After a quieter year for bigger releases in 2024 (though there was still plenty of great stuff overall), 2025 has the potential to blow the lid off things with a ton of blockbusters ranging from the unexpectedly delayed Assassin’s Creed Shadows to the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI (which could also still get delayed—boo, hiss). A ton of major games still don’t have specific release dates, and some of the biggest potential releases—a new 3D Mario from Nintendo, for example— haven’t even been officially announced yet. For now though, and working with the ever-shifting video game release calendar as it’s currently constituted, here are Kotaku’s most anticipated upcoming games of 2025.
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After years of waiting and several last-minute delays, I’m eager to finally go hands-on with the Early Access version of Hyper Light Breaker. It’s the latest release from the makers of Hyper Light Drifter, which I absolutely adore, and while it’s a major departure from that single-player atmospheric Zelda-like, I’m very curious to see how the loot-driven roguelite experience works in a procedurally generated 3D world. Is it too much to hope for it to be Risk of Rain 2 meets Hades meets haunting cyberpunk-infused apocalypse? – Ethan Gach
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Inspired by tabletop RPGs, 2022’s Citizen Sleeper was set on a ruined space station where you played a digitized human in a robo-body, making the best of the dice rolls that defined your days. In sequel Starward Vector, we’re off to a town somehow built in an asteroid belt, where once more we’re on the run from the corporation that owns the tech in which we exist, trying to fulfill contracts and create a life for ourselves—and yes, all still based on the roll of those dice. – John Walker
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After a few years away from the Life Is Strange-style melodramatic adventure game, Don’t Nod is going back to its roots with Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. The two-part series follows a group of teenage girls in the ‘90s who discover something they swore never to speak of again. When they reunite 27 years later, a lot has changed but some things haven’t. They laugh about the past and consider the future, but all their conversations lead back to whatever it was that happened when they were young.
I played a chunk of the game last year and was really compelled by how Don’t Nod was tackling the good and bad of nostalgia, and how it felt like the most earnest version yet of the team’s depiction of the teenage experience, largely because it harkens to the developers’ own childhoods. Thankfully we won’t have to wait too long to unwrap Lost Records’ mysteries, as the game was initially meant to launch last year, but was delayed to avoid the release of Life Is Strange: Double Exposure. The first episode is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S next month on February 18, with the second to follow on March 18. – Kenneth Shepard
5 / 29
Monster Hunter Worlds took the action-RPG formula into the modern, high-powered console age and Monster Hunter Wilds seems set to be the next major evolution of the long-running series with the most varied, vibrant, and dangerous sandbox yet. With all of the other multiplayer live-service grindfests in my life currently waning, I can’t wait to sink my Arkveld fangs deep into its sprawling world. – Ethan Gach
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Xenogears is a game I’ll never forget. Ever since, through all of their ups and downs, I’ve been fully onboard the Xeno-inspired train, from Xenosaga to Xenoblade, with no intention of ever letting go. But Xenoblade Chronicles X remains the series’ modern white whale for me—the only one I didn’t play all the way through because of its ill-fated exclusivity to Wii U. No longer. I’m ready to embark on its alien planet adventur,e building up a colony in crisis through mech-piloted exploits like never before. – Ethan Gach
7 / 29
I am now realizing that I submitted several rhythm game hybrids to this list. Am I predictable, or are developers just doing cool shit in 2025 by marrying music-centric mechanics to other genres? Both, maybe. Afterlove EP is a narrative rhythm game from Pikselnesia, the developer behind Coffee Talk and What Comes After. It follows Rama, a musician who’s trying to get back into the groove after the loss of his love Cinta. The game will explore grief, when and how we move on, and how we channel our pain into creative mediums. It’s coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch in Q1. – Kenneth Shepard
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Combining a turn-based RPG with real-time tactics and QTE actions for its combat, Clair Obscur takes place in a Belle Époque-inspired setting, except with, you know, god-likes and magic powers. It’s a French-created RPG starring some big names like Charlie Cox (Daredevil), Andy Serkis (everything ever), and Ben Starr (Final Fantasy XVI). It sees you controlling a team attempting to thwart the evil machinations of the Paintress through incredibly involved fighting. – John Walker
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It can be hard enough to find someone at the right time to play a two-player co-op game, so FBC Firebreak’s requirement of a three-player setup seems like a big ask. Until, that is, you learn this is an FPS by Remedy, and it’s set in their Control universe, and you’re all working together to battle the impossible weirdness that’s infiltrated the Federal Bureau of Control. It’s to be all about teamwork in extradimensional otherworldliness, from a development team that’s constantly interesting. – John Walker
