Writer based in London, UK. Several years writing guide coverage for some of the largest video game launches, with a focus on MMOs.
2025 has once again been a stellar year for brilliant games that no one saw coming. This is one of my favorite parts of my job: stumbling upon random games that appear out of absolutely nowhere and completely take over. It’s a fun trend, and it seems like year-on-year we get more surprising hits than the last. 2024 saw games like Balatro and Animal Well dominate the conversation, both excellent indie games, but 2025 has been even more packed.
Early in the year, we got the indie hit Schedule 1, followed up by the tantalizing puzzle game Blue Prince, and the outstanding hit that has been Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Nubby s Number Factory
Nubby’s Number Factory is a plinko roguelike indie game that has surprisingly become one of the highest-rated Steam games of the year, seeing a peak total player count of just under 5,000 players. It’s a weird, charming little game, styled with a retro 90s desktopwave aesthetic. Is this a thing? It should be.
While those numbers aren’t exactly mind-blowing compared to some of the later entries on this list, this is a fantastic outing for college student and solo developer Ethan Anderson AKA MogDogBlog. In an interview with YouTuber Tucker Hazell, Anderson spoke about watching the numbers going up and realizing that he’d suddenly got a hit, mostly thanks to popular content creators like NorthernLion picking up the game.
My Summer Car
My Summer Car is constantly surprising. And yet, for those in the know, it’s no surprise that this bonkers driving simulation game is one of the highest-rated games of the year. Originally released into Early Access in 2016, with its full release in 2025, My Summer Car is a frustrating yet compelling driving game set in a balmy 1990s Finnish summer. You’re a local teenager from a small town with dreams of building a car to compete in an upcoming rally. Sound pleasant? Well…
My Summer Car is a fever dream, but that’s probably because you spend most of the game drunk.
Blue Prince makes your head spin in the best way. I haven’t played a game with accompanying pen and paper since The Return of the Obra Dinn. Navigating the atmospheric interior of your abandoned family home is mesmerizing in Blue Prince, and, at times, totally confusing.
The shifting blueprint of your home, and the variety of rooms you stumble into, quickly becomes a blur. And then it isn’t. It all clicks into place. Blue Prince is one of the highest-rated games of the year on multiple platforms, and may even see a prize at The Game Awards. We gave it a glowing review.
R.E.P.O
2025 was the year the term ‘friendslop’ really entered the zeitgeist, and REPO is a quintessential friendslop game. The concept is simple: silly and often chaotic games that you can play with your friends. That’s it. Nothing groundbreaking about that, but we’ve seen a big increase in these games over the past couple of years (Lethal Company is a great example). They’re good to stream for content creators and are full of laughs.
REPO is horrifying, to be honest with you. I did not enjoy this game at times because I have a weak disposition (I once got scared playing Assassin’s Creed on my own) and some of the monsters that you encounter are horrible. That being said, I also laughed like a lunatic as my stupid friends and I tried to extract as much treasure as possible. REPO did gangbusters numbers this year, with a peak consecutive player count of almost 300,000 on Steam, with a 95 percent positive rating.
Peak
Another instant friendslop classic, Peak sends you and your mates up a mountain, except you don’t have to get up out of your chair, it doesn’t matter if you fall off the mountain (it’s just hilarious), and the gameplay mechanics are brilliant. I love the proximity voice chat.
Watching a friend slide off a mountain while furiously grasping at the slippery slope only to hear the strangled “Noooooooo,” fade off into the depths is one of 2025’s gaming highlights. Peak peaked at almost 200,000 players on Steam with a 94 percent positive rating.
I’d love to say that Megabonk is the final evolution of the Survivors-like genre, but I still think there’s more out there. Megabonk is one of my favorite iterations on the format though, and it’s not surprising that it peaked at over 100,000 players with a positive rating of 94 percent. It’s an instant classic.
The premise is simple: pick a character, kill monsters, level up, hopefully go on a god-like run. Every run is different thanks to the randomisation of items, and as a result, I’ve personally played Megabonk for over 100 hours, with no signs of stopping any time soon.
Escape From Duckov
No one could have predicted that the duck-based singleplayer rip-off of Escape Of Tarkov would be more popular than its inspiration on Steam this year. Escape From Duckov is actually a quiet masterpiece, a game with a very simple but compelling premise: what if extraction shooters were truly casual? And what’s more casual than a duck with an LMG?
Escape From Duckov reached some bonkers numbers this year, with a peak of over 300,000 players and a solid 95 percent positive rating. There’s just plenty to love about ducks killing bandits, collecting loot, leveling up your base, all without the fear of TTV Timmy ruining your evening.
Schedule 1
Schedule 1 is the most surprising indie hit of the year. The game about slinging illicit substances in a sleepy town ticked a lot of boxes: satisfying gameplay, chill vibes, and lots of humor. The true Breaking Bad fantasy. This game was everywhere for a while. You couldn’t go on your phone or YouTube or reddit without seeing a reference to the game.
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It came out of almost nowhere, though it’s successful Steam Next Fest Demo did show that it might just end up being the next big thing. Schedule 1 was indeed the next big thing, hitting a whopping 450,000 concurrent players on Steam with an astonishing 96 percent positive rating.
Arc Raiders
I knew Arc Raiders was going to be good after playing it a bit earlier in 2025 at a preview event, but I didn’t realize just how good it was going to end up. I don’t think anyone else quite predicted the meteoric success of Arc Raiders either, and I was personally convinced that it was going to have a hard time against industry juggernaut Battlefield 6. Well, now the dust has settled, I’d say Arc has come out on top.
With a peak of almost 500,000 players on Steam alone (not including console players here, so the peak concurrent is probably much higher), and a rating of 88 percent positive reviews, many out there were calling for it to be named Game Of The Year at The Game Awards. It missed out on any nominations, but it’s still undoubtedly one of the year’s biggest hits.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 looks like a guaranteed Game Of The Year winner, although it faces some stiff competition from giants like Hades 2 and Death Stranding 2. Universally praised for its outstanding character writing, musical score and innovative turn-based combat system, it was a game that people were aware of but no one could’ve guessed how well it would review.
Sitting at 92 on Metacritic it’s one of the highest-rated games of the year, and has an almost perfect rating on Steam. For Sandfall Interactive’s first game, the studio really came out swinging. I’ve heard nothing but glowing praise from my colleagues, and it’s my number one game lined up to enjoy over the sleepy holiday period.
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