The Best Video Games of 2025 (So Far)

Somehow it’s only been 2025 for six months. It feels like six decades. There’s a game on this list that I played for a little bit back in February, and when our associate editor Elijah Gonzalez suggested it should be on here I was sure he was making a mistake. Surely it came out three, five, eight years ago; surely this game from barely four months ago was old and haggard and almost forgotten, and not something that still usually goes for its full original price. That’s how long this year has felt, how stressful it’s been, how just overwhelmingly bleak everything is. The times aren’t good.
Sometimes games are, though. Games can’t fix the world, but they can at least help us enjoy it a little bit more, as our circumstances allow. And since Endless Mode is, primarily, a site about games, we have a responsibility to point our readers towards the good ones—the games that, by dint of good writing or compelling action or some other ineluctable mark of quality, have distinguished themselves as the year’s best. Yes, this might be a new site, but we’re doing one of the oldest things known to humanity, especially in the online era: we’re ranking stuff.
Here are Endless Mode‘s picks for the best games of 2025 so far, as chosen by myself and associate editor Elijah Gonzalez. Feel free to agree, disagree, or argue on behalf of your favorite in the comments.—Garrett Martin, Editor-in-Chief
10. Monster Hunter Wilds
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox System X|S, PC
Monster Hunter Wilds has been understandably criticized for a range of problems: horrible optimization that makes it run poorly on every platform, an overemphasis on lackluster story sequences, a somewhat middling endgame, many of its battles becoming trivially easy when fought in a group, etc. The thing is, while all these criticisms have irked me to some extent during my dozens of hours with the game, that all recedes into the background when bracing for an incoming Gore Magala strike, as I ready my trusty weeb sword for a counter, dodge into the incoming attack, and hack and slash the monster’s weakpoints before preparing for its next blow. This central flow of battling massive creatures while using complicated weapons with movesets developed over the last 20 years is simply something you aren’t going to find outside of this series. Monster Hunter Wilds is far from perfect, but its hunts remain exhilarating.—Elijah Gonzalez
9. Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist
Developer: Adglobe and Live Wire
Publisher: Binary Haze Interactive
Platforms: PC
Every time I feel I’ve played enough Metroid-inspired games to last a lifetime, a new one comes along that manages to break through this fatigue, and I’m once again back to mapping out underground cave systems and spelunking for hidden upgrades. The latest example is Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, a follow-up to 2021’s Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights, which combines a melancholic world in ruin with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure-esque battles that have you puppeteering a scrappy band of robot ghosts (called Homonculi). It’s as cool as it sounds! You map a Homonculus onto one of three face buttons, each acting independently as you unleash uppercuts, counters, and torrents of bullets. The flexibility here allows for some incredibly powerful setups, and you’ll be tempted to engage with this depth because many of these foes are quite tough. And while battles are frequent, you’ll spend just as much time, if not more, exploring a dark fantasy backdrop that stands out from its many Dark Souls-adjacent peers thanks to its evocative art design and score. Ender Magnolia isn’t doing anything you haven’t seen before, but does it all well enough that you probably won’t care.—Elijah Gonzalez
8. Skin Deep
Developer: Blendo Games
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Platforms: PC
Blendo’s Skin Deep knows that if you’re going to go absurd, it’s best to go all the way with it. Yes, it’s a shooter, yes, it’s an immersive sim, but more importantly Skin Deep is a comedy, and fortunately one that hits big on the two things a comedy really needs to be successful: a strong, clear voice, and full, unflinching commitment to it. Even the jokes that seem played out before you ever hit start—I’m specifically talking about how every spaceship crew member you rescue throughout the game is a cat—work surprisingly well, with the game hitting those jokes from unexpected angles and making them feel like real, lived-in aspects of this world and not just tossed off for a gag. And the puzzle box nature of the game’s missions fit that absurd tone. Skin Deep is charming, quizzical, and confident, with a sense of humor that regularly surprises without feeling forced.—Garrett Martin
7. Avowed
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC
It’d be easy to sum up Obsidian’s Avowed as “Elder Scrolls with personality.” It wouldn’t be the first time Obsidian had taken Bethesda’s concepts and set them in a more interesting world with better writing and far more personality; there’s a reason people still swear by Fallout: New Vegas today, 15 years after its release. Unlike that game, Avowed has no official connection to Bethesda’s RPGs, but its lore-laden, choice-accentuating, open-world structure is clearly in conversation with games like Oblivion and Skyrim—and its half of that conversation sings, whereas the other half comes off like a technical manual. That writing alone wouldn’t be enough to get a slot on this list, but combining that with combat as wide-ranging and deeply enjoyable as Avowed’s more than does the trick. It’s one of Obsidian’s best.—Garrett Martin