Grand Theft Auto VI isn’t the only major release we can’t wait to get our hands on
Grand Theft Auto VI isn’t the only major release we can’t wait to get our hands on Read More Gaming
After a quieter year for bigger releases in 2024 (<a class="sc-1out364-0 dPMosf sc-145m8ut-0 erKGZM js_link" data-ga="[["Embedded Url","Internal link","https://kotaku.com/best-video-games-2024-pc-ps5-xbox-switch-1851291118?_gl=1*1s6bmsv*_ga*MzQzNjkwNDM2LjE2NDY2NjQ1NzQ.*_ga_V4QNJTT5L0*MTczNjI2MDk0MS4yNDcuMS4xNzM2MjcwNjE0LjYwLjAuMA..", PS5 Games
Combining a turn-based RPG with real-time tactics and QTE actions for its combat, Clair Obscur takes place in a Belle Époque-inspired setting, except with, you know, god-likes and magic powers. It’s a French-created RPG starring some big names like Charlie Cox (Daredevil), Andy Serkis (everything ever), and Ben Starr (Final Fantasy XVI). It sees you controlling a team attempting to thwart the evil machinations of the Paintress through incredibly involved fighting. – John Walker
It can be hard enough to find someone at the right time to play a two-player co-op game, so FBC Firebreak’s requirement of a three-player setup seems like a big ask. Until, that is, you learn this is an FPS by Remedy, and it’s set in their Control universe, and you’re all working together to battle the impossible weirdness that’s infiltrated the Federal Bureau of Control. It’s to be all about teamwork in extradimensional otherworldliness, from a development team that’s constantly interesting. – John Walker
After years of waiting and several last-minute delays, I’m eager to finally go hands-on with the Early Access version of Hyper Light Breaker. It’s the latest release from the makers of Hyper Light Drifter, which I absolutely adore, and while it’s a major departure from that single-player atmospheric Zelda-like, I’m very curious to see how the loot-driven roguelite experience works in a procedurally generated 3D world. Is it too much to hope for it to be Risk of Rain 2 meets Hades meets haunting cyberpunk-infused apocalypse? – Ethan Gach
Inspired by tabletop RPGs, 2022’s Citizen Sleeper was set on a ruined space station where you played a digitized human in a robo-body, making the best of the dice rolls that defined your days. In sequel Starward Vector, we’re off to a town somehow built in an asteroid belt, where once more we’re on the run from the corporation that owns the tech in which we exist, trying to fulfill contracts and create a life for ourselves—and yes, all still based on the roll of those dice. – John Walker
After a few years away from the Life Is Strange-style melodramatic adventure game, Don’t Nod is going back to its roots with Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. The two-part series follows a group of teenage girls in the ‘90s who discover something they swore never to speak of again. When they reunite 27 years later, a lot has changed but some things haven’t. They laugh about the past and consider the future, but all their conversations lead back to whatever it was that happened when they were young.
I played a chunk of the game last year and was really compelled by how Don’t Nod was tackling the good and bad of nostalgia, and how it felt like the most earnest version yet of the team’s depiction of the teenage experience, largely because it harkens to the developers’ own childhoods. Thankfully we won’t have to wait too long to unwrap Lost Records’ mysteries, as the game was initially meant to launch last year, but was delayed to avoid the release of Life Is Strange: Double Exposure. The first episode is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S next month on February 18, with the second to follow on March 18. – Kenneth Shepard
Monster Hunter Worlds took the action-RPG formula into the modern, high-powered console age and Monster Hunter Wilds seems set to be the next major evolution of the long-running series with the most varied, vibrant, and dangerous sandbox yet. With all of the other multiplayer live-service grindfests in my life currently waning, I can’t wait to sink my Arkveld fangs deep into its sprawling world. – Ethan Gach
Xenogears is a game I’ll never forget. Ever since, through all of their ups and downs, I’ve been fully onboard the Xeno-inspired train, from Xenosaga to Xenoblade, with no intention of ever letting go. But Xenoblade Chronicles X remains the series’ modern white whale for me—the only one I didn’t play all the way through because of its ill-fated exclusivity to Wii U. No longer. I’m ready to embark on its alien planet adventur,e building up a colony in crisis through mech-piloted exploits like never before. – Ethan Gach
I am now realizing that I submitted several rhythm game hybrids to this list. Am I predictable, or are developers just doing cool shit in 2025 by marrying music-centric mechanics to other genres? Both, maybe. Afterlove EP is a narrative rhythm game from Pikselnesia, the developer behind Coffee Talk and What Comes After. It follows Rama, a musician who’s trying to get back into the groove after the loss of his love Cinta. The game will explore grief, when and how we move on, and how we channel our pain into creative mediums. It’s coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch in Q1. – Kenneth Shepard
