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Our 50 most anticipated PC games of 2025Here’s what we’re excited about in what looks like a big year
Here’s what we’re excited about in what looks like a big year
Terrible news! Santa ignored all my letters asking for 2025 to be a year when no new videogames came out so I could catch up on everything I missed from the past several years. In fact, it seems like maybe someone else might have sent him a letter asking for there to be more big games coming than ever.
The early months of 2025 in particular already looked packed with epics.Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth?Monster Hunter Wilds? Civilization VII? Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. If it was your job to play games, you still couldn’t make your way through all of these. Trust us.
After March, specific release dates become a rarity, but there are still several exciting blockbusters to come with summer release windows or 2025 targets. As always, the list is also stuffed with games of the non-blockbuster variety that we’re looking forward to. Games that leave those blocks entirely unbusted, whether sequels likeCitizen Sleeper2 or games so obscure I still haven’t heard of them after writing and editing this article.
Dynasty Warrior: Origins
Image credit:KOEI TECMO
Release date:January 17thFrom:Steam
Graham:Dynasty Warriorshas always struck me as kitsch. Where similarly silly series like Yakuza have managed to claim a level of a mainstream prestige, Dynasty Warriors has remained a little PlayStation 2, a little Earth Defense Force, a little cheap and cheerful, no matter how spectacular it is to hack-and-slash through thousands-strong armies. Dynasty Warriors: Origins looks like it might change that. It’s the first mainline entry in seven years and it’s shinier than the series has ever been before, and it comes after Persona, Fire Emblem and Zelda licensed spin-offs have broadened its audience. Here’s hoping Origins is where Dynasty Warriors finally gets its due - and gloriously, it’s launching simultaneously on PC for a change. What a start to the year.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
Image credit:Square Enix
Release date:January 23rdFrom:Steam,Epic
Edwin:I reviewed the original Final Fantasy 7 Remake for PS4, but have held off sampling Rebirth out of scorn for Square Enix’s belated PC porting strategy and also, because the Remake’s ending was, to frame it scientifically, pure Kingdom Hearts bullshit. I write those words with all respect. Square Enix’s FF7 reboots are the perfect reboots in being at once reverential and irreverent. They channel the sorcerous cultural power of the original PS1 game, while gleefully rewriting the details and lobbing in all sorts of glorious nonsense with zero apparent regard for budget. Rebirth looks to up the ante still further, with much talk of alternative timelines, though it hinges on the same, gratifying real-time reinvention of the 1997 game’s turn-based combat. Now that I’ve recovered from the Remake ending, I’m keen to get stuck in.
The Stone Of Madness
Image credit:Tripwire
Release date:January 28thFrom:Steam,Epic
Citizen Sleeper 2
Image credit:Fellow Traveller
Release date:31st JanuaryFrom:Steam,Epic,GOG,Humble,Xbox
Ollie:The first Citizen Sleeper was a wonderful surprise, a heartfelt journey with stellar writing, and just the right scope for my needs at the time. But having gone through that journey from start to finish, I’m now ready for that scope to expand. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector gives you more breadth to travel than its predecessor, and a number of its systems have seen some focused changes and reinventions. It still seems to have the same warm metal heart, though, and I can’t wait to get lost in more of Jump Over The Age’s small, powerful stories.
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII
Image credit:2K Games
Release date:11th FebruaryFrom:Steam,Epic,Xbox
Ollie:I’ve never been very good at Civ. I’m one of those who just likes to play the first 100 turns before leaving it for slightly too long, forgetting the details of my past plans, and starting a new game. And I have my doubts that Civ 7 will change me, but it looks very pretty, and it has some very intriguing ideas (navigable rivers and commander units), and also Gwendoline Christie.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Image credit:Ubisoft
Release date:14th FebruaryFrom:Steam,Epic,Ubisoft
Avowed
Image credit:Microsoft
Release date:18th FebruaryFrom:Steam,Xbox
Ollie:I do miss seeing my hands held out in front of me like a zombie while I role-play my way through a big ol' fantasy world. Avowed is Obsidian’s hefty swing at the Skyrim formula, and it takes place inside the Pillars Of Eternity universe, which I love, lore-wise. High fantasy settings can often feel very samey in games, but Pillars hit a bit different for me, and I’m excited to see Eora from a smaller perspective. I’ve heard differing opinions on the feel of the combat, so I’ll just have to do the sensible thing and try it for myself.
Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii
Image credit:Sega
Release date:February 21stFrom:Steam
Nic:Majima And The Good Ship Maximum Flanderisation looks like a blast, I can’t deny. While I’ve been a little wary recently about Yakuza flying too close to the surreal hijinks sun and abandoning the more grounded, heartfelt crime drama that balances the goof out so well, I will say this: if you’re going to go pants-on-head, go full pants-on-head. Pirates are cool. Majima is cool. Boarding ships is cool. I’m very much looking forward to what a series with such legendary minigames can do with the pirate theme, and I’m also very much looking forward to Majima spin-kicking someone off the side of a ship into the ocean.
Hollywood Animal
Image credit:Weappy Studio
Release date:February 27thFrom:Steam
Edwin:I really like the looks of this tycoon game partly for the villainous aspect - you can, amongst other things, hire gangsters to gather dirt on a disagreeable cinematographer, to stop them whining about their wages – but mostly, because it’s actually about making movies. You’ll pick a genre and tone, crew and cast the production, make edits, decide how to market the movie, court the critics, etcetera. It reminds me dimly of Kairosoft’s 2012 mobile favourite Game Dev Story, but it’s a lot denser, with an isometric Roaring Twenties visual direction that is appropriately balanced somewhere between golden and piss-coloured. I wonder if I can inaugurate the zombie horror movie genre a few decades in advance.
Monster Hunter Wilds
Image credit:Capcom
Release date:February 28thFrom:Steam
Suikoden 1 and 2 HD remaster
Image credit:Konami
Release date:March 6thFrom:Steam
Nic:You’ll often hear Suikoden 2 mentioned alongside Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 7 as one of the best JRPGs of its era, although it hasn’t quite made the same cultural impact as some of its more lauded peers. Part of that might be down to how comparatively difficult its been to actually play outside of owning the original hardware. So it’s very exciting to know that both Suikoden II and its simpler but still utterly charming predecessor are going to be more accessible, and hopefully a lot of people who missed out the first time will finally get a chance see what all the (tempered) fuss was about. Why is it so good? Simply put, it tells a fantastic, heartfelt story - the most important thing an RPG can do, say I.
Wanderstop
Image credit:Annapurna Interactive
Release date:March 11thFrom:Steam
Bionic Bay
Image credit:Kepler Interactive
Release date:March 13thFrom:Steam,Epic
Edwin:This physics-driven 2D platformer has starred in no less than six of Alice0’s (RPS in peace) old Screenshot Saturday Mondays, and also had Nic enthusing about eggs, so you already know it’s a GOAT. Briefly and very reductively, it’s a Playdead game but you have superpowers. Specifically, you can teleport-swap with an object, switch the direction of gravity, and slow time, all of which lends itself to some fancy traversing. It’s a game of miraculously neat solutions but there’s a touch of Noita to the chain reactions. I wonder if the star of the show will prove to be the ancient biomechanical world.
Atomfall
Image credit:Rebellion
Release date:March 27thFrom:Steam
Inzoi
Image credit:Krafton
Release date:March 28thFrom:Steam
Graham:Inzoi (officially styled “inZOI”) promises a next-generation take on The Sims. The character creator is frightfully detailed, your charges can travel around open urban environments, and there seem to be all the tools you’d need for playing out soap operas and constructing dream homes. Will it be good or fun? I have no idea. I’m old enough to remember the first wave of games which tried to knock The Sims off its perch, and they all failed because the concept is simple but the execution - which requires simulating human beings, their emotions, and countless types of interaction - is a huge challenge. However it turns out, I’m excited to watch someone new try.
