Is the 2025 Godi competition over?
Blog Andrew Joseph 19 Jul , 2025 0
By 2025, we're a little over half, but even before the summer ends, there's a strong case to get the annual game to end.
Usually, the time to start thinking about a year’s game is all the fall releases, and we can take a look at all the great games that have appeared in the first 10 to 11 months. Although there are still some exciting games, three games have already made strong demands on the Gothic Crown, and it's hard to imagine they'll lose Steam anytime soon.
With less than half a year left in 2025, let's review our three leaders and how they get everyone's attention. Can they stick to their position as the best game of the year? Or will we see upset in the next few months?
Leader
Among IGN employees and the public, Clair has masked: Developer Sandfall Interactive, Death Stranding 2: On the beach of Kojima Productions and on the beach of Donkey Kong Bananza in Nintendo EPD, Clair Bigs: Expedition 33 has reached a popular consensus among the public: 2025.
Each of these games has received rave reviews and captures popular imaginations for different reasons. More importantly, each of them is related to one of the “big three” in the game. Death Stranding 2 and Donkey Kong Bananza are exclusive users of Playstation and Nintendo, respectively. Meanwhile, Expedition 33 launched its first day on Xbox Game Pass to quickly become One of the most popular games on this service. So let's start from there…
Clair: Adventure 33 originates from obscurity
Arguably, the biggest surprise of the year is Clair Imbscur: Adventure 33. Made from a core team of about 30 developers, Sandfall Interactive’s debut has become a toast for the gaming industry as it is a brand new IP from a small studio that sold out soon 3.3 million copies in 33 days.
Expedition 33 is about dispatching the same-name exploration team to stop a deity entity known as the Dragon Dragon. Every year, the miser draws a new number on the huge stone pillars, and any citizen of the fictional city of Lumire disappears at the same age or above. This event is called scrubevery year it is causing devastating emotional losses to the people of the Lumiles, not only because of the annual number reduction, but thus eliminating young and young citizens.
It is not difficult to see why Expedition 33 has become so successful. The modern style of this classic JRPG formula is exciting thanks to the way it combines turn-based combat with real-time action like Dodges and Parries. The excellent, painful story is led by brilliant characters expressed by talented actors like Charlie Cox, Ben Starr and Jennifer English.
What's great about Expedition 33 is that it does feel like it's everywhere. A compelling trailer was initially announced at the 2024 Summer Olympics, and there was little knowledge of the launch of the game. Although the studio's two founders are former Ubisoft developers, many team members have been found on sites like Reddit, Artstation, and SoundCloud. Although the report on Expedition 33 by 33 developers was somewhat misleading (Sandfall’s small core team worked with multiple expert companies for quality assurance, music, performance capture and other development disciplines), it did not deviate from it. Expedition 33 achieves an impressive feat.
Death Stranding 2: Return to Kojima on the Beach, His Best
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is Back Form For one of the most famous directors in the game, Hideo Kojima. While many fans like the first death barrier, I think few would say it is comparable to Kojima’s previous work on the Metal Gear Solid series. His sequel wasn't that true on the beach, which improved in almost every aspect of the first game.
Death Story Stranding 2 surfaced shortly after the original incident and once again portrayed Norman Reedus as post-apocalyptic deliveryman Sam Porter Bridges. This time, Sam travels through Mexico and Australia to rebuild the world after a mysterious disaster known as the Obstacle of Death. In addition to the new environment, he also participates in a group of new roles, such as Captain Tarman, the trans-dimensional captain, Rain Mystery, aptly named Rainy, a mysterious young woman of tomorrow’s mysterious young woman, a talking figurine accompanying the dollfight, and Sam’s former delivery rival vulnerable.
With Death Stranding 2, Kojima made works perfected the core traversal challenge game experience of the original game. Players are free to combine any number of tools, such as ladders and floating carriers, to penetrate hostile terrain, and the battle of Death Stranding 2 is greatly improved due to the expansion of the expanded weapon and skill library. Why shoot bullets on enemy enemies when you can use the tricks that Ghost teaches you in Shell Director Mamoru Oshii?
