The Best Games Of 2025 (So Far)

The year is only half over and 2025 is already packed with fantastic games. From RPGs and management sims to puzzle games and co-op platformers, the first half of the year had a hit release for just about any kind of player.

Even before the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, every platform had enough great games that you might have already missed what could be your favorite game of the year. With plenty of exciting releases still on the horizon, here are Inverse’s best-reviewed games of 2025.

Action

Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny

Capcom has no shortage of essential franchises under its belt, including Mega Man, Resident Evil, and Monster Hunter. But one of its series that doesn’t have quite the same classic status may actually be one of its best, and a recent remaster proves it. Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny is a remaster of a 2002 game that turns the tank controls of Resident Evil into a unique demon-fighting action game. A direct sequel to the original Onimusha game, Onimusha 2 is nonetheless approachable for newcomers — you’re a samurai hunting demons in feudal Japan and that’s pretty much all you need to know. Compared to more straightforward action games, Onimusha 2 feels clunky and deliberate, which is actually a strength, making it feel like nothing else in the genre. On top of that, its branching storyline makes it extremely replayable, with each time through making the story better than the last.

Split Fiction

Developer Hazelight is no stranger to co-op success, after the release of A Way Out and the acclaimed It Takes Two. This year, it may have even topped itself with Split Fiction, a couch co-op game that seems to span dozens of genres. Playing as two writers trapped inside a machine that’s stealing stories they haven’t even written yet, you jump between dozens of scenarios, each with its own clever game play twist. One of the most challenging and satisfying local multiplayer games in years, Split Fiction is an endlessly inventive adventure as long as you’ve got someone to play it with, even if its two protagonists are likely to get on your nerves.

Puzzle Games

Blue Prince

Blue Prince is a game about exploring a mansion by placing randomly generated rooms, until it’s about much more than that. What starts as a roguelike with the goal of charting a path to a mysterious room in your late uncle’s estate slowly unravels to reveal layer after layer of puzzles. To say much more would be to rob Blue Prince of the charm of uncovering what’s hidden inside, but fans of games like Lorelei and the Laser Eyes and Animal Well will likely find plenty of reasons to sink hours into its shifting hallways.

RPGs

Avowed

After setting two old-school RPGs in the vein of Baldur’s Gate in the fantasy world or Eora, developer Obsidian Entertainment set its sights on the modern first-person RPG. Avowed is a followup to the Pillars of Eternity series, set in the diverse landscape of the Living Lands and seen through the eyes of a single character for the first time. What could have been a mere Elder Scrolls clone is instead a deep RPG enriched by the writing of Obsidian. Avowed shows that combat in a first-person RPG can actually be worth seeking out all on its own, and backs it up with a rich world that demands to be explored.

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy

A collaboration between the creators of the Danganronpa and Zero Escape series, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a mix of visual novel and tactical RPG that’s just as deep and bizarre as you’d expect. Set in a school — the titular Last Defense Academy — where students are charged with defending the world from an alien invasion, The Hundred Line’s story plays out in non-stop twists and turns, looping through time to show alternate versions of how events could play out. That results in 100 different endings to reach, and seeing just a fraction of them requires a major time investment that’s nonetheless worth every minute.

Lunar Remastered Collection

The first two Lunar RPGs were released in the ‘90s, getting multiple remakes and remasters in the years since, but none have truly been considered the definitive edition, perhaps until Lunar Remastered Collection. Comprising the first two games in the series, Lunar Remastered Collection is based on a fan-favorite translation of the script, telling two stories set 1,000 years apart in the same chronology. Both games in the collection can be played in their original form or with slight enhancements that still maintain the feel of their first releases. With simple combat and compelling worlds, the Lunar games feel chill and nostalgic despite their world-ending plots, making Lunar Remastered Collection a great way to experience two of the most overlooked RPGs of the ‘90s.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the most talked-about games this year, both for the game itself and the conversations that have spun up around it regarding its inspirations, the size of its team, and even what genre it really belongs to. All of that aside, Expedition 33 is a turn-based RPG that’s had even players who don’t normally touch the genre interested thanks to its captivating premise and action-infused battles. In a world with a literal countdown that erases everyone above a certain age from existence every year, you follow a party determined to understand the world’s true nature and stop the senseless slaughter.

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition

Xenoblade Chronicles X is the very definition of ahead of its time. A game packed with ideas so bold and idiosyncratic that they still feel new ten years after release, it got a second chance to shine in a remaster this year. Largely disconnected from the rest of the Xenoblade Chronicles games, it stars one of the last surviving humans on the planet Mira fighting to eke out a new existence after the destruction of the Earth. Xenoblade Chronicles X was initially criticized for its weak central story, but everything surrounding that, from its well developed characters and clever side missions to the way it forces players to wade into the dangerous wilderness just to fill out their world map make it an RPG like no other.

Sims

Two Point Museum

Strategy games can be taxing affairs, demanding players pay close attention to dozens of resources and be ready to change their plans on the fly. That makes a strategy game that doesn’t take itself quite so seriously all the more welcome. Two Point Museum is an endlessly wacky take on management sims that still nails the strategy basics to keep it as challenging and satisfying as the best games in the genre. The simple-sounding goal of the game is to make your museum informative and fun enough to keep drawing huge crowds, with multiple themed scenarios that put their own spins on what’s needed to keep your museum successful and safe.

Wanderstop

There’s no shortage of games where you can run your own shop, talk to quirky customers, and harvest crops, often pitched as cozy as relaxing. But one of this year’s best games stops to ask, what kind of person what actually need a break like that? Wanderstop casts you as Alta, a fighter who’s lost her edge and is forced to rest by helping out around the Wanderstop tea shop. Its intricate tea-making systems are intentionally obtuse and time-consuming, giving Alta and the player time to consider every step of what they’re doing and wonder whether this break from fighting is really what they need.