#1 Blue Prince
It's hard to put into words how special this game is to me. I had heard rumblings of the next 'Witness' from a solo developer. When I heard it was a rogue like, my excitement dwindled a bit. That’s never been a genre I’ve really connected with. I tend to lose patience with the slow, incremental progress and drift away early.
But a puzzle rogue like? I decided to give it a chance.
I still remember starting it up for the first time with my partner. What seemed simple at first quickly unfolded into something far more intricate than I expected. It kept expanding in ways that felt deliberate and carefully layered, the kind of design that rewards attention rather than scale. This quote from Warren Spectre "I'd rather do something that's an inch wide and a mile deep than something that's a mile wide and an inch deep". feels exactly right here.
We ended up completely absorbed in it for weeks. We even made our own detective style notebook, filling it with sketches, notes, and rough maps to keep track of everything we were discovering.
When we 'finished' the game and reached room 46, it was just the beginning. We spent upwards of 80 hours unravelling new areas revealing story elements and hidden mechanics that deepened our understanding of the game and it's world.
We didn't reach the 'true ending' of the game. Mostly because of time, but I'm at peace with that. In the words of it's creator Tonda Ros "I think for anything in life, you never want to turn over every stone, because when you turn over the last stone, there is no mystery"
#2 Death Stranding 2
The first Death Stranding was a game I tried when it came out, but I only got about halfway through it. I was more drawn to its big sci fi ideas than the moment to moment gameplay, which never fully clicked for me.
Still, it stuck with me. It arrived at a strange time, during Covid, where its focus on connection in a disconnected world felt more relevant than it probably should have. The fact it was set in a version of my home country made it hit a bit closer as well. Even when I wasn’t playing it, I kept thinking about it.
So when the sequel started showing up, I wasn’t completely sure if I wanted to go back. But the more I saw, the more curious I got. I was hoping it would smooth out some of the systems and make the combat feel a bit more involved, without losing what made it distinct in the first place.
It took a few hours to really settle in. But once it did, it completely had me. I found myself going out of my way to five star every facility, just to see what each one would give me next. That loop, slowly building connections and being rewarded for it, started to click in a way it hadn’t before.
What surprised me most was how much more human it all felt this time. The story, the characters, the smaller moments in between everything else. It still has those larger, stranger ideas, but they feel grounded in a way that made me care about them more.
#3 Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
I’ve been a long time fan of MachineGames through the Wolfenstein series, so hearing they were taking on an Indiana Jones game immediately caught my attention. I’ve never been a huge Indiana Jones fan in itself, but the idea of a first person adventure built around treasure hunting and puzzles felt like it could land perfectly for me.
What surprised me most is how confident it feels in its level design. It doesn’t just lean on the fantasy of an Indy style adventure, it actually builds spaces that feel like they belong in that world. The Vatican section in particular stands out, with a structure that reminded me of immersive sims like Deus Ex and Dishonored, layered with secrets, side paths, and small environmental puzzles that reward curiosity more than anything else.
That said, not everything fully clicked for me. The maps were often more confusing than helpful, which led to a lot of backtracking when I was trying to track down collectibles. The stealth also felt a bit uneven, never quite as satisfying as the rest of the systems around it.
Even with those frustrations, the overall package is incredibly strong. The writing, performances, visuals, sound design, and soundtrack all come together in a way that really sells the feeling of a classic Indiana Jones film. At times it feels like it could have worked as a more linear experience, but I appreciate that MachineGames pushed it into something larger and more layered. It feels like a strong foundation for whatever they do next.
#4 Dispatch
I’ve had an itch to play something in the vein of a classic Telltale game for a while, and Dispatch ended up being exactly that fix.
What stood out straight away was how strong the writing and characters are. Everything feels built around them, supported by an art style that fits the tone really well.
The actual gameplay mechanics are fairly light, but that didn’t really matter. Me and my partner ended up enjoying the rhythm of it, especially taking turns on the dispatching sections. It became more of a shared experience than something mechanically deep.
That said, I did start to get a bit tired of the dispatching sections near the end. I was so invested in the story and characters that I found myself mainly wanting to get back to the narrative moments instead of the gameplay in between.
#5 Ghost of Yotei
I really liked Ghost of Tsushima when it came out and remember getting completely absorbed in it while working through the map to 100 percent. It never really felt like a chore, which surprised me at the time. It felt like a more restrained version of the Ubisoft open world formula, but with tighter combat and far less of the usual overwhelm. A lot of that came down to the wind system, which guided you to points of interest in a way that felt natural rather than intrusive.
Going into Yotei, I was already interested in the setting. Having visited Hokkaido before, there was an immediate familiarity to the world, and the revenge setup targeting the Yotei Six gave it a clear narrative hook.
But beyond that initial pull, I struggled to find much else to hold onto. It feels like Tsushima refined almost to a fault. Everything is smoother, more controlled, more polished, but in the process something gets lost. It’s like the edges have been sanded down until there’s no friction left at all. And that friction is often what makes a game stick in your memory.
NOTES
Selected Games 2025
[ Index ]
18.12.2025
[ Entry ]
Games have been a constant for me for as long as I can remember, going back to getting a Nintendo 64 in the late 90s. Since then, it’s been the one medium I’ve kept coming back to, especially for that feeling of stepping into a completely different world and getting lost in it for a while.
Lately though, that’s shifted a bit. Not in a deliberate way, but more in how rarely something actually holds my attention. There are more games than ever, and with things like Game Pass and PS Plus it’s easier to try everything, but harder to really stay with anything. I find myself bouncing between titles, then drifting back to the same comfort games I’ve already spent years with.
This year felt a bit different in that sense. There was one game that genuinely broke through and ended up somewhere in my all time favourites. Outside of that, there were a lot of good games, some even great, but not many that really stayed with me long after I stopped playing. Even putting together a short list felt harder than it should have.
