AI and Games GOTY 2025 [Part II] | 31/12/25
The Top 5 of our Respective GOTY Lists
We wrap the year with the final countdown.
Find out what Shraddha and Tommy voted for as their 2025 GOTY
The AI and Games Newsletter brings concise and informative discussion on artificial intelligence for video games each and every week. Plus summarising all of our content released across various channels, like our YouTube videos and in-person events like the AI and Games Conference.
You can subscribe to and support AI and Games, with weekly editions appearing in your inbox. If you'd like to work with us on your own games projects, please check out our consulting services. To sponsor, please visit the dedicated sponsorship page.
Happy Hogmanay everyone, and welcome to the final issue of the AI and Games newsletter for 2025. We’re still out on a break, and of course it being New Year’s Eve it means both Shraddha and Tommy are offline, playing games, eating shortbread and drinking whisky (these are, as we’ve discovered, our only shared hobbies).
![AI and Games GOTY [Part I] | 24/12/25](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5HlM!,w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F531a365a-854a-4afd-be5b-519e50aa1f42_1200x630.jpeg)
So we’re closing out the year with the top half of our respective top 10 lists. Don’t forget to catch up on the bottom half from last week if you haven’t already!
But before we get into it, a final reminder that an annual subscription to AI and Games - which includes more behind paywalls and other bonus content - is still 50% off until the end of today! Go on, you know you wanna…
Follow AI and Games on: BlueSky | YouTube | LinkedIn | TikTok
AI and Games GOTY 2025 [Part II]
Alright, enough platitudes and pleasantries. You’re stuffed full of festive chocolates and want to know which games you might need to pick up during the festive sales based on our scintillating recommendations. Let’s have at it!
Shraddha’s #5: Two Point Museum
Two Point Studios / 2025 / PC, PS5, Switch 2, Xbox Series S|X
A casual building game, where you are curating your own museum, it is the third game in the Two Point series after hospital and campus. The games made by Two Point Studio. Not only do you design the protect your museum you have to also find exhibits.
Why I like it: The art and the cozy feel. If you make a good looking museum it leaves you feeling smug and want to show off. It did get a bit repetitive and boring going further but it was a fun experience.
Tommy’s #5: Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2
Saber Interactive / 2024 / PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X
As someone who grew up in and around British science fiction such as Dr Who and Judge Dredd, Warhammer was kept somewhat at arms length from me. I didn’t have much interest in playing the game - though I have now painted 40k miniatures in recent years - but the world it builds always caught my interest. This insane future war epitomised by a fascistic neo-British regime with a clear message about the perils of power and blind reverence to political and religious ideology. Like, when you’re 15 years old and you’re still picking up on these messages, you wonder how folks three times your age are that blind to it.
But anywho, in recent years I’ve found the bevy of videogames based on the IP to be a really fun way to connect with the stories and characters, and while I’ve enjoyed a few to some degree, notably Fatshark’s Left 4 Dead clone Warhammer 40k: Dark Tide, I have to say Space Marine 2 now officially takes the biscuit as not just my favourite Warhammer game, but probably the one that has now got me all-in on learning more about the dark wonders of the 41st millennium.
Space Marine 2 is a third-person shooter with some real heft to it. As a team of ultramarines you fight off against hundreds of xenos forces using a mixture of close-ranged melee and gun-based combat. It feels like an interesting mish-mash of Gears of War meets the modern DOOM games, where you’re battling it out dodging behind cover as enemies attack you en-masse, then getting into the thick of it to rip them apart.
It’s the weight to it that I really like. The space marines are all big chunky lads, and it means that there’s a lot of careful movement required. Plus as the combat gets really ugly in key sequences the ‘power-through-combat’ design philosophy means you’ll largely stay alive if you stay in the thick of it and make smart choices.
The single-player is pretty bombastic, with the last few missions feeling rather epic in scale. Meanwhile the multiplayer missions continue to add value and my friends and I have returned to the game on multiple occasions whenever new content drops.
Shraddha’s #4: Against the Storm
Eremite Games / 2021 / PC, PlayStation, Switch Xbox
This is a city builder released in 2023, by Eremite Games, but was ported on PlayStation recently. It is a dark fantasy city builder where you are the Queen’s Viceroy and expanding the civilization as she sees fit.
