I’ve said it many times before but I always enjoy putting this feature together more than anything else I do here, and not just because once I’m done with the bit you’re reading now, it’s pretty much pre-written, with everything invariably covered already in my Weekly Spotlights! No, I think it’s mainly the prolonged, slow-burn process that gets us here, starting in January when I look all the way ahead with my Game of the Year Predictions feature (which will be coming on January 21st in 2026), then I spend the rest of the year tweaking my list, worrying I won’t be able to fill it, and generally pondering what belongs where. And I love it all! Before we jump in, let me quickly refer back to those predictions for this year, and any games that didn’t make the cut for one reason or another… Actually, it’s all pretty mundane this time – the new Project X shoot ‘em up (of Amiga fame) was alright but came nowhere near making it, while I just didn’t ever get to a few other games like Double Dragon Revive or Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Then Dune Awakening and Death Stranding 2 still aren’t available anywhere I can play them yet, although having finally got around to finishing the first Death Stranding this year, I’m not sure I needed any more of it after all! And I think that’s everything of note that didn’t make it, but between my Halfway Hotlist countdown in June (more later) then the main event itself here, I didn’t predict too badly… Well, apart from when I finally conceded that after so many disappointments, the new Hollow Knight was probably never coming now! The best thing is all the stuff I had no clue was going to be here last January though, so let’s stop wasting time and have a look at it all!

10. Blue Prince (Xbox Series X)

I knew absolutely nothing about this when it turned up on Game Pass in April, but a couple of weeks later it seemed like I was in the minority, so I thought I’d see what all the fuss was about… And I’m glad I finally did because it’s fantastic! Your recently deceased uncle has left you his huge, forty-five room mansion but there’s a catch – you need to find the hidden forty-sixth room before you can get your hands on it! Then there’s the real catch – the layout of the mansion changes every (in-game) day, so apart from what you’ve learnt along the the way (and probably want to record in a notebook), you’re just about starting from scratch every time. The mostly first-person perspective gameplay then involves laying out rooms onto this blank blueprint, where every new door brings a choice of three more to draft onto it, which you can then explore for stuff, uncovering all kinds of intrigue and solving all manner of puzzles (upon puzzles) along the way. And that’s all I’m saying because a lot of the enjoyment here is slowly muddling your way into what’s going on and what you’re supposed to be doing. Controls are pleasantly minimal, puzzles are both revealed and designed brilliantly, and the pacing as the game evolves over many thoughtful hours is excellent, as are the enigmatic soundtrack and kind of cel-shaded, richly illustrated visuals. A remarkable achievement!  

9. Atomfall (Xbox Series X)

While it put me in mind of Elden Ring as much as it did Fallout, the setup for Atomfall is effectively the latter in the Lake District in the early sixties! It’s an action-survival type thing, released straight to Game Pass and elsewhere, and finds you in a post-apocalyptic quarantine zone, five years after a far more dramatic, fictional take on the real-life Windscale nuclear accident of 1957 in northern England; it’s Cold War sci-fi with a folk-horror vibe. It really drops you in it too, although there’s plenty of very tweakable leeway below the default difficulty, and once you find your level, you can start to properly explore this gorgeous, none-more-English, Wicker Man-infused (literally!) picturesque landscape, full of rolling hills and valleys, (unusually!) sunlit woods and once-quaint villages, leading you to not-quite-abandoned mines and nuclear bunkers, cult-controlled ruins and all kinds of weirdness. Along the way, you’ll need to scavenge, barter, craft, talk, stealth and fight for survival, as suspicious locals, the military, secretive government-types and a British take on the cast of Mad Max will gradually guide you to clues about what’s going on, as well as vaguely where to go next, although getting there (or getting totally sidetracked) is on you, and it’s such a good time! The rest is more functional, and noticeably so when you’re not being distracted by those wonderful, enchanting landscapes and some very eccentric characters, but once it gets going, the emergent narrative moves and turns at a decent lick, and your curiosity is frequently rewarded throughout its thirteen or so hours… You just need to find your way past the opening one first! 

