This year, I think I'm going to split up my oaties post into two, one for games and one for films. I don't want the posts to be massive, especially since I'm going to continue the tradition I established last year of updating my all-time of-the-year lists along with choosing individual years.

I'll be honest: I'm not feeling great about the state of video games in 2025. I certainly missed some games that might change my opinion here—notable games I didn't get around to that I think I stand a shot of really loving include PEAK, Shadow Labyrinth, Of the Devil, and Kinophobia. I'll mention Despelote as well as a game I watched Eden play most of and thought very highly of. But on the whole, this year leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes me feel like a hater.

I always try to muster precise and thoughtful critiques of games I don't like, especially when I know other people feel differently, and that often means I'm putting myself in the position of thinking as much about the games I don't like as I do about my favorites. This year, though, it felt like I was endlessly pouring out criticism with only brief intermissions for auditions.

Many people, including numerous friends of mine, loved Blue Prince, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Hades II. I found all three of these flawed in ways that were actively repugnant to my design sensibilities. That's not to say I didn't enjoy them, but the fun I had felt like digesting content, that increasingly refined slurry of choose-three mechanics and the steady drip-drip-drip of unlocks. The failures, on the other hand, were born of deep misunderstandings of the player's perspective-in-the-moment—the very experience whose careful shepherding is what I find most compelling about the very best game design.

I was looking forward to Civilization VII so eagerly I took time off work to play it with Liz. It was so disappointing we abandoned it after two days. Even games I broadly quite liked, like Q-Up and Demonschool, were marred by notable design flaws.

That's not to say there weren't games I enjoyed this year, but looking back at them I'm faced with the horrifying realization that everything I really loved this year was a sequel or a spinoff. Fish Fear Me, Monster Train 2, Elden Ring: Nightreign, Death Stranding 2, and Hollow Knight: Silksong all remix or reinvent their source material to some degree, and I think they're all excellent. But the knowledge that none of them (nor Hades II nor Civilization VII) is fully original haunts me.

Game of 2025: Hollow Knight: Silksong

This is kind of a shoo-in choice, if I'm being honest. There are only three games I gave five stars this year. Nightreign is certainly my most played of the three, and (similar to my reasoning for picking Elden Ring as my game of 2022) exploring…