Judas
Image credit:Ghost Story Games
Release date:March 2025From:Steam
James:I enjoyed all three Bioshocks, even the one in the sky that everybody hates, so I’m keeping an eye on Judas even as its creators insist it’s not just Bioshock in space. Yeah, sure, Ken. A failed utopia? Power-assisted shooting? Animalistic machines that seem to be the only ones still doing their jobs? That’s Bioshock as balls, friends. Even if this apparently goes for a more unusual mix of non-linear progression and roguelite repeatability.
Football Manager 2025
Image credit:Sports Interactive
Release date:March 2025From:Steam,Epic
Graham:Football Manager 2025 was delayed from last year, meaning it’s arriving much later than normal in the real world football season. There’s a good reason for the delay: Sports Interactive are shifting their long-running series to a new engine, with the promise that doing so will unlock faster and more ambitious changes in the years to come. They’ve described FM25 as the first “true” sequel the series has had in decades, and for that reason I’m excited to get back into the dugout for the first time in a long time.
Killing Floor 3
Release date:March 2025From:Steam
Image credit:Tripwire Interactive
James:I never really played much ofKilling Floor 2, despite pumping dozens of hours into the grottier, less ambitious original. Maybe because for all its visual improvements and fancy gore tech, KF2’s rattly weapons just lacked the booming pneumatic punch that KF1’s armoury had. Still, I’d be happy for Killing Floor 3 to win me over again. It’s already making the right moves, showing off some appropriately heavy weaponry as well as some slick new melee finishers that, fingers crossed, could help scratch that tactile itch. There’s also a new zipline tool straight ofDeep Rock Galactic, and if you’re going to borrow traversal tricks from other co-op horde shooters, you may as well borrow from the best.
Split Fiction
Image credit:Hazelight
Release date:March 2025From:Steam,Epic
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
Image credit:The Game Kitchen
Release date:July 2025From:Steam
Rematch
Image credit:Sloclap
Release date:Summer 2025From:Steam,Xbox
Mafia: The Old Country
Image credit:2K
Release date:Summer 2025From:Steam
Ed:I’m excited for this one because I don’t really have the time or the motivation to go back and play the first three Mafias. With this being more of a linear prequel set in 1900s Sicily, I’m excited to dive in as a newbie and be thrust into a third-person action adventure where I’ll be double-crossed as I canter on my horse, sip some vino, and stick a knife in the back of some guy as I ride a turn-of-the-century automobile with no suspension. Once I’m done, maybe I’ll go back to the first three and see what’s what.
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2
Image credit:Paradox Interactive
Release date:2025From:Steam,Epic
Brendan:Bloodlines 2 has had a rocky development with manydelays,departures, anddeveloper hot potato-ing. It has featured in these “most anticipated games” lists since, uh, 2020. The release date on Steam promises it’ll release next year, as Dear Esther developers The Chinese Room have picked up work on the game where other previous studios under Paradox have left off. Bigwigs at the game’s publisher have somewhatdownplayed the RPG elementsthat were originally planned, and the combat in trailers continues to look a little janky. All this means it’s hard to be confident about a high-profile sequel to a beloved game when it has been so publicly troubled, but we won’t know until it’s in our hands, and I liked what The Chinese Room did with their Scottish oil rig horror in Still Wakes The Deep. So I can indulge a little cautious optimism.
Doom: The Dark Ages
Image credit:id Software
Release date:2025From:Steam
Pathologic 3
Image credit:Hype Train Digital
Release date:2025From:Steam
Edwin:With Brendy being a long-standing detractor, it falls to me to revive the ancient RPS tradition of Pathologic Is Great Actually. The spirit of Quinns (RPS in peace) is strong in me! Also, I’m a deeply depressing person who loves unforgiving town-wide simulations of disease, coupled with arcane methods of fighting said disease and a bunch of meaty steppes mysticism. The long-awaited next helping of Pathologic lets you play as the methodical Bachelor, a man of science, whose story unfolds in parallel with that of the previous game’s Haruspex. It’s a little aggravating that the developers have split the original game and sequel-remake’s three protagonists into standalone releases (Pathologic 2’s Kickstarter backers get free keys for Pathologic 3), but I trust the developers’ reasoning that it’s simply too costly and laborious to do all three in one game while upgrading other aspects of the experience.
