The Cutting Room Floor: The Drifter's 2025 Honorable Mentions

A bunch of games that didn't quite make the cut for the ten best games of 2025. Also some dishonorable mentions and an addendum for some games that didn't even make this off-top 10 list!

So many great games this year.
These games didn’t quite make the cut, but hell— play them all anyway!

What a year!!
2025 was one of the best years in video games I can remember.
This is a continuing series where I fill you all in on the very best of 2025. Without too much preamble— let’s go!
———————————————————————————————————————————The Drifter’s 2025 Honorable Mentions

Herdling (Played on PlayStation 5)

Herdling is such a trip. What a journey it was, too!
On the surface, Herdling brings to mind a ‘walking sim’, like a Journey from the revered studio thatgamecompany or the brilliant work from developer Giant Squid, like Sword of the Sea (which shows up later!), or The Pathless, perhaps.
But Herdling as an achievement is so much more.

Okomotive, Herdling’s developer, has nailed a particular sensation of ‘locomotion’ in their games so well. It’s almost a certain “je nais se quois” that is hard to quantify. I think the worlds they build as creators and the actions they have you taking part in within these spaces are so singular and unique. Their work is so distinctive. You won’t find any other games like those made by Okomotive.
As developers, they are so proficient at creating interesting mechanics to engage in. The simple act of intentionally moving through the vast, picturesque spaces that they have created gives their games a sense of wonder and awe that hasn’t been replicated in the gaming landscape. There is a certain tactile nature to the games and the worlds they curate to contain these ideas that truly sets them apart in the industry.

Okomotive has taken what they’ve learned from their prior two efforts, FAR: Lone Sails and its sequel FAR: Changing Tides, and created something in Herdling that is not just bigger, more expansive, and more profound; it’s almost a transcendental, borderline religious experience to play through it.
I adored Herdling, and I hope others give it a shot based on my recommendation. The simple reason it didn’t make my top 10 for this year? I liked 10 games more than it, and if I had to rank it, it would be below them, but not by much. Fantastic game!
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Shotgun Cop Man (Played on Switch)

One of the most ‘playable’ video games I've touched this year, Shotgun Copman knows what it wants to be, and damn if it doesn’t punch above its weight.
It feels like one of those games I would’ve found on NewGrounds or Miniclip back in the day when I was playing browser games in my adolescence. There is something so free and juvenile about it, I can’t help but smile at its rebelliousness and pure, dumb fun simplicity. I loved the time I spent with it.

There is a sort of verve to Shotgun Copman that brings to mind the days of XBLA and early PSN games, like Super Meat Boy and Hotline Miami. Games that were balling on a budget, but executing an awesome game with a killer, immediate hook. I had such a fun weekend banging it out on my old Switch.
Just thinking about it it makes me wanna jump back in there and kill stuff again. I don’t need to explain too much about the game itself because, honestly? The name does the job just fine, I think. You have a shotgun (mostly), and you are very much a Cop… Man.
Hell yeah.
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Pippistrello and the Cursed Yoyo (Played on PlayStation 5)

If not for Hollow Knight: Silksong this year, this would be just about the best Metroidvania I have played in many years. Everything about this game, from the banging music, the gorgeous pixel art, to the quirky characters, and a surprisingly engaging story about late-stage capitalism, is top-notch. It’s perhaps my biggest surprise of the year in terms of not being aware of this game before release. Pippistrello really knocked my socks off.

I will be frank about a small gripe I have with it, however. The end of the game has a really rough difficulty spike that hits you like a bag of bricks out of nowhere, and it’s a brutal wake-up call. Kind of a shame given that until that point in the game, it’s been a fairly easygoing experience (I did die quite a lot though). That being said, the game does incentivize you to get all the stuff in the game world before getting you there to the endgame level (which is good), but it doesn’t make the fact that the difficulty is raised to pad out the game time that much better. That standout issue is possibly the only reason it didn’t make it on my top 10 this year.

