Matt Kim
Guest
We’re a little over halfway through 2025, but there’s a strong case for calling the Game of the Year race over, even before the end of summer.
Typically, the time to start thinking about Game of the Year is after all the fall releases come out, and we can take stock of all the great games that came out across the 10 or 11 previous months. And while there are still some exciting games on the horizon, three have made a strong claim on the GOTY crown already, and it’s hard to imagine any of them losing steam anytime soon.
With under half a year left in 2025, let’s look back at our three front-runners and how they each captured everyone’s attention. Can they hold onto their status as this year’s best game? Or will we see an upset in the coming months?
The Front-Runners
There’s a popular consensus, both among IGN staff and in the public, that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from developer Sandfall Interactive, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach from Kojima Productions, and Donkey Kong Bananza from Nintendo EPD are leading the GOTY race in 2025.
Each of these games received rave reviews and captured the popular imagination for different reasons. What’s more, each of them is associated with one of gaming’s “Big Three.” Death Stranding 2 and Donkey Kong Bananza are PlayStation and Nintendo exclusives, respectively. Meanwhile, Expedition 33 launched day one on Xbox Game Pass to quickly become one of the service’s most popular games. So let’s start there…
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Emerges From Obscurity
Arguably, the biggest surprise of the year is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Made by a core team of around 30 developers, Sandfall Interactive’s debut has become the toast of the games industry, given that it’s a brand-new IP from a small studio that quickly went on to sell 3.3 million copies within 33 days.
Expedition 33 is about the eponymous exploration team sent to stop a god-like entity known as the Paintress. Each year, the Paintress draws a new number on a colossal stone pillar, and any citizen of the fictional city of Lumiere who is the same age or older than that number disappears. This event, known as the Gommage, has been inflicting a devastating emotional toll on the people of Lumiere each and every year, not least because the number decreases annually, thus extinguishing younger and younger citizens.
It’s not hard to see why Expedition 33 became such a success. This modern take on the classic JRPG formula is exhilarating to play thanks to the way it combines turn-based combat with real-time actions like dodges and parries. And the excellent, heart-wrenching story is led by a stellar cast of characters voiced by talented actors such as Charlie Cox, Ben Starr, and Jennifer English.
The remarkable thing about Expedition 33 is that it truly feels like it came out of nowhere. Initially announced at the 2024 Summer Games Fest with a striking trailer, not much was known about this game heading into launch. While two of the studio’s founders are former Ubisoft developers, many members of the team were found on sites like Reddit, ArtStation, and SoundCloud. While the reports about Expedition 33 being made by 33 developers are a bit misleading (Sandfall’s small core team worked with several specialist companies for QA, music, performance capture, and other development disciplines), it doesn’t take away from the impressive feat achieved with Expedition 33.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Returns Kojima to His Best
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a return to form for one of gaming’s most famous directors, Hideo Kojima. While many fans enjoyed the first Death Stranding, I think few would say it was on par with Kojima’s previous work on the Metal Gear Solid franchise. Not so with his sequel, On the Beach, which improves on virtually every aspect of the first game.
The story of Death Stranding 2 picks up shortly after the events of the original, and once again stars Norman Reedus as the post-apocalyptic delivery man Sam Porter Bridges. This time, Sam makes his way across Mexico and Australia to reconnect the world following a mysterious catastrophe known as the Death Stranding. Along with the new environment, he’s joined by a crew of new characters like the transdimensional ship captain Tarman, a rain mystic appropriately named Rainy, a mysterious young woman called Tomorrow, the talking figurine companion Dollman, and Sam’s former delivery competitor, Fragile.
With Death Stranding 2, Kojima Productions refined the original game’s core traversal challenge gameplay experience to a fine point. Players are free to combine any number of tools, like ladders and floating carriers, to make their way through hostile terrain, and Death Stranding 2’s combat has been dramatically improved thanks to an expanded arsenal of weapons and skills. Why shoot bullets at enemies when you can karate kick them in the head using techniques taught to you by Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii?
Yes, Death Stranding 2 is a strange game, but it’s also unlike any other AAA game out there. Amid a wave of glowing reviews, Death Stranding 2 feels like a reminder that there’s no one quite like Kojima when it comes to game development. Not only are there all kinds of bizarre and wonderful little details in Death Stranding 2, but all the technical and visual improvements in the sequel make this the best game Kojima has directed since he left Konami.