8. South of Midnight (Xbox Series X)

I love a bit of American Deep South folklore, so I’d been looking forward to South of Midnight’s arrival on Xbox Game Pass in April since it was first announced, and it was everything I wanted! It’s a modern tale about modern characters but is steeped in history and old magic too, as you guide your college-athlete (I think!) protagonist on a journey of discovery about herself and her family’s hidden past, as she tries to find her missing mother in the aftermath of the hurricane you find yourself preparing for as the game begins. Things quickly take a turn for the odd as, guided by ghosts, your powers to “weave” the twisted environment, the mysterious beasts inhabiting it, and your own destiny gradually emerge. Mechanically, it’s the same third-person action-adventure you first got used to when you were playing God of War on the PS2 but twenty years more fluid, as you explore and manipulate things to explore a bit more… Combat is much less sophisticated when it happens, but how imaginative what you come up against more than compensates, and that goes for the swamplands and forests, decaying towns and eerie old mansions you find yourself in too, and it’s all so so good-looking, going for this lifelike claymation thing that really brings the already-excellent narrative to life. Olivier Deriviere’s bluesy, folky, gospel-y Southern Gothic soundtrack is something else too. Maybe not perfect but when a game is this enjoyable it doesn’t need to be!  

7. Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound (PC)

It’s been a while since I played anything as hard to put down as this, and it knows it, and it makes sure you know it knows it too! In this instalment it’s back to the series’ side-scrolling 2D roots, and it’s a stunner in every respect, from the densely atmospheric modern pixel art to the perfectly-suited oriental synth-rock soundtrack, to the most intensely fluid gameplay that just keeps on giving! It’s by The Game Kitchen (the team behind Blasphemous) in partnership with Dotemu, who absolutely nail that old Tecmo-spirit and then some, as you join a young ninja called Kenji Mozu from the Hayabusa Village, gallantly standing-in for his absent teacher (and series protagonist) Ryu, but forced into a forbidden alliance with Kumori, another ninja from their centuries-old enemy, the Black Spider Clan, convinced that combining their souls and skills is the only way to protect the world from the latest demonic threat. It’s all pretty forgettable once you get stuck in but two ninjas in one does mean you’ve got some very cool Ninja Fusion powers to uncover and unleash, which just about stay the right side of overwhelming at times, and that’s fortunate because by the time you’re done, that’s about all that is the right side of it! It’s never unfair and is rarely frustrating though, and as said, makes one more go far too easy! And you’ve got so many tools so effortlessly at your fingertips, and it’s all so precise and there to be mastered… Which reminds me, the boss fights are very cool too, but so is everything you massacre so elegantly, and every rich and varied environment you glide through, and this is just one hell of a fun game! 

6. DOOM: The Dark Ages (Xbox Series X)

By my reckoning, this one makes that eight mainline Dooms now, the first of which I bought on launch day on the original PlayStation, the third of which is my all-time favourite first-person shooter, and the last two of which caused me terrible motion sickness… This is a staggeringly cinematic prequel to the latter, namely 2016’s Doom and 2020’s Doom Eternal, laying down a dumb but reasonably coherent origin story for our legendary Doom Slayer, although it will be no surprise that it still involves slaughtering the entire population of techno-Hell with all kinds of wild, demon-slaying super-weapons, as well as a brand new shield, which you never knew you needed but is far more fun than just defensive, and does mix up the traditional stick-and-move Doom gameplay a lot. Some big mech-fights and even a dragon to fly too! The overall scale of what’s going on is outrageous, with insane numbers of both familiar and new enemies coming at you all at once and from all directions, leaving you equal parts exhilarated and exhausted, as your senses are pummelled by relentless, blockbuster, heavy metal violence. It’s so fast-paced, and plays so fast and loose, but with real impact to everything, heightened by the Devil’s own soundtrack and apocalyptic audio design, while the visuals – both in-game and during cutscenes – are a gothic sci-fi fantasy feast, literally oozing atmosphere and dripping medi-evil in every respect. Best of all though, no unwanted nausea whatsoever this time – just the nausea that’s meant to be there!