Regardless of that late-game speed bump, I think the yoyo mechanics are so novel and fresh that they almost make up for that misstep, because attempting the final push to the credits is just so damn fun. Hell, playing all of the game is a blast. It’s a slight bummer that I am sorta soured by my experience with getting to its conclusion, but it doesn’t take fully away from Pippistrello and the Cursed Yoyo being one of my new faves in the genre.
Play this game!
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Sword of the Sea (Played on PlayStation 5)

No more have I felt like I had been playing a work of art (literally) than when I played Sword of the Sea this year.
As previously mentioned, this is the new joint from Giant Squid: makers of indie ‘art games’, ABZU and The Pathless, (as previously mentioned in my Herdling write-up). ‘Art Games’ as a term may be a bit of a misnomer, but I think it gets the point across of what these types of experiences trade in, somewhat. These games are art in the most literal sense, a cacophony of pure creativity and color the likes of which we don’t see in the industry too often. The DNA from those previously stated games is carried into this new venture in a particular way, with a lot of the craft and design from the two games influencing Sword of the Sea quite heavily.

It also has maybe the best-looking water tech in a game… ever? Bold claim to be sure because I dunno if you know this… Video games? They look good as hell these days. I am comfortable saying that, however, because it just floored me every time they showed off that stuff. It’s gorgeous. It somehow plays even better, still. You ride a flaming sword like a surfboard, man. It’s easy to grock and so satisfying to pull off sweet tricks too. They get the small stuff just right, especially with the controls being fine-tuned ‘just so’, to pull off what they ask of you in the more time-based trials that make up some of the short and sweet side content hidden just off the golden path in the game. The game is supremely enjoyable top to bottom, it’s easy to play, and easier even on the eyes to behold. You can also finish it in a night. I appreciate games that respect my time.

What an absolute pleasure to play it was. You like Tony Hawk, but instead of half-pipes, you've got big ass waves to pull off gnarly tricks on?? Sword of the Sea has got your back, and it’s got the visual chops to keep you around for the length of it, too. I think it’s Giant Squid’s best game. A true landmark for visual splendor in a storied medium.
Check it out!
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DOOM: The Dark Ages (Played on PlayStation 5)

If you know me, you know one thing. I like me some DOOM games.
This being the case, it may come as a surprise that this new effort from id Software didn’t make the cut for my top 10 this year. I think I am bummed out by that, honestly. I feel like I kinda just played through it, it washed over me, I got the experience in and enjoyed it, and that was really it…
The most damning thing I can say about it is that it didn’t stick with me at all.

This isn’t an indictment of this game or its particulars, I promise! It plays amazingly, looks like a heavy-metal album, and has the tone and seriousness of a heart attack (which may be a dig at it, I’ll admit…), but at its core, they reinvented the DOOM formula yet again in this trilogy— for a successful third time, even. It’s a credit to the creativity of the designers for having the confidence and the wherewithal to execute not just once but three times in innovating on a very well-understood FPS template, in the DOOM series. It’s remarkable how different each of the three games in the reboot trilogy plays and how successful each is at different aspects of a core idea. I applaud them and their efforts in that regard. While I think I enjoyed playing it the most out of the three in this new series, it didn’t engage me as much as DOOM: Eternal did with its brutal combat dance, or DOOM (2016) did with the tongue-in-cheekiness when it came to its story and extensive lore.

DOOM: The Dark Ages is a solid, well-made game that gets a bit too up its keister with the whole ‘badassness’ of the ‘Doom Slayer’ analogue, and while it’s cool to play through, it feels just more ephemeral and not as engaging as the two previous entries for the reasons I just stated.

Great game! Just not top 10 material, you know?
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Pokémon Legends Z-A (Played on Switch 2)

So… I played 70 hours of this game. That’s a lot of time to spend with something that didn’t make my top 10, but dammit, some cuts had to be made!
Pokémon Legends Z-A is one of the most engaging games I played this year because it was just that: engaging. I was completely sucked in, and didn’t venture to move on to other things until I had 100 percent completed everything the base game had to offer. I even did the extra ‘Jacinth Royale’ side mission quests, which involved a lot more grinding after I had already grinded the Z-A Royale for multiple hours. I also got ALL of the dex and the completion list done for this one. I played and saw EVERY BIT of this game before I moved on. There is also that DLC. Eh… I probably won’t play that any time soon. For the base game, I have done everything, so that’s fine by me.

