2025 has been an excellent year for games so far, and while this is great news for gamers everywhere, it can also lead to some unfortunate issues. Some of the big-ticket titles this year like Split Fiction, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach are beefy games to play, requiring over a dozen hours at minimum to complete. With these truly wonderful games taking so much of a gamer’s time, it’s difficult to play them all. One title gets passed up over another to save money and time, and some of the other ones might not get played. With a year so chock-full of excellent releases, what’s a gamer to do?
Videos by ComicBook.com
2025’s Release Calendar Is One for the Books
The first half of 2025 has been marked by some stellar releases in both the indie and AAA scenes, and with so many incredible games coming out, no one has time to hit them all. Here are a few of the biggest games that have been released so far this year:
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (PC)
- Avowed
- Monster Hunter Wilds
- Split Fiction
- Assassin’s Creed Shadows
- Blue Prince
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (PS5)
- Elden Ring Nightreign
- Mario Kart World
- Donkey Kong Bananza
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
This is by no means an exhaustive list of games, but it’s enough to see that there’s just no way the average player will be able to get through them all reasonably. Not only do many of these games take tens or hundreds of hours to fully explore, but they’re also not cheap. With high-ticket games like Death Stranding 2 coming in at a cool $69.99, the average player might only pick up one or two of this list, not to mention the hundreds of other games not listed above. This means that players who choose, say, Monster Hunter Wilds, might miss out on Avowed and vice versa, at least at their initial release windows.
Heavy Release Years Impact Studios and Players Alike
Anyone with marketing knowledge will understand why big release years can be a struggle not only for players, but for studios as well. Like with movie and book releases, game studios have to compete with one another for their games’ success, often avoiding one another’s release windows while still trying to compete for the prime time of the Christmas season that will bring in the most money. One prime example of this is made clear when looking at Grand Theft Auto 6.
No matter what, GTA6 is going to blow any games released in proximity to it out of the water in terms of sales. It’s been anticipated for years and is one of the most highly successful gaming franchises of all time. As a result, no studio wants to compete with its release. Before May of 2025, studios didn’t know when to expect it, and this saw many of them setting ambiguous release dates for games that might be overshadowed by this monstrous entry into the classic series. As of now, GTA6 is the only game scheduled to be released in May of next year.
Because studios know that any game they release near GTA6 will be competing with it, not a single one wants to touch the month with a ten-foot pole. Many studios felt the same way about Baldur’s Gate 3‘s unpredictable success; had they known ahead of time how long it was going to dominate the markets for, they would have likely tried to time their projects to release before it. Any time a huge game is predicted to pull a lot of attention, studios have to work around it. A year like 2025 with so many big releases is a struggle for both studios who need to release their projects and players who want to play them all.
New Releases Must Compete With Player Favorites
Not only are new games competing with each other as they come out, they’re also competing with anything their audience might already be playing. Longtime League of Legends enjoyers are unlikely to be pulled from their games to play a new MOBA unless it’s doing something really unique, and even then, it would have to be pretty special to unseat LOL from its niche. Games like Monster Hunter Wilds even have to compete with older versions in their same franchise, ensuring that fans of the series will see the new entry as worth putting down an older version for.
As a player, it can be difficult to pick what to play, and the full slate of new games this year doesn’t make that decision any easier. Putting down a longtime favorite to try something new is a risk that many players struggle to take, particularly when so many new games are edging towards $100 a pop. When faced with such a bevy of amazing games to choose from, it’s inevitable that some of them will be left unplayed. However, most of this year’s best games will stick around for quite a while, so if you missed out on Blue Prince or Donkey Kong Bananza at their releases, don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to pick one up later.
Most Viewed
-
Amazon Prime Video