The Eternal Life Of Goldman
Image credit:THQ Nordic
Release date:2025From:Steam
Subnautica 2
Image credit:Krafton
Release date:2025From:Steam,Epic
Reanimal
Image credit:Tarsier Studios
Release date:2025From:Steam
Nic:I played both Little Nightmares games back to back, and they were a revelation to me. Chilling fairytale horror expressed through the cinematic platformer tradition, as beautiful as they were frightening. I think Little Nightmares 3 looks cool, but it’s now very clear that what made those games special is something inextricable from Tarsier Studios themselves. And so, Reaminal looks to carry on the legacy, with the added bonus of being fully co-op, which means I can introduce someone else to their games. Also, the giant angry animals remind me somewhat of the Simpsons episode where the cows get addicted to Tamacco.
Skate
Image credit:EA
Release date:2025From:It’s not been added to any stores yet, but you can sign up for playtesting onEA’s site.
Brendan:As a fan of the ragdolling rollboarding ofSessionandSkater XL, I have been eyeing EA’s return to the extreme sport with eager giggles. Aftera hefty leak of an early build, the studio behindSkateembraced showing their early prototyping. Turns out work-in-progress footage isn’t something to treat with corporate wariness, it justlooks cool. There’s something undeniably playful about the basic building blocks and rough hewn multiplayer chaos that’s shown in these devlog videos. The game is going to be free-to-play, which gives me a minor case of the willies. But I nonetheless look forward to faceplanting the concrete after attempting a fifteen storey quintuple burpflip with online randomers who collide into me in mid-air. I think I might love bailing more than I enjoy actually landing a trick.
Slay The Spire 2
Image credit:Mega Crit
Release date:2025From:Steam
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Kojima Productions
Release date:2025From:N/A
Nivalis
Release date:2025From:Steam,Epic
Brendan:Cyberpunk 2077had a great atmosphere of glittering ugliness, often viewed through the windshield of a car. WithNivalis, I’m hoping for a more laid-back cityscape. Specifically, I am excited that the developer is making a fullywalkablecyberpunk metropolis, where everything is designed around dandering from place to place. In this same footful way, I got a lot of traction out ofShadows Of Doubtthis year, the immersive detective sim that sees you wandering around a proc-gen city with murder and mystery on the mind. But that city’s design, while hugely complex in terms of simulation, was confined to a grid. Nivalis looks to be twistier, turner, and trains-ier. There is a railway system to bring you around, districts to hop between, and walkways suspended high above the pollution-mist below. It’s also a life sim in the sense that you’ll be running a noodle stand and fishing in the questionably grey waters at the bottom of the city. But if all I get from this game is an atmosphericBernband-like walkabout, I’ll be content.
Mushroom Musume
Image credit:Mortally Moonstruck Games / Rock Paper Shotgun
Release date:2025From:Steam,Itch
Dispatch
Image credit:AdHoc Studio
Release date:2025From:Steam
Fable
Image credit:Xbox Game Studios
Release date:2025From:Steam,Microsoft Store
Edwin:I thought Fable 3 was pretty good, sincerely enjoyed horse-drawn Kinect outing Fable: The Journey, and was quite looking forward to the cancelled free-to-play multiplayer RPG Fable Legends. As such, my enthusiasm for any Fable game should be regarded with profound suspicion. But come on, it looks like they’re doing all the right things for the 2025 reboot: it’s a single-player third-person action-RPG again, and developers Playground have already made a Very British open world in Forza Horizon 4. I’m eager to discover how they’ve applied that vehicular understanding of Blighty to Fable’s fairytale Albion. Perhaps they’ll even let you grow trees from an acorn in this one.
