HHW Gaming Presents The Greatest Video games of 2025

2025 has been a really up-and-down 12 months for video video games. HHW Gaming is right here to interrupt down the 12 months’s largest tales and share what recreation is taking residence our Sport of the Yr honor.

The 12 months is up, and there have been loads of pivotal moments (good and unhealthy) that went down within the gaming business, and naturally, there have been many video games performed this 12 months, so with out additional ado, like Skillz and Uncle Murda do yearly, let’s wrap up these moments. 

Video Sport Gross sales Had been In The Bathroom In November, Thanks To Trump Tariffs

2025 turned out to be one of many worst years on report for online game {hardware} gross sales in November.

That’s actually stunning, as November is normally when avid gamers do their most video game-related procuring forward of the vacation season, due to Black Friday.

Sadly, that wasn’t the case with Circana’s Matt Piscatella, who reported it was the worst November for online game console greenback gross sales on report since 2005.

In line with the report, the massive three, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, all felt the sting. Xbox console gross sales had been down an abysmal 70%, PlayStation 5 gross sales had been down 40% and the Nintendo Change and Change 2 gross sales dropped 10%.

Console Costs Jumped

The principle offender, after all, is Donald Trump, and his blatant abuse of tariffs, plus different market circumstances. Xbox was the primary firm to boost the value of its console.

The Xbox Collection S jumped to $400-$450, relying on the mannequin, pushing the value of the lower-power console about the price of a base-model PS5.

The Xbox Collection X value, which has ballooned to $600-$800, which is hilarious as a result of the console now prices greater than a PS5 Professional.

Sony raised the value of the PS5 by $50 in October as a consequence of Trump’s tariffs. Nonetheless, in contrast to Xbox, it reduce $100 off the console throughout the vacation procuring season, which additionally doubtless helped it turn out to be the best-selling console, even forward of the Nintendo Change 2.

Talking of the Nintendo Change 2, it didn’t see a value enhance; it launched at $500, a lot increased than the unique Nintendo Change’s $300 launch value.

Regardless of the upper value, the Change 2 was nonetheless the fastest-selling console of all time.

Video games had been additionally affected, with titles like Name of Responsibility: Black Ops 7 seeing a double-digit proportion decline in full recreation greenback gross sales in comparison with November 2024.

Yeah, 2025 was a tough one financially for the gaming business, and actually, 2026 isn’t trying like it will likely be any higher, sadly.

Xbox Had One other Dangerous Yr

Xbox had one other unhealthy 12 months, however no less than we all know the corporate is all in on being a multiplatform firm.

Whereas that was a superb enterprise choice for the corporate, it additionally had Xbox Collection X and Collection S homeowners their consoles and questioning why the hell they personal them.

In 2025, we noticed Xbox lastly wave the white flag within the so-called console wars and start porting its beloved console exclusives, akin to Forza Horizon, Halo, Gears of Battle, and Microsoft Flight Simulator, to the PS5.

That wasn’t the one unhealthy signal for the corporate; studies of Cotsco yanking the massive black field off the cabinets and now not promoting started to flow into, main many to imagine the entire “This Is An Xbox” marketing campaign, pushing the narrative that something that makes use of Xbox Sport Cross is now an Xbox, additionally led to the console’s poor exhibiting.

Microsoft’s ROG Xbox Ally & ROG Xbox Ally X Each Arrived

However it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Microsoft-owned firm; they nonetheless had the brand new handheld units they partnered with ASUS on, the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X.

Each units offered effectively, and we had the chance to assessment the ROG Xbox Ally, the cheaper of the 2, costing $599, which sacrifices some energy for affordability. We weren’t dissatisfied with the expertise, however felt it nonetheless wants extra time to stay as much as its full potential.

In our assessment, we wrote:

It has respectable battery life, a pleasant display (regardless that it’s not OLED), and the power to leap proper into the Xbox app is a welcome characteristic, together with a button that takes you to your library of video games from the Xbox, in addition to the opposite storefronts featured on the system.

We’re intrigued to see what Xbox has in retailer for 2026.