Yes, Death Malware 2 is a weird game, but it's also different from any other AAA game. In a wave of glowing comments, Death Stranding 2 feels like a reminder that no one is like Kojima when it comes to game development. Not only are there all kinds of Strange and wonderful little details Death Stranding 2but all the technical and visual improvements in the sequel make this the best game Kojima has directed since leaving Konami.
Donkey Banana is the Super Mario Odyssey and Breathing in the Wild
Donkey Kong may be Nintendo's famous mascot after Mario, but the prospect of the new 3D donkey match still attracts a lot of eyebrows. Not only is Bananza the first 3D Donkey Kong platformer since 1999's Rocky Donkey Kong 64, but it's unique to the Switch 2 launch window, many people ride on the huge shoulders of Big Ape – DK needs DK to push Nintendo's latest console to succeed.
Well, anyone who doubts seems to be lying in bed because the Donkey Banana looks like the first killer app for Switch 2. DK is back in focus, this time a miner who spent a lot of time searching for Banandium Gems deep in the surface of the earth, the banana-shaped crystals he likes to eat. One day, DK and his crew were swallowed by a huge sludge puddle on the ground, and he and his new friend Pauline must find a way back to the ground they belong.
us Give Bananza 10 in our commentIt's the first perfect score for full-length games since 2023 (our only full markup review in 2024 is the shadow of Elden Ring's Erdtree DLC, and the re-evaluation of the then-renewed Stardew Valley), and for good reason. This open world adventure seems like a legend of a donkey: the breath of the wild mixed with the (sub-) ostensibly “destroy everything” head. But Bananza team – The same developers behind Super Mario Odyssey – There are many tips.
While I don't want to spoil everything Bananza has to offer, considering it's just out, its moments are comparable to the best 3D Mario Games. An outstanding detail is that there are different kinds of sediment in Bananza, ranging from conventional bedrock that can be easily crushed to soil or steel that requires different strategies to manipulate. By the end of the game, you are actually an amateur geologist. Plus, in all the games, nothing else is as satisfying as DK on the entire level. Well, maybe there is one besides wielding Kratos' axe in the God of War.
Possible competitors
Although these three versions dominate the game of the year, there are still unreleased games to bend into the conversation on the 2025 calendar. The biggest of them is the ghost of Yotei, the sequel to Sucker Punch’s long-awaited ghost of Tsushima.
Recent PlayStations Deep into Yotei's ghost Showcases a variety of exciting gameplay improvements and features, such as the return of different director modes, which will give Yotei's Ghost a different atmosphere, depending on the director style you choose. Kurosawa mode returns and turns the world into a classic black and white samurai movie, but new members such as Watanabe mode will provide the game with a Lo-Fi Hip-Hop soundtrack similar to the director's famous anime Samurai Champloo.
There is also the upcoming “Border 4”. While there is a lot left in the final Border game, especially for long-time fans of the series, Borderlands is still very popular. The gearbox says yes Hear your complaint About the last game and hopefully a better experience on the new title. 2012's Border World 2 remains a series of highs and is nominated for the race of the year, and there's no reason the gearbox can never reach the same highs again.
External World 2 and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is also an exciting game that is worth looking forward to this year. While the first external world was a popular game, Obsidian Entertainment has been playing games soft and Avoidand Outside World 2 can continue this winning streak. Meanwhile, there is no doubt that fans are excited about the first new Metro Prime game in 18 (!) years. What is worth remembering is transcendence Perform a complete restart We'll wait and see how this affects the final version during its development.
Finally, there is Konami's Silent Hill F, which hopes to build on the huge success of Silent Hill 2 and center on brand new entries Bring the series to Japan This is the first time in the history of the series. Konami seems to have invested in making Silent Hill a major franchise again, and is hiring famous Japanese writer Ryukishi 07 to write stories for Silent Hill F and bringing back original composer Akira Yamaoka, there is reason to believe that Konami can continue to maintain Silent Silent Silent Silent Silent Hill Hill Renaissance.
Goty's bar is indeed set to be high in games like Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2, and Donkey Kong Bananza, and this great game release isn't possible yet. If some fans have already called the best match of the year before July, 2025 will be a very strong year. Personally, I look forward to seeing our official announcement of IGN's Best Games of 2025 this December to see who received the highest honor at the 2025 Game Awards.
Matt Kim is an advanced feature editor for IGN.