5. Hollow Knight: Silksong (Xbox Series X)

While Silksong was never going to have quite the same impact as my beloved Hollow Knight did, it’s everything I’ve wanted it to be for years… And years! Like the first game, it’s a metroidvania, with you playing a lethal hunter (and former boss) called Hornet, who you’ll take on a forced pilgrimage through the broken insect kingdom of Pharloom, ascending through its mossy grottos, misty moors, fiery depths and twisted cities, as you uncover the ancient mysteries of silk and song on the way to the shining citadel at its peak. The sense of exploration is once again phenomenal, with each region feeling equal parts vast and meticulously dense, and also seemingly overwhelming but quickly-familiar, as you set your own pace and your next direction, which will inevitably involve dying over and over, and that’s before you get to some absolutely brutal but (mostly) ultimately rewarding boss fights! Like your general movement though, combat is fast, fluid, acrobatic and beautiful, there to be mastered and adapted and built upon, but even then, it’s still really, really hard, with the most mundane enemy a constant threat! The presentation is a new level of masterclass in melancholy, with delicately cartoon-like, hand-crafted visuals juxtaposed by death and decay absolutely everywhere you look, but then there’s areas of staggering beauty despite that, with the most gorgeously striking colours and textures hinting at some kind of rebirth that you now seem to be a part of. And the relentlessly dramatic orchestral soundtrack is just stunning, dynamically veering from haunting to heroic, while the layers upon layers of wild sound effects are so immersive and additive to both atmosphere and the generally silent narrative, and they’re often pretty unsettling too! This is a truly magical game in all respects!

4. Ball x Pit (Xbox Series X)

An outrageously fun, hopelessly addictive and totally chaotic mash-up of Vampire Survivors and Breakout with a bit of bullet-hell shoot ‘em up, a touch of Stardew Valley and a lot of roguelite to boot! There might not be an original bone in its genre-spanning body (although it spans so many it’s hard to tell!) but everything it does is at the top of its game, with every system and mechanic as polished as it’s ever more mesmeric visuals. In fact, if I have one gripe, it’s that there are too many systems on the go, with one in particular I could do without – like most of them, it serves a perfectly fine purpose, but do I really need to be growing wheat when I could be gracefully firing endlessly upgradeable magic balls (and a hell of a lot more besides) at relentless and inevitably insurmountable waves of imaginatively undead nightmares inhabiting the treasure-filled pit where the fallen city of Ballbylon used to be? Everything is totally intuitive though, and usually very welcome too, with a constant stream of weapons and powers to unlock, level-up, fuse and evolve in the midst of battle, and the same for characters, buildings, resources and gear in-between. An ominously simple but delicately dynamic synth-heavy soundtrack then caps off a wonderfully unoriginal modern arcade experience that’s more than equal to the sum of its parts.

3. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance (Xbox Series X)

This is Sega’s revival of its iconic hack-and-slasher by the folks behind the brilliant Streets of Rage 4, which, if you’ve played it, soon becomes apparent the second you lay eyes on the similarly stunning hand-drawn visuals, and get your hands around the super-fluid and effortlessly-ninja controls, reflected in some of the most outrageous character animation, over-the-top effects and uninhibited flair you’ve ever seen! It’s authentically Shinobi too, combining familiar lightning-fast, 2D side-scrolling platforming (with a bit of puzzling), swordplay, shuriken throwing and mystical special powers with exploration and skill trees that simply demand revisiting where you think you’ve already been but probably haven’t… Not that you need any excuse because everything about this game is a joy! You play as the legendary ninja master Joe Musashi, who’s unfortunately found his village burned to the ground and his clan turned to stone, so is out to avenge them in a world under siege by the dastardly ENE Corporation, across over a dozen strikingly vibrant and diverse stages filled with all sorts of hoodlums, high-tech military hardware, supernatural beings, martial arts types, big scary bosses and lots of very sharp objects to avoid! Absolutely packed with secrets, things to collect and side-challenges too, as well as amulets to acquire for new abilities, and tools to overcome obstacles and uncover new paths. The soundtrack is something else too, fusing traditional Japanese instruments with synth rock and electronica, all perfectly set against wherever you find yourself, whether eerie ruined village, gritty neon cityscape or scorching desert, and like the rest of the sound design, just oozes Shinobi, modern sheen or not. Actually, that goes for everything else too, and it all adds up to just the most fun I’ve had with anything for ages!

2. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater (Xbox Series X)

I’d never even played the 2004 PlayStation 2 original until a bit over a year ago, as I made my way through the entire series and its spin-offs for the very first time, and having now done so, while it didn’t end up being my absolute favourite, it was up there, and I’ve been looking forward to this remake ever since! And never was the word “remake” more appropriate – if you’d played it twenty-one years ago, I imagine it’s exactly how your rose-tinted brain remembers it being, and I’m not just talking the exquisitely current-gen visuals, but literally every aspect of (the absent but ever-present) Kojima’s unrelenting ambition, his ropey storytelling, the cinematography, the soundtrack, the mechanics, the perviness, all the nooks and crannies and tricks and quirks, and, of course, the returning David Hayter’s gravelly delivery! You can even revert to original controls if you like, but don’t do that because, like the densely atmospheric environments you now inhabit that in reality are on a whole new level, the modern, mobile, 3D third-person shooter controls take the original’s gameplay to a whole new level too, so slick and polished and easy on the fingers! Proper overhaul of those pioneering but ultimately cumbersome inventory, camouflage and healthcare systems too, giving you more time to try and keep up with the game’s bonkers series prequel narrative, set in the Russian jungles of 1964, where you, Naked Snake, are trying to rescue a rocket scientist, destroy a super-weapon and kill your defector former boss. And a bit more besides, played out through hours and hours of unnecessarily self-indulgent but equally slick and polished cutscenes! It might be missing the impact of the original but that’s all – it’s been as reverently modernised as could be, and as such, is a remake done absolutely right.

1. Silent Hill f (Xbox Series X)

I’m almost as familiar with the titular Silent Hill as I am the town I grew up in (although admittedly there are plenty of similarities), so despite being a mega-fan of the series, I was hesitant about Silent Hill f, and its move to the remote mountain town of Ebisugaoka in 1960s Japan… And then the fog descended, and I found myself totally lost in its twisted streets, abandoned except for an unknown creeping menace, and it was very quickly terrifying and utterly beautiful all at once, and I knew I was home after all! It really is beautiful too (especially when things go Otherworld-ly), and although my many visits to Japan are far more recent than this setting, it looks pretty authentic to me. No question it’s authentically Silent Hill though, with its Japanese folklore-inspired puzzles, not massively elegant melee(-only) combat, and wildly grotesque monsters! Gets typically nasty as well, as you play a seemingly unremarkable local teenager, Shimizu Hinako, navigating the equally grotesque remnants of her past, facing impossible decisions, and generally trying to survive a constantly tense and unsettling but immersive and ultimately enjoyable narrative, complete with trademark multiple endings! Multiple ways to play too, with both puzzles and combat on adjustable difficulties, and the latter being particularly welcome because, lack of refinement aside, it gets pretty brutal regardless! It all plays well overall though, introducing clever survival-horror elements in place of more traditional ones, and likewise it weaves in elements of Japanese psychological horror to fantastic effect. The contrasting visual and sound designs as you veer between the “regular” Fog World and the intermittent Otherworld are also used to fantastic effect, including the soundtrack, which is everything you’d have high expectations for from a Silent Hill game, and with plenty of local flavour too. And somehow I think that last sentence more or less summarises my thoughts on the rest of the game! It’s frightening, unnerving and troubling, but so atmospheric and such a good (horrible!) time, and it’s just so Silent Hill. Even if it isn’t!

I’ve been thinking about doing a top ten favourite game series countdown for a while now but this one has virtually saved me the bother! Honestly didn’t see Silksong not being in the top spot whenever it eventually arrived though, and certainly not behind a new Shinobi. Reckon that makes it quite the year for new games though! Honourable mentions to the gorgeously violent more modern incarnation of a series we saw earlier, Ninja Gaiden 4 (pictured at the top of the page), and surreal walking-sim puzzler thing Keeper (pictured above), both on Xbox via the Game Pass subscription I no longer have, because had this been a top twelve, they’d have made it! I have to mention Silent Hill 2 Remake as well – it was never going to be the same second time around, especially when the original is a top five favourite game of all time for me, but it couldn’t have been better, and without doubt would have been vying for the top spot with its, er, successor above had it not been a PS5 exclusive for a year or so before it arrived on Xbox. Also a quick shoutout to the games that dropped out of the countdown since my aforementioned Halfway Hotlist back in June, which include Galactic Intrusion (on Atari 2600 of all things), Citizen Sleeper 2, The Alters, Mullet Madjack, Labyrinth of the Demon King, Wheel World and Lonely Mountains: Downhill. Which is actually most of the games on there, and I can’t quite believe the latter especially didn’t make the final list! Lastly, I also want to also mention the new expansions from Nightdive Studios in their amazing Heretic + Hexen Collection, on top of some thoughtful remastery, game-balancing and bonus material. And I should stop there! Hope you’ve enjoyed this journey with me though, and if the next year is half as good as this one was, then I can’t wait to do it all again next Christmas!

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