We Misplaced Two Giants In The Trade

In much more unhappy information, the gaming business misplaced two giants.

The gaming world was shocked to study in regards to the tragic passing of the co-creator of the Name of Responsibility: Trendy Warfare franchise, co-founder of Infinity Ward and Respawn Leisure, and the present head of the Battlefield, Vince Zampella.

Zampella and an unknown passenger perished in a automobile accident after dropping management of his Ferrari when popping out of a tunnel on California’s Angeles Crest Freeway. Zampella died on the scene, whereas the passenger handed away on the hospital.

The information of his passing despatched shockwaves by way of the gaming world, as everybody, from the businesses he labored for to the individuals he labored with, fondly remembered their interactions with Zampella through the years.

Generative AI Is The Rising Steriods Problem For The Video Sport Trade

Synthetic intelligence or AI, because it’s generally referred to, is right here, and it’s not going anyplace. The online game neighborhood resoundingly denounced studios’ use of generative AI to make their favourite titles. Nonetheless, it’s beginning to look like online game studios aren’t on the identical wavelength relating to the know-how.

As video video games turn out to be greater and push the boundaries of the consoles they stay on, they’re additionally turning into dearer and taking longer to make, which understandably is one thing avid gamers hate to listen to. Simply have a look at how lengthy it takes to make a Grand Theft Auto recreation.

Some studios have begun utilizing generative instruments to streamline workflows and, within the course of, reduce the event time of their titles by dealing with extra tedious work.

Whereas on paper, that appears like a superb use of generative AI, some persons are balking as a result of they really feel it’s taking away jobs from proficient recreation builders and different artists within the business.

Now, in the event you’re a studio that occurs to get caught utilizing it, you’ll get known as out and, in some circumstances, stripped of accolades, harking back to athletes who get caught utilizing steroids or different efficiency enhancement medicine.

A Dangerous Precedent?

One studio that f**** round and discovered was indie Sandfall Interactive, builders of what’s simply known as one of the best recreation of the 12 months, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

The Indie Sport Awards (IGA) gave Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Debut Sport and Sport of the Yr awards on Dec. 18, solely to announce two days later that it could be stripping the title of these accolades.

In an announcement on BlueSky, The Indie Sport Awards elaborated additional on its choice, citing its guidelines stating that video games “developed utilizing generative AI are strictly ineligible for nomination.”

HHW Gaming’s Sport of The Yr: Shinobi: Artwork of Vengeance

2025 turned out to be the 12 months of the ninja, and now we have no complaints relating to that. We picked up the sticks and handheld gaming units for a bevy of titles that includes historical Japanese warriors, all of them good. Nonetheless, one recreation stood out from the pack, and it’s none apart from Lizardcube’s tackle Sega’s iconic online game franchise Shinobi: Artwork of Vengeance, which has earned our annual recreation of the 12 months honor.

In our preliminary assessment of the sport, we wrote:

Shinobi: Artwork of Vengeance is an distinctive six-hour expertise from Lizardcube that’s an absolute pleasure to take a seat down and get misplaced in. For followers of Shinobi, that is the sport that you’ve got been eager for, and for many who have by no means performed a Shinobi recreation earlier than, it will likely be the definitive expertise for them. It’s attractive, and we don’t use the phrase frivolously. Joe Musashi has by no means appeared this good since 1993’s Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Grasp on the Sega Genesis console. The gameplay has no flaws, the motion is extremely satisfying, the controls are seamless, and the story rocks. You’d be hard-pressed to search out one other $29.99 recreation so well-developed exterior of The Sport Kitchen’s Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. Lizardcube snapped, understood the project, and has a STRONG contender for Sport of the Yr with Shinobi: Artwork of Vengeance.

That continues to be the case; we felt strongly about this recreation because the second we previewed it, and it didn’t allow us to down as soon as we bought our arms on the ultimate product.

Lizardcube put out a recreation with few if any flaws, and that may be loved by gamers a number of occasions, and one of the best half, it solely prices $29.99.

Congrats to Lizardcube and Sega.