One of the things I recognize about myself is that I have an addictive personality. When I like something… I don’t just like it— I obsess over it. I make it my whole ‘deal’ for a while. I become one with the thing that is the object of my passion slash affection. This has pros and cons, but mostly cons, chiefly the latter being that I feel like I had a gaming year that was pre-Legends Z-A, and post-Legends Z-A, with the time I spent in between both eras feeling like a sort of vacuous black hole filled with cloudy remembrances of monster catching and pink crystal smashing. I kinda remember things I did in between, but I would be hard-pressed to recall, because for the better part of October and into November this year, it was all Pokémon all the time.

I am not going to lie, it was a bit of a destabilizing point of my year in a way because of this obsession. The only reason it isn’t on my top 10 is that the other games are more deserving. But if I had to award this game “the most played new game award from 2025”, this game would be the winner. Pokémon Legends Z-A is fantastically fun and incredibly ‘sticky’, and innovates the established ‘Pocket Monster’ formula more than even its older sibling, Pokémon Legends Arceus, ever did. I loved the time I spent with Z-A, but if you ask me the particulars, I may just give you a glassy-eyed look of bemusement and tell you I enjoyed myself.
”Good game!!!” (*I say as I laugh heartily, whilst wrapped in a straitjacket behind asylum bars…*).
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Assassin’s Creed Shadows (Played on PlayStation 5)

Whew. Glad that’s over. Okay, I did enjoy this game, but I am thrilled to be done with it. My issues with Assassin’s Creed Shadows have more to do with the franchise’s woes at large than anything of a piece to do with the make-up of this particular entry. The ‘meta-narrative’, shall we say, of Assassin’s Creed as a franchise is a fucking mess.

In previous entries, there has been an ever-present ‘main narrative’ of Assassin’s Creed that strung together every mainline and secondary entry to the series in a continuous (albeit sloppy) way to keep the main thrust of the ‘real life’ (in-game) proceedings going. Even if it was bad, it continued, and even if it didn’t make sense, it was there in a way that you could point to it and say, “Hey, this shit is messed up and confusing as fuck, but dammit if they aren’t still trying to keep the narrative going after all these years…”; Assassin’s Creed Shadows all but dispenses with the winding meta-narrative and sorta just… gives it all up. Some could argue they gave up after Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, where they at least attempted something novel with the whole Abstergo Employee ‘adventure game’ portion of the narrative. At least that was an attempt.

Even Assassin’s Creed Origins, and its sequel Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (an awful AC game, and an even blander RPG game to boot, in my opinion— but I digress) made ‘attempts’ at furthering the narrative with ‘human savior stand-in’ Layla Hassan (the less said about her involvement, the better). But I think I prefer having those things rather than not having ANYTHING at all to gesture at to judge what they are doing with the large story they had felt so compelled to include in each game, up until now.
Having nothing is worse than it being bad. Or else, why have you asked me to care for so long?

It feels aimless, and I feel weirdly betrayed by it all? Honestly, that bit is on me because I am the sucker who continues to play these despite my own misgivings with the franchise writ large. I have let myself be the Assassin’s Creed ‘Guy’ in my life, and that’s a problem with me, full stop. I am at the point where I dunno if I can get off the train, though. I’ve come this far, and I like the series still sometimes, but I dunno.

This is maybe more of a cry for help than an honorable mention at this point, but as for the game in question, it’s a bit underwhelming, at times boring, and Naoe is fun as hell to play as. There are too many targets (I was tripping on fuckers to stab at times when I wasn’t even hunting them), and the base stuff and companions are underbaked. Yasuke surprised me by the end with how much I came around on his narrative stuff, but yeah, that’s all. The whole package is good.
Just that. ‘Functional Assassin’s Creed’.

Is that okay? Is that worth playing? To me… I don’t think it matters. I will probably continue to play them all anyway.

I… have to know… You understand, don’t you?
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Wanderstop (Played on PlayStation 5)

Cutting this one… Killed me. I think it is so brilliant. It’s my favorite indie game of the year that didn’t make my top 10.
It’s almost… an ‘anti-game’? If there is such a thing?? In so many ways, it breaks convention, yet is unconcerned with innovating in any discernible way on any part of the gameplay. It presents itself as an interactive tale, and you play it. That’s it. These are all positives, I will add.

