and QWOP creator Bennett Foddy is a slapstick comedy of errors. It stars a onesie-wearing couch potato who gets sucked into a fantasy world. He must scale perilous cliffsides to survive, but walking is no easy task for someone who spends so much time binging Netflix. The result is a physics sim with strong comedic potential, bringing the comedy that turned QWOP into a viral hit to new heights. —GC
5. Silent Hill f (Sept. 25)
As exciting as the remakes are, I’ve been craving a new Silent Hill game since Downpour came out in 2012, and I’m excited to see what kind of spine-chilling mysteries Konami has been cooking up for Silent Hill f. Although the original Silent Hill was made by a Japanese team, we’ve yet to see a game actually set in Japan, and I can’t wait to see the series’ J-horror elements cranked up to the max. I’m a big fan of horror that leans into disturbing elements rather than simply disgusting ones, and with producer Motoi Okamoto stating he wants players to “find the beauty in terror,” it sounds like a stunning-yet-deeply-psychological experience is exactly what we’re going to get. —Claire Lewis
6. Sonic Racing: Crossworlds (Sept. 25)
The Sonic Racing games have been among the better kart racers of the past 15 years or so, but even so it seemed unlikely that they would ever deliver a Mario Kart-beater — within months of an actual and pretty great new Mario Kart, no less. But CrossWorlds might just do it. It’s brash and inventive, with absurd cameos from the likes of Like a Dragon’s Ichiban Kasuga. But most importantly, it’s developed in Japan using Sega’s legendary expertise in arcade racing (members of the Initial D team contributed). An in-house Sega racing game hasn’t seen a mainstream home release in decades. Now that’s exciting. —Oli Welsh
7. Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles (Sept. 30)
Up until now, recommending must-play Final Fantasy games for new players has been a challenge, to say the least, especially with the transcendent Final Fantasy Tactics locked behind old systems. Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles will change that soon. Instead of focusing on fantastical elements, Final Fantasy Tactics is built around a sobering narrative and political intrigue, which gain life in tactical grid-based combat, making it one of the best spinoffs of the famous RPG franchise. Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles isn’t just about having fun, but engaging with an important piece of RPG history. —Paulo Kawanishi
8. Ghost of Yōtei (Oct. 2)
Yes, Ghost of Yōtei looks like a tremendous open-world game, another leap forward in a genre that could always stand some refining. But I’m lukewarm about the glut of activities or the natural wayfinding or the gorgeous, sweeping landscapes of its 16th-century Japan setting. I want to see how fast this thing loads. Its predecessor, 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima, has such fast load speeds that developer Sucker Punch famously had to slow them down — and that was on aging PlayStation 4 hardware. How fast will the sequel load? Will it be literally instantaneous? Is Ghost of Yōtei going to be the secret to time travel, loading in negative seconds? Did I write this from the future? —AN
9. Digimon Story Time Stranger (Oct. 3)
2025 is the year of Digimon, and Digimon Story Time Stranger is the cherry on the top of an immense digital cake. Time Stranger is the update old fans like myself have been waiting for, from the visual treatment each creature is receiving to the Digital World: Iliad, a region never explored in previous games. Brand-new Digimon are being designed for the game, like MasterBlimpmon — a military submarine-like Digimon — and the game will even allow us to ride the creatures! While this new title is just the perfect early Christmas present for fans, Time Stranger is the best time to jump on the digital wagon, since most of the experience will be new to everyone. —PK
10. Absolum (Oct. 9)
Few publishers have a track record like Dotemu, thanks to a consistent wave of hits like Streets of Rage 4 and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound that have set the bar for retro revivals. That alone gives me enough reason to keep my eye on Absolum. The hybrid roguelike beat-’em-up finds the studio, as well as co-developers Guard Crush and Supa Monk, building a new IP that fuses new and old. The result is a very promising side-scrolling action game that’s taking a fresh approach to the kinds of retro games Dotemu does best. —GC