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The Metal Gear Solid franchise’s legacy not only endures but remains as impressive as ever. Snake Eater is one of the greats in that canon, and the chance to retread its hallowed ground with top-notch visuals and some modern quality-of-life tweaks isn’t one I’m going to pass up. – Ethan Gach
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The last of my rhythm game hybrids is Fretless. I played this deck-building turn-based rhythm RPG at PAX East last year, and it was easily the star of the show. I was drawn to the attention to detail the team at Ritual Studios took to make every note and strategic choice I made in its music-based battles feel like a part of the world. The music would change depending on what instrument I wielded, each card had a different melody attached to it as I used it in battle, and because each of those cards and guitars came with different functions, I was given plenty of reason to switch between them and hear different music throughout the brief time I got to play. It’s fascinating playing an RPG and imagining that every attack, spell, and dodge could be mapped onto sheet music. Fretless rules, and I can’t wait to play more when it comes to PC later this year. – Kenneth Shepard
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XCOM-inspired tactics with Dishonored-style stealth action. Oh, and there’s deckbuilding mechanics to boot. That’s the pitch for Sleight of Hand, and it’s one that checks some of my favorite boxes. If it can nail the mix of strategy and occult noir, Sleight of Hand has the potential to be one of my favorite games of 2025. -Ethan Gach
13 / 29
Having been stuck in purgatory for so many years, Metroid Prime 4 was finally re-re-announced by Nintendo in June 2024, with a promise of a 2025 release date. Nothing has been said since, so we’re desperately hopeful that remains true, and that the first-person 3D spin-off series’ original creators, Retro, can have us and Samus scanning absolutely everything again after an 18-year wait. – John Walker
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In late 1988, Ninja Gaiden arrived on the NES, blowing millions of players away—myself included—with its fluid movement, scorching soundtrack, and—most notable for the era—its thrilling cutscenes. Though we think of cutscenes as standard fare nowadays, cutscenes like the ones in this game, bursting with cinematic flair, were a novelty, and the back of the box even made reference to the game’s “unique cinema display system.”
Now, we’re getting a new 2D Ninja Gaiden, helmed by the folks behind Blasphemous. Making a 2D ninja action game in 2025 that stands out from the crowd will be no easy task, but I’m crossing my fingers that The Game Kitchen can recapture some of the sizzling energy that made the NES original and its first sequel so unforgettable. – Carolyn Petit
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With a stunning Spiderverse-ish “on-the-twos” animation style and a Deep South setting, South of Midnight looks like a sort of Horizon Zero Dawn in the swamps, but plays with a soulslike sensibility. Everything about it looks so very appealing, from its enigmatic protagonist and her mutant catfish companion to the old chestnut of combat turning a bleak world into a colorful place full of flowers.- John Walker
16 / 29
As a giant GTA fan and someone who has played GTA V since the very day it was released across multiple platforms, it’s weird to finally say this: Grand Theft Auto 6, the next entry in the series, arrives in less than 12 months. Probably.
See, while I’m excited and hopeful that this time next year we’ll all be playing and enjoying GTA 6, I’m still nervous. Rockstar has a bad track record of announcing release dates in advance only to miss them and delay their big games. But if GTA 6 can avoid that fate, then I’ll be playing what might be the most detailed open-world action game ever made later this year. – Zack Zwiezen
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Originally scheduled for 2024, Ubisoft’s latest and possibly biggest Assassin’s Creed adventure is finally arriving in early 2025, and it feels like a crucial game for the company. Ubisoft needs a big win and Shadows, set in feudal Japan and featuring two protagonists and a focus on stealth, looks like it could be the big blockbuster winner the publisher desperately needs. The success of Shadows won’t just affect the future of the AC franchise, but of Ubisoft, too. No pressure. – Zack Zwiezen
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The Mafia franchise has never been as popular, successful, or well-known as Grand Theft Auto or other, bigger open-world games. Fans of these games love them for how much they focus on realism, while also including cinematic moments and gritty criminal stories. So a new Mafia game set in Italy and focused on the origins of the modern mob is basically catnip to fans of the series. For everyone else, this might be the perfect jumping-on point. – Zack Zwiezen
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2024 gave us a terrible Borderlands movie that nobody wanted. 2025 will thankfully bring us something much better: A new, mainline Borderlands game. Borderlands 4 looks to continue the wacky sci-fi narrative featured in past games and will also include a lot of guns to collect and baddies to shoot. Sure, the jokes in these games are often cringey and unfunny, but the co-op gameplay is second to none. So my wife and I will be hopping back into another Borderlands game when the sequel arrives this year. – Zack Zwiezen
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2020’s Doom Eternal was really fucking good. But it (and its DLC) also felt like id Software had scraped all it could out of its modern Doom series. Enter Doom: The Dark Ages, a prequel to the last two Doom games set in Hell and featuring more medieval weaponry and action. It seems like a perfect way to provide us all with more awesome Doom gameplay without retreading old territory. I mean, the Doomguy gets to ride a dragon and use a chainsaw shield in this game. Yes, please! That’s all I needed to see. I’m ready to play and I’m mad I have to wait until later this year! – Zack Zwiezen