Wanderstop doesn’t care about meters, or goals, or even progress, really. It’s a game without a ‘pace’. The meta-game ‘trophies’ are also unimportant to Wanderstop, and I think they’re only there because PlayStation mandates they be there. Every achievement or trophy is time-gated, and you unlock them as you play just by existing in the game world. Now, we can have a conversation about meta-layer level ‘trophies’ and about them being ‘real’ or if they even ‘matter’, I guess, but that’s not really the point, is it? It’s fascinating stuff! Why do we care about these things? Why do I care? Does it offer some sort of kernel of achievement during a life full of rug-pulling and disappointment?
Maybe.

Maybe it’s not about that. But that also doesn’t matter. The game struck up this conversation within myself. That’s cool. That’s important to me. Games don’t do that. Games usually don’t even venture to have these sorts of conversations. It bucks convention. Wanderstop has something to say. Boy, does it say it too.

A lot of the message of this game can come across as ‘preachy’, and I get that. But I also get the vibe that the developers were ‘weary’ when they decided to make this game. Because, ultimately, at its core, it is a game about burnout. We don’t get games that talk about that, but at some point or another, we have all been burned out by work or life. Having a game that talks about that topic, hidden beneath the guise of a ‘cozy game’ sim about making tea for travelling customers, is brilliant.
The ‘game’ part of the game is enjoyable as well, but again, the developers are not concerned about the particulars in that way. You can fail tea recipes for folks, and yet, surprisingly, the game continues with no penalty. It’s a game about life and how we try and ascribe importance and motivation to specific portions of it.

It’s a game about wanting and understanding and needing. Never have I played a game that elicits such a specific yearning in me to relax, but not knowing how to do so. It’s a fantastic game that I can’t stop thinking about. It should be on my top 10 because I feel this way, and yet, I don’t think, as a game, it’s strong enough to be up there. It’s an anti-game in some ways, like I’ve said, and that is inherently a frustrating thing for me. In a way, I like that, though.

People should play this game. It’s one of a kind. I look forward to whatever this studio Ivy Road does next. It’s one of the strongest debut indie games I can remember. I’m sorry I had to cut you, Wanderstop. You were almost there. You would win the award for ‘most likely to induce an existentialist wake-up call in me’ handily, though. The fact that it made me ask myself tough questions is uncomfortable, and I think that’s healthy. I just don’t know if I ‘liked’ that, per se. But it was definitely interesting.
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Blue Prince (Played on PlayStation 5)

I wrote about this game here! It’s frustrating and brilliant in both equal measure. If I had any more revised thoughts to give on it, I would say that it was a ‘hot and heavy’, week and a half that I played this, and for a while, it was my game of the year. But when was this? Like May? I dunno, but when it came out, it was all I could think about. Another obsession, you could say.

So why didn’t it make it? Again, I'm using that old crutch I’ve been leaning on this whole exercise: there are 10 games better than Blue Prince this year, I believe. But not many more. It would be like… my number 12. Right behind Wanderstop, the game I mentioned just a bit ago. It’s a brilliant game handicapped by its design, and you either like it or you don’t. It would be far better if some amount of reliable permanence kicked in towards the later runs, or when you needed just one more thing to get where you need to go. Not having that kills runs, and ultimately, what killed Blue Prince on the top 10 list for me this year.
It is undoubtedly a flawed masterpiece, I maintain, however, and I shall be thinking about it this year, and many years to come, I expect.
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Ball x Pit (Played on Switch 2)

Out of all the roguelike games I played this year that I dabbled with (that I didn’t see the end of), Ball x Pit was by far my favorite. There is a sort of mashy, devil-may-care attitude to the design of Ball x Pit that I really admire. It’s relatively simple as a concept: ‘Roguelike Breakout’ with increasing difficulties and multiple characters (and a town builder…? That part kinda doesn’t work for me…) to use as you play through a stage-based selection of scrolling arcade maps to reach your ultimate goal of killing a big boss at the end. Very simple idea.

