Red Cog's Game Completion Log: Game Completion List 2025

2025 was an unusual year for me. I feel like I finished a lot of games, but I could have finished a lot more. This past month for instance, where I had plenty of time to play games and likely could have knocked out a good handful more - I spent mostly playing time wasting games without a definitive end. As usual, there are always the games I fall off of due to something else grabbing my attention, but that's part of why I do this, to prevent that as much as possible.

I don't do this list just to pump up those "completed game" numbers and I do have to remind myself it's okay to enjoy a game I know I may never "finish" but I also get a little disappointed when I look at my "games to go back to finish list" and it's getting longer and longer from games this year.

Anyway, 49 games this year. I could have easily made it 50+ in the final hour, but the first game I finished in 2025 was a co-op beat 'em up I played with my wife, my sister and her boyfriend, and at 49 the final game I finished in 2025 was a co-up beat 'em up that I played with my wife, my sister and her boyfriend, and I thought that was kind of sweet, so I started played something I knew I wouldn't finish for a few weeks, instead.

Last year I complained how a lot of the "Year end round-ups" were provided in late November/Early December, which excluded most of December, even if you pulled it afterward. It seems some companies took that into consideration and didn't provide them this year yet - or maybe they just aren't going to at all. So instead of sharing just those stats from PlayStation(the only ones who seem to have their round-up available), I took a page from a friend who mentioned being inspired by me. Now, inspired by her, I came up with my own stats and graphs.

Taking this into account, I have quite a few new favorites for a single year. I even ran them through my big complicated favorite games spreadsheet, and some ranked pretty well, and if we're going strictly off of that, then I guess I have to say my game of the year is... Ghost of Yotei.

I loved Ghost of Yotei, but it almost feels unexciting as a game of the year. Did I love the game? Absolutely. It's a gorgeous game, and it's tons of fun, but in my list I put it exactly with/gave it a shared slot with Ghost of Tsushima. Even though they're not exactly a like, overall they're pretty similar and both have up and downs. In the end I feel pretty much exactly the same about them. It's not a bad thing, it's just not new information. I knew I would probably love the game going in it, and I did.

So the what's new in the list? Death Stranding, Cyberpunk 2077, Expedition 33, Crystal Project, and Tunic. The only one that I kinda gave a 5 to instinctually when coming up with my stats for this year that didn't really make it to the "favorite games" list, is Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. It's a 5, don't get me wrong. But is it a personal favorite? Nah, it's not the flavor of the game that I can really say defines me and my taste, that's all it is. Would I recommend it to everyone? Pretty much - with the caution that it can be hard to play with a caution to your mental faculties. It's rough.

Many of the other games shouldn't be all too surprising. Expedition 33 won so many awards, deservedly so in my opinion. It has some issues with the pacing, but other than that I found it a nearly perfect game.

Cyberpunk 2077 took a few years of fixing and I only ended up getting it because I was able to so cheaply all these years later, but I'm glad I eventually spent the time with it.

Death Stranding I liked when it first came out, but I was playing it very early Pandemic and maybe it just hit too close to home at the time and I needed something that wasn't explicitly about people being isolated.

Crystal Project fuses platforming and turned-based rpgs and somehow really works even though it almost turned me off with it's minecraft-esque voxel world.

Tunic is a game that you maybe have to delve way too deep into to enjoy, but I have found that I actually love that stuff, as I did with one of my favorites, Void Stranger.

While I didn't finish all the ones I played/planned to play. I noticed a bit of a trend with games released this year. A lot of "PlayStation(1,2,3) ass games." and what I mean by that, is a lot of games that feel like they belong on PS1 or PS2... maybe very early PS3 at the latest. Something about them, intentionally or not really captures the vibe of 99 to 2006 era of gaming - specific the feel of the PlayStation brand of that. This isn't a bad thing at all. Maybe I just notice because it's something I want, need, love?

Straightforward yet experimental games, not bogged down by extraneous modern design checklists that most people expect of a modern game when everyone was designing for the AAA standard. Games that are fine with being "less", or maybe just having a very specific idea in mind and going for it because we're not entirely sure what works because we don't have years of analytics and personal data and so we throw something out to see what sticks.

Or maybe we're just getting to the point where those types of games are considered "classic" or "retro" and a lot more people have nostalgia for that era. I'm not complaining about it, but just something I noticed with games from companies big and small this year. Kunitsu-Gami, Slitterhead, Rogue Flight, Amedama, Mamon King, all specifically fit that exact vibe, and that's just from the top of my head and just from the list of games I completed. Honestly, I hope to see more PlayStation 2(1,3) ass games this year.

Red Cog's Game Completion Log

Friday, January 2, 2026

Game Completion List 2025

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