John Walker’s Best Games of 2025 — Avowed Tops the List

• Key Takeaways:
• Obsidian’s Avowed is John Walker’s game of 2025 for its worldbuilding, companions, and lasting emotional impact.
• Multiplayer extraction shooter Arc Raiders surprised Walker and earned second place despite initial reluctance to play online.
• The year balanced big-budget standouts (Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Bananza) with breakout indies (Eclipsium, MotionRec, The Drifter).

Why these picks matter

2025 delivered an unusually broad roster of strong releases — AAA RPGs, inventive indies and refreshingly original smaller projects. Walker sifted through hundreds of PC titles and mainstream releases to assemble a top 10 that rewards variety and design risk.

Top three: immersion, surprise, and craftsmanship

1. Avowed — Obsidian

Walker names Obsidian’s Avowed the year’s best, calling it “a big, beautiful RPG” with companions that feel like friends and world-changing choices of real consequence.

The game expands the Pillars of Eternity setting into the Living Lands, adding vertical traversal and parkour-like climbing that keep environments fresh. Walker compares Avowed to classics such as Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect for its character-driven storytelling.

2. Arc Raiders — Embark Studio

Arc Raiders ranks second despite Walker’s initial hesitation. “I was not expecting to like Arc Raiders,” he admits, yet the extraction-looter’s tense encounters and distinctive atmosphere hooked him.

Walker highlights the game’s solo-friendly approach to an extraction shooter and praises the world design and moments of high-stakes play that deliver adrenaline and reward cautious tactics.

3. The Beekeeper’s Picnic — Afoot Games

Walker describes The Beekeeper’s Picnic as “a love letter” to Sherlock Holmes fiction and classic point-and-click adventures. Its warm storytelling and respectful reinterpretation of Holmes and Watson earned deep emotional resonance.

Notable indies and surprises

Eclipsium, The Drifter, MotionRec

Eclipsium is praised for its surreal walking-sim horror and striking low-res, low-framerate aesthetic that makes the world feel organic and unnerving.

The Drifter updates point-and-click controls for modern controllers and pairs gripping mystery with strong voice acting. MotionRec’s core mechanic — recording and replaying player movement — fuels clever puzzles that grow dramatically in complexity.

Escape from Duckov, Strange Antiquities, Old Skies

Escape from Duckov surprised as a polished single-player extraction shooter with base-building and risky runs, while Strange Antiquities (the sequel to Strange Horticulture) expands its investigative shop mechanics with richer item interactions. Wadjet Eye’s Old Skies offers a thoughtful time-travel adventure that avoids cheap shock value when handling sensitive historical moments.

Closing note

Walker’s list emphasizes quality across scale: from Obsidian and Nintendo to tiny teams delivering singular experiences. Whether you prefer sprawling RPGs or tightly focused indies, 2025 proved to be a year where design ambition paid off.