Dinolords
Image credit:Ghost Ship Publishing
Release date:2025From:Steam
Image credit:Devolver Digital
Release date:2025From:Steam
The King Is Watching
Image credit:Hypnohead
Release date:2025From:Steam,Itch
Nic:Hunting for interesting demos to share with the world is one of the best parts of the job, and I didn’t play many last year that stuck with me more strongly than The King Is Watching, despite the demo showcasing an earlier build. It’s effectively a tiny city manager with a wave defense element, with the twist that your various resource buildings only work when your gaze is upon them, turning the thing into a plate-spinning game of feudal surveillance. Iwrote about it here. Do scroll down and read valued RPS community member 1694’s comment too - it’s very illuminating.
Big Walk
Image credit:House House
Release date:2025From:Steam
Graham:Big Walk is the next game from the makers of Untitled Goose Game, and it seems to have a similarly playful spirit. It’s a co-op game in which friends “hang out and get lost” in mountainous, tree-covered terrain and explore strange, colourful structures. Developers House House are calling it a “walker-talker”. I am calling it: what if Keita Takahashi tried to make Journey?
Grand Theft Auto 6
Image credit:Rockstar Games
Release date:2025, although perhaps on PC laterFrom:NA
Ed:I know, I know. It’s probably not going to land on PC until a year or so later, and it’s like, the most boring pick imaginable. But how can I not be excited? It’s the next Big Thing from Rockstar, which means it’s a cultural event whether we like it or not. I’m excited to see whether it really will set the open world standard and if it borrows anything from Red Dead Redemption 2. I’m excited to see if it turns out a bit of a dud or a buggy mess or if it’s simply too ambitious. I want to see how the news covers it. And whether my badminton pals buy it on day one and ask me if I’ve played it and I’ll be like, “no sorry it’s not on PC”, and they’ll be like, “oh”.
Promise Mascot Agency
Image credit:Kaizen Game Works
Release date:2025From:Steam,Epic
Nic:This is new one from Kaizen, them behind the excellent Paradise Killer. Promise Mascot Agency looks nothing like Paradise Killer, but it does look like it contains literally every other good thing that anyone could imagine being in a videogame. Bits of Ghostwire: Tokyo, Jalopy, Yakuza and, uh, Palworld jostle for space in a big joyful game jelly, alongside a companion that’s actually just a giant severed thumb. Mmmm. Yes. Videogames. Mmm.
Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer
Image credit:Clifftop Games
Release date:TBAFrom:Steam
Jeremy:The first Kathy Rain, which came out in 2016 andwent down pretty wellover here at RPS, was a lovely detective story in the same vein as Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, but with a dash of Twin Peaks and a surprise helping of Silent Hill at the end. It had some flaws in terms of pacing and plot, but a2021 Director’s Cutironed out these issues and delivered a well-rounded experience that saw its chain smoking, motorcycle-piloting titular punk chick really become the sort of protagonist who deserves to star in at least a trilogy of adventure games. Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer looks to deliver on that potential, with gorgeously updated visuals and a plot that sees Kathy a few years older, running her own investigation agency, and chasing down a serial killer. The demo that dropped on Steam a few weeks back promised good tidings; here’s hoping the final game delivers and doesn’t let up on the weird, out-of-left-field supernatural twists that made the first Kathy Rain so memorable.
Elden Ring: Nightreign
Image credit:Bandai Namco
Release date:TBAFrom:Steam
Ollie:One of the most unexpected reveals of The Game Awards 2024 was Nightreign, the PvE-focused, arena-based Elden Ring spinoff which inexplicably features characters and bosses from the Dark Souls series, presumably just for funsies. It’s probably the FromSoft game that has the greatest potential to fail since, hell, Demon’s Souls? But I also think this game could absolutely suck my free time out of the year. Elden Ring’s probably my favourite game ever, and I’m also a sucker for all those self-contained drop-in-and-fight genres (battle royales, roguelites, extraction shooters) that Nightreign seems to be borrowing from. It’s a bizarre mix, but the ingredients are all there for a damn good time.