Donkey Kong Bananza Is the Switch 2’s Super Mario Odyssey AND Breath of the Wild
Donkey Kong is perhaps Nintendo’s second-most famous mascot after Mario, but the prospect of a new 3D Donkey Kong game still raised plenty of eyebrows. Not only is Bananza the first 3D Donkey Kong platformer since 1999’s rocky Donkey Kong 64, but as a Switch 2 launch window exclusive, a lot was riding on the big ape’s massive shoulders – DK needed to propel Nintendo’s newest console to success.
Well, any skepticism has seemingly been put to bed as Donkey Kong Bananza looks like the Switch 2’s first killer app. DK is back in the spotlight, this time as a miner who spends his days digging deep below the Earth’s surface to find Banandium Gems, banana-shaped crystals that he loves to eat. One day, DK and his crew are swallowed up by a giant sinkhole in the ground and he, along with his new friend Pauline, must find a way back up to the surface where they belong.
We gave Bananza a 10 in our review, the first perfect score for a full-length game since 2023 (Our only full-marks reviews in 2024 were for Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC and a re-review of the then-newly updated Stardew Valley), and for good reason. This open-world adventure might seem like Donkey Kong by way of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild mixed with a “destroy everything in sight” gimmick on the (sub-)surface. But the Bananza team – the same developers behind Super Mario Odyssey – have plenty of tricks up their sleeves.
While I’d hate to spoil all that Bananza has to offer, considering it’s only just come out, it features moments that rival the best 3D Mario games. One standout detail is how there are different kinds of sediment in Bananza, from regular bedrock that can be easily crushed, to muddy clay or steel that require different strategies to manipulate. You’re practically an amateur geologist by the end of the game. Plus, nothing else in all of gaming feels as satisfying as smashing through entire levels as DK. Well, save for swinging Kratos’ axe in God of War, perhaps.
Possible Contenders
While these three releases have dominated the Game of the Year conversation, there are still yet-to-be-released games on the 2025 calendar that could elbow into the conversation. Biggest among them is Ghost of Yotei, Sucker Punch’s long-awaited sequel to Ghost of Tsushima.
The recent PlayStation deep-dive into Ghost of Yotei showed off a variety of exciting gameplay improvements and features, like the return of the different director modes, which will give Ghost of Yotei a different vibe depending on which director’s style you choose. Kurosawa Mode returns and turns the world into a classic, black-and-white samurai film, but new additions like Watanabe Mode will give the game a lo-fi hip-hop soundtrack similar to the director’s famous anime, Samurai Champloo.
There’s also the upcoming Borderlands 4. While the last Borderlands game left a lot to be desired, especially for long-time fans of the series, Borderlands remains incredibly popular. Gearbox says it’s heard your complaints about the last game and is promising a much better experience with the new title. 2012’s Borderlands 2 remains a series high-point and was nominated for several Game of the Year awards, and there’s no reason Gearbox can’t reach those same highs again.
The Outer Worlds 2 and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond are also exciting games to look forward to this year. While the first Outer Worlds was a generally well-received game, Obsidian Entertainment has been on a roll with games like Pentiment and Avowed, and The Outer Worlds 2 could continue this winning streak. Meanwhile, fans are no doubt excited for the first new Metroid Prime game in 18(!) years. It’s worth remembering that Beyond did undergo a complete reboot in the middle of its development, so we’ll wait and see how that impacts the final release.
Lastly, there’s Konami’s Silent Hill f, which looks to build on the massive success of the Silent Hill 2 remake with a brand-new entry that takes the series to Japan for the first time in series history. Konami seems fully invested in turning Silent Hill into a major franchise again, and between hiring famous Japanese writer Ryukishi 07 to pen the story for Silent Hill f, and bringing back original composer Akira Yamaoka, there’s reason to believe Konami can continue the Silent Hill renaissance.
The bar for GOTY has been set very high indeed with games like Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2, and Donkey Kong Bananza, and this great string of game releases isn’t likely to be over just yet. 2025 is shaping up to be quite the strong year if some fans are already calling the race for Game of the Year over by July. Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing how we’re all feeling come this December when we make our official announcement for IGN’s Best Game of 2025, and see who takes the top accolade at The Game Awards 2025.
Matt Kim is IGN's Senior Features Editor.