The complexity comes with the ‘fusion and evolution’ mechanics of the random perks you attain, where you can mix and match certain perks’ attributes to achieve either a higher level of said perk, mix it with other perks, or evolve it into something else entirely. It keeps each run feeling fresh and breezy without causing too much frustration. Even dying isn’t really that bad, given how long each run is. When you succeed in a run at least on the normal difficulty, the time spent in each session caps out from anywhere around 15-25 minutes.

If you fail, or even if you beat a run, you are incentivized to start again, and the winnings you get from each run go toward your town center, where you build new projects to house new characters after you receive specific blueprint drops in a run, or you build resources to mine with the town residents in a pinball-esque harvesting minigame. While that aspect of the game isn’t wholly successful, I felt the push to keep playing because the whole damn game is just so fun to play. I keep returning to it off and on when I feel the urge, and the only reason I didn’t add it to my top 10 is that I just didn’t finish it. I played a lot of stuff this year, and wanted to keep my top 10 with the things I really dedicated myself toward seeing through, and I can’t quite say that I did with Ball x Pit. I imagine, however, I will be playing it for the foreseeable future, until I do.
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Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector (Played on Switch 2)

Another casualty of not finishing it before I solidified my top 10 this past year. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is everything the first game is and more: which is to say it’s a visual novel narrative game with even more mechanics. Not to be reductive, even. Just descriptive.
I think while the story about another ‘sleeper’ (a robotic shell for a sleeping human working off corporate debt) living in a sci-fi capitalist future amongst the stars is good again this go round, the extra mechanics they add here are a little much for me.

Like in the first entry, you get up to 6 randomly rolled dice to use for activities on a static map— or space station/job board/space map to further your wealth, deal with hard problems in society, and deepen relationships with those you care about. The added features here come down to the depth of said dice rolls, like ‘dice health’, where you have to replenish the uses of your dice that either get damaged by poor application or get worse as you turn the page of the day. Also, on top of this new addition, you have a ‘stress’ meter that gets whittled down as hard decisions impact you and your crew while you either do jobs or encounter dangerous circumstances.

Both of these are nice ideas, but in practice are incredibly stressful to me as a player. The first game was a bit more easygoing and laissez-faire with the ‘rpg-ness’ of the mechanics, and I kinda liked it better that way, so I could see the story. Maybe I will kick down the difficulty from normal and take another bite at the apple in the new year, because for now, I am a bit put off by the friction of this new entry. I may end up liking it by the end, who knows? I adored the first one, and if they keep making these, I will be around to play them, I bet. I should get through this eventually, and I do admire what it’s going for more than I don’t.
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Shinobi: Art of Vengeance (Played on PlayStation 5)

The final game I wanted to mention here, but I didn’t finish. This game seems great. I don’t have too much to say here other than everything you do in this game is bad-ass, and it feels great. Lizardcube is coming into its own after that wonderful Wonder Boy and the Dragon’s Trap modern remake, and its next game: their extremely successful debut in the beat-em-up genre with Streets of Rage 4, a new entry in the classic video game franchise. Everything I have seen and played here has been terrific, and I am looking to play more of this in the coming months. With the return of Ninja Gaiden getting two new-ish entries (a remake and a retro throwback), this, and some other gems… It’s kinda ‘The Year of the Ninja’, huh? Great stuff, all around.


DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
This game needs to be talked about sometime. I don’t think I really liked it. It’s poorly designed (the green crystals… are you fucking kidding me?), poorly paced, has an outright bad story and villain, and Samus is mostly impotent throughout. I found it bleak, boring, and most of all a waste of my time.
That’s a damn shame. At least Miles Mackenzie was cool (genuinely).

Cronos: The New Dawn
Bummed about this one. I wanted to end up liking it more than I actually did. It’s really well paced until the very end. It’s a taut, well-designed, and crafted horror game that, despite its difficulty spikes, is a really interesting time. The story is kinda bad, which sucks because it’s a cool world with interesting characters, and the enemy faction you fight against: “The Orphans”, are disgusting and malleable in really cool ways. The end of this game is terrible, and the boss fight at the end is one of the worst encounters I can remember. Fuck that shit. Memorable game, I will say. Looks incredible on PS5.