Why I like it: It is a cosy city builder with very cute art and has interesting challenges. Because you are doing the Queen’s bidding, every time you play, you have interesting challenges to solve.
Tommy’s #4: Absolum
Guard Crush Games / 2025 / PC, PlayStation, Switch
So there’s some interesting lineage in my top 5 this year, and it all stems from 2020’s Streets of Rage 4, developed by Lizardcube and Guard Crush Games. The latter of these two studios were instrumental in building up the combat of the game, and with this collaboration now in the past, their follow-up title Absolum is a fun mix of classic beat’em’up combat with roguelite progression and mechanics.
Players are tasked with working their way through the lands of Talamh and fight back against the Crimson Order - an army of anti-magic zealots led by the Sun King Azra. Each run of the game has players take one of many paths to Azra’s tower to defeat him. As the odds are stacked against you, dying will trigger you to be reborn at the starting point, but often with progression being unlocked courtesy of permanent upgrades, new weapons, new items, and even the discovery of quests and side paths that you wouldn’t have noticed on your first playthrough.
All of this plus the rather delightful, slick, and crunchy combat you’d expect from the developers of Streets of Rage 4 - plus gorgeous 2D art by indie team Supamonks - means Absolum happily took up a couple dozen hours of my time as I worked my way to unlock as much as I could across multiple complete runs.
I still haven’t unlocked everything, and itching for an excuse to return.
Shraddha’s #3: News Tower
Twin Sails Interactive / 2025 [Out of Early-Access] / Linux, Mac, PC
A newspaper company management game by Sparrow night studio. Based in 1930’s New York, you start your own media empire with just one news paper. Deal with corrupt mayor, cops and mafia to balance good journalism and expanding your base.
Why I like it: Time flies when you play this, there are so many things you are managing, and everything is time sensitive because you can’t miss the breaking news and news gets stale very fast!
Tommy’s #3: Astro Bot
Team ASOBI / 2024 / PlayStation 5
So yeah I’m a little late to this party, but late last year my partner and I decided to give Astro Bot a crack as our evening game we play together, and have a fairly fantastic time - for the most part.
A 3D platformer akin to classic titles such as Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 64, it’s arguably the first time I’ve seen a studio outside of Nintendo come close to capturing that same sense of fun and excitement with each run through. The titular Astro is running around various locales to rescue his friends - many of whom wearing outfits reminiscent of beloved PlayStation IP. This leads to both some fun and even confusing moments of ‘I know that bot from somewhere’, as well as some really neat levels that pay homage to franchises such as Uncharted and God of War.
Admittedly I don’t really have reverence for PlayStation as a platform, so much of the nostalgia for seeing the likes of Jak and Daxter or the Ape Escape bots doesn’t really click with me. But the core platforming is fun and engaging, with new abilities creeping up throughout, and exciting one-off concepts that Team ASOBI dabble with.
If anything, my main gripe is the game keeps adding new content that is increasingly more difficult. My partner is now distraught that we haven’t rescued ALL of the bots (we’re at like, 98% IIRC) but they don’t have the skills to score off those final challenges. So I keep getting pulled back in…
Shraddha’s #2: Tiny Book Shop
Neoludic Games / 2025 / Linux, Mac, PC, Switch
A cozy indie game by neoludic games, Tiny Book Shop is a casual life-sim and bookstore management. You play a traveling shop keeper who has a trailer with books. Every day you pick a part of the town you want to sell your books to, in the process you meet a cast of interesting characters who need your help.
Why I like it: They have a game mechanics of book recommendation which is amazing! And while you don’t actually need to know about all the books because they give all the details you need to make a recommendation, but knowing about the actual books really helps!
Tommy’s #2: Shinobi - Art of Vengeance
Lizardcube / 2025 / PC, PlayStation, Switch, Xbox
I feel like I’ve been pretty spoiled for choice this year with 90’s throwback games. In all honesty I didn’t think that was going to become a theme of this year’s top 10. Maybe I’m getting old? But if anything each of the games I’ve mentioned that fit in that category - Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, Terminator 2D: No Fate, Absolum) have all delivered in one way or another in a way that felt really satisfying to play in short bursts, on a Steam Deck or Switch, and across multiple playthroughs.