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Obsidian’s return to the Pillars of Eternity franchise takes a big twist, this time playing as a first-person action-RPG set in a pirate-riddled region of Eora, The Living Lands. We’ve already played a good few hours of its opening areas, and are very confident this is going to be one of the games to beat in 2025—its combination of athletic antics and deep RPG questing is made even more appealing with a classless approach to creating your character. – John Walker
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How do you make a sequel to Death Stranding 2? Perhaps the only person who can answer that question is the one who directed the first game, Hideo Kojima. I loved Death Stranding. I loved its earnest tale of post-apocalyptic bond-building and cooperation; I loved the way I felt the terrain of its world under my feet; I loved the way its asynchronous multiplayer went hand-in-hand with its thematic concerns. But what will a sequel deliver? Will its story find bold and meaningful new directions to go in? Will its gameplay substantially build on what the first game did? Right now, I admit, it’s a bit tough for me to see how, but that only makes me more eager to find out what Kojima Productions has in the works. – Carolyn Petit
23 / 29
Right now, Pokémon Legends: Z-A is an enigma. We do know it is likely one of the last marquee games for the Nintendo Switch, that it takes place entirely in the metropolis of Lumiose City, and that it will bring back the beloved gimmick of superpowered Mega Evolutions. Beyond that, Z-A is uncharted territory. We’ve only gotten one other game in the Legends subseries with 2022’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and based on what little information we have, it sounds unlikely Z-A will be a carbon copy of its predecessor.
Arceus was about capturing Pokémon in an untamed world where human/Pokémon relationships were still in their infancy. Z-A will be set entirely in a big city. The most exciting thing about Z-A is that it will show us what developer Game Freak believes the core tenets of a Legends game to be. Right now, we only have one game to extrapolate from, and Arceus was one of the best games the series has put out in several years. Z-A has a lot to live up to, and right now, the mystery is exciting. – Kenneth Shepard
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Obsidian’s other big RPG prospect for 2025 is a sequel to its “We don’t have the rights to Fallout any more” creation, The Outer Worlds. The Outer Worlds 2 takes you to Arcadia, a planet developing skip drive technology, causing rifts all across the galaxy—so save the galaxy you must, albeit as you see fit, given this is all about how you control the story. – John Walker
25 / 29
I recently started watching Arcane, and as someone who has no attachment to League of Legends, I can already feel myself starting to care about its characters, but I have no desire to add another MOBA to my life. However, I’m always looking for my next fighting game hyperfixation. 2XKO is the latest in Riot’s push to bring League of Legends characters to different genres, and a fighting game is the exact genre that I gravitate toward when I want to visit a place but not live in it. I’m not ready to commit to becoming a League superfan, but I’m intrigued enough to want to dip my toe into it, and a fast-paced, free-to-play fighter sounds like it could be a great place to start when it comes to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. – Kenneth Shepard
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The long-awaited fourth Fable game has a lot to prove. It’s the first entry in the cheeky action RPG series since the shutdown of original developer Lionhead Studios, and it’s been 15 years since the lukewarm reception to Fable III in 2010. A lot has happened in RPGs since, and some of the things that made the first two Fable games so notable have become outdated relics of a time long gone.
Fable is dragging the realm of Albion into the era of open-world RPGs, but will it also modernize the dated good/evil morality system that Fable III tried to add a bit of nuance to? How will new developer Playground Games balance drawing from the groundwork Lionhead laid and keeping pace with all the other influential RPGs that have come since? I’m excited to see what the team has been cooking when Fable comes to PC and Xbox Series X/S. – Kenneth Shepard
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More games should also be rhythm games. Full stop. You want to make a beat-em-up adventure game about a ragtag group of rebels doing crimes and fighting cops? Hell yeah. You want to make it a rhythm game? Hell fucking yeah. Unbeatable is an upcoming anime-inspired rhythm game from D-Cell Games that follows a band trying to play music in a land where music is illegal. It looks stylish as all get out, the music you’ll be playing sounds like a collection of eclectic earworms, and its marriage of genres feels primed to tell a compelling story of passionate people trying to get by in a world hellbent on keeping them down. It’s coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S later this year. – Kenneth Shepard
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Sucker Punch’s follow-up to 2020’s action-adventure Ghost of Tsushima is a sure-fire bet for a 2025 Sony success, the PS5-only sequel taking its samurai protagonist on a journey of vengeance. Not the same samurai, given this story takes place some 329 years after the previous game (but I’d play that), but rather as Atsu, a female warrior taking on the mantle of The Ghost. – John Walker
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