Marathon
Image credit:Bungie
Release date:TBAFrom:Steam
Ollie:My most anticipated game continues to be Marathon, because I adore extraction shooters, and despite the continued dominance of Tarkov and Hunt, Bungie has thepotentialto create the genre’s new frontrunner. That reveal trailer has such a clear aesthetic vision, and after diving a little into the lore of Bungie’s old Marathon games from the 90s, there’s a lot of potential here. An enormous amount of potential. I really, really hope they don’t squander it, because this could be the most exciting shooter in years.
Control 2
Image credit:Remedy Games
Release date:TBAFrom:TBA
James:MoreControl? I could go for more Control. While I admire Alan Wake 2 enormously, its survival horror is less my speed than New Weird surrealism and levitating, desk-hurling action, so I’m very keen indeed to return to the funkier side of Remedy’s shared gameverse. Teasers thus far suggest we’ll be escaping out of the Oldest House and into the streets of New York City, which surely brings plenty of fresh opportunities for inventive reality mashups – though I’m also curious to see what Control 2 looks like without the original’s distinctively singular focus on Brutalist play spaces. Hopefully it’s just as fun to telekinetically rip out chunks of Art Deco architecture as well.
Marvel’s Blade
Image credit:Bethesda
Release date:TBAFrom:TBA
Ed:So, I didn’t really get on with Deathloop or, ahem,Redfall. I will have you know, though, that I’m a massive Dishonored fan and I’m essentially hoping Arkane Lyon take Marvel’s Blade and sculpt a spiritual successor to Dishonored out of it. I’m talking a first-person stealther, where you stalk vampires and you make them feel the steel, either with a quiet plunge of sword to spine, or going ‘loud’ and mincing everyone in the room with a few choice cuts. Having had a quick glance of his powers on the interweb, it seems like he’s ripe for a radial wheel with vampire powers, transformations, and super duper agility boosts, too. Come on Lyon, I believe.
Paper Sky
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Brute Force
Release date:TBAFrom:Steam
James:I’ve been keeping an eye onPaper Sky, a momentum-based paper plane sim, since itsfirst demo back in April. A successful Kickstarter campaign secured its future, so now it’s just a case of sitting back and waiting for this chilled-out A4 adventure – in which you crumple up into a ball to pick up speed, before folding into a plane for gliding – to land gracefully on our PCs. If you’ve playedExo One, it’s a little like that, except you’re office stationary instead of a physics-defying spaceship orb.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
Image credit:Konami
Release date:TBAFrom:Steam
James:Yeah, it’s a remake, but of a really bloody good game that never officially made it to PC. MGS3: Snake Eater remains a high point in the Hideo K’s Wordy Adventures series, its cover-light jungle setting and modular camo system making for some mighty tense sneaking, while its boss fights are among the most creative and memorable 1v1s ever committed to a stealth game. I’m hoping a modern version will smooth out some of the control jank, but otherwise, this could be a quality sneak-‘em-up with just a fresh coat of paint.
Gears Of War: E-Day
Image credit:The Coalition
Release date:TBAFrom:Steam,Microsoft Store
Edwin:I probably shouldn’t be Most-Anticipating the latest Gears Of War, given that the last couple of instalments were middling reinventions awash with non-transformative gimmicks, and E-Day is sort of just The Coalition throwing up its hands and saying “fine, let’s do Marcus vs the Locust again”. It’s a prequel, beginning shortly before the pustulating Imulsion goblins emerged from their caves to swarm humanity’s cities and tee up all that Destroyed Beauty (TM). It’s got youthful and comparatively non-gravelly incarnations of Fenix and old pal Dom, and will apparently show us the origins of Gears of War’s trademark chainsaw rifle. What gets my brainsaw revving is that it’s described as more of a horror experience. I’m hoping they’ll really draw out the titular Emergence – let us fight some other, less monstrous faction, like the Union of Independent Republics, while reckoning with tales of strange invaders below.
Wolfhound
Image credit:Bit Kid, Inc.
Release date:TBAFrom:Steam