Wheel World
Another bummer it’s here. I like this game, but it’s completely compromised technically on console. Great mechanics, quirky story, but the whole game is handicapped by how it runs and the myriad glitches I hit. I dunno if they have fixed anything since I reviewed it here, but I was sad to give it the rating I did. Bummer, dude.

Mario Kart World
Maybe the disappointment of the year?
The track design is awful. The open world is lifeless, unstructured, and a complete mess. It’s a travesty this game got shipped in the way it did. It gets overlooked with how good the actual racing is, but these are huge issues that just get missed when people talk about it. I wrote about it here, too, so give it a read for my full thoughts. Don’t get me started about the menus either. Good god, they’re terrible.
Actually, fuck this game. What the fuck, Nintendo?
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ADDENDUM: Games That Missed the Honorable Mentions
(Gonna fill you in on why these didn’t make any list for me, but are worth talking about in a footnoted capacity.)

Ninja Gaiden Ragebound
Good game, but left a lot to be desired on the platforming front. A pretty strong outing by the developers, The Game Kitchen, though. I wish the story were better, too.

Blippo+ (Played on Switch)
Not really a game, but I love the effort. ‘Deep space cable’ as an idea is hilarious, and I’m shouting it out here. Coolest idea of the year. Thank god for the Playdate. Kinda don’t wanna say more about it. If you are a child of the dial-up world or the mid to late ’90s or early 2000s, like I am, you will find a lot to like here.

Monster Hunter Wilds
A game that never really sank its fangs into me. I liked it and beat it, but found it difficult to return to. Maybe it’s just too easy, and there isn’t enough sicko shit here anymore, I dunno. Cool game, but I haven’t thought about it too much after the fact. The animation work Capcom pulls off with their monster fights is insane, though.

Is This Seat Taken?
A fun puzzle game that outstayed its welcome for me. I was going to review it on this site, but couldn’t bring myself to. Glad I played it, but I shouldn’t have completed it 100 percent. It’s a bit too much game for the idea itself.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion
I adore Tribute as a developer, and their previous beat-em-up game, TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, is a mainstay on both my PS5 and my Switch 2. I have beaten that game like 8 times all the way through. I guess this new one didn’t stick with me the same way. That or my appetite for Marvel as a concept is waning a bit (I’m more of a DC guy anyway…). Fun game, pretty short, and very worth playing. Lots of fun, unique characters on the roster you can pick from.

DELTARUNE (Chapters: 1-4)
I like Undertale. I liked this. I like both games. They aren’t my whole personality or anything, though. There is a lot of ‘Tumblr energy’ in this game that I just straight up do not relate to. But I think the thing that is most off-putting to me about this whole series is the fandom (which is insufferable, save for my friend Slade, who is normal about it), that worships before Toby Fox’s golden loafers. He is a god above gods and a man above men to them, and it’s weird. Good games, though, good games.
It’s just my opinion, okay?
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Lots to say here. If you stuck around to peruse, thanks! I have had an up-and-down year in my personal life, and while I attempted to write as much as I could, between playing all these games, running my side gig projects (like this here), and being a busy parent with another one on the way (crossed fingers), I have been spread pretty thin. Not to mention how busy I have been at work in my professional endeavors.

I appreciate those who have stuck around. While I appreciate the eyeballs, of course, just know that I appreciate you. I wouldn’t keep doing it if I didn’t love this medium, and although writing can be painful, I am also happy I am building a platform to do that on. For all those subscribed, and for all those who might after reading this, thank you from the deepest parts of my heart. I cherish every one of you.

Here is to a better 2026. While the world may be in shambles, we can press on knowing that games are great and we have at least one good thing to look forward to in life. Love you all. Stay tuned for my other lists coming out in the next month! I am chipping away at trying to find a place to talk about all the games I played this year in some form, as well as my overall top 10 and game of the year winner.

I feel as though I should properly introduce myself here, given that it’s a new year... I am “The Drifter”: Power Glover, and it’s been my pleasure. Yes. That is my real, birth name. Don’t wear it out, yeah?
As Dave Dameshek says, “It’s been a thin slice of heaven.”