But out of them all Shinobi: Art of Vengeance delivers in spades.
It’s perhaps no surprise that after loving Streets of Rage 4 a few years back I enjoyed both successive titles by the partnering studios of Guard Crush Games and Lizardcube, but Art of Vengeance distils everything I loved about Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Absolum into a single patch: amazing art direction, tight controls, complex and rewarding combat, and an ever-increasing difficulty designed to really challenge you in the latter half of the game.
But out of all of these aspects, more than anything it’s about just how satisfying this is to play. The combat really excels over time, and before long you’re building ever larger and more complex combos, wiping out dozens of foes at once, and all the while the game is still largely legible and interpretable as everything goes a bit bonkers.
The game also tries something of an interesting format, with levels that each act as Metroidvania like ‘zones’ that encourage replayability, given many areas off the core path cannot be completed until you find specific items and abilities. Hence you find yourself revisiting sections to find really tight and challenging pockets of gameplay in levels you cleared hours prior. Including of course the secret ending after you beat the game, which is a fun reward for long-time Shinobi fans.
I never really had much affinity for the series previously, with arguably Revenge of Shinobi on the Mega Drive sticking out purely for the ridiculous cameos in it (y’know when Batman and Spider-Man were boss battles, but also technically the same character?). But if this is how Sega will continue to revitalise their classic IP, then I am all-in. Between Art of Vengeance and Streets of Rage 4, they’re batting two for two.
Shraddha’s #1: Hades 2
Supergiant Games / 2025 / Mac, PC, Switch
The second game from Supergiant Games, Hades 2 is a roguelite, hack-and-slash set in Greek mythology. You play as Hades' daughter, Melinoë, who is trying to save the underworld and Olympus from the grip of the Titan of Time, Chronos (her grandfather).
Why I like it: The story is engaging, and the characters keep you hooked. I loved the art style and the pace of the game.
Tommy’s #1: Donkey Kong Bananza
Nintendo / 2025 / Switch 2
I think in contemporary gaming - or at least as a working man in his 40’s - a lot of games waste my time before I’m allowed to get to the fun part, or force me to have fun by their constraints. Far too often I am forced to go through a slow and gradual tutorial for a game that really doesn’t warrant it, or at least could have given me the shortcut to get straight to the action. And then of course anything by Hideo Kojima.
This isn’t really an accusation one can make of Donkey Kong Bananza, I think it has the fastest time-to-fun I’ve ever seen from a big budget game. You press start, a short cutscene plays, and the game drops you in a space that even without any power-ups or bonuses you can smash into a million pieces. This is what makes Bananza shine: the simple act of running around and causing destruction is one of the most satisfying things I have experienced in 2025.
In a style akin to both Super Mario Odyssey and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Bananza lets you find your own fun by providing you with a tremendous sense of freedom. If you want to find all the unlocks by smashing this entire 3D level into a pulp, then you can do that. DK’s ridiculous moveset, ranging from smashing and bashing to surfing rocks, or turning into a steroid-fuelled Zebra (yup!) means that you can approach that next precious banana from a variety of angles. There’s seldom any ‘wrong’ moves in Bananza, rather just a variety of right moves to varying degree.
The game does have a bit of a pacing issue in the back half, with things really slowing down in an awkward way around 70% of the way through. But the final 2-hours are just wild fun, and super engaging. All that said, I had a huge grin on my face the entire time I played this. For me it isn’t just the killer app for the Switch 2, but it’s probably my favourite Nintendo title since Breath of the Wild.
Oh, banana…
See You All in 2026
That’s a wrap for all things AI and Games in 2025. We’re going to enjoy some more shortbread, and a cheeky single-malt when the bells ring, and then contemplate maybe getting back to work at some point.
Once again a huge thank you to everyone who subscribes to and supports our work. We wouldn’t be doing this without you. We wish you all a fantastic 2026, and hope you have a happy and healthy year ahead.
Stay safe, take care, and we’ll be back.