There are at least two world-shaking gaming events coming in 2025. Nintendo will launch the Switch 2 and, if there are no major delays, we will get GTA 6 after a more than 10-year wait.
A lot more will happen in gaming during 2025, though.
We have dug into the release schedule to uncover the upcoming gems due next year. From familiar returning series like Borderlands and Fable to brand new IP titles that might just claw their way into your hearts, these are the 23 games we think most players should keep an eye out for.
Where possible, we have included release date information. But, as anyone who has followed the pre-release hype cycle of a big game will know, delays are as common as they have ever been, and many publishers have only hit us with a vague “2025” release estimate so far.
GTA 6
Release date: Autumn 2025
Is this the most anticipated video game ever?
It’s heading for release 12 years after GTA V, which has sold more than 200 million copies and raked in an estimated £6.5bn. Can Rockstar possibly live up to the hype? It hasn’t really dropped the ball to date but, then again, this isn’t the Rockstar of old. It hasn’t made a proper main-series game in six years, since 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2. And, back in the day, six years would take you from Grand Theft Auto III through the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
The initial trailer suggests GTA 6 will feature plenty of social media satire, as well as baking social networks into the gameplay itself.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Release date: 2025
Hideo Kojima is set to return with another slice of bleak sci-fi delivery man simulation in Death Stranding 2, the sequel to the 2019 original. Hollywood star Norman Reedus features once more, too, as Sam Bridges. At 2024’s Tokyo Game Show, Kojima said the game is only 30 per cent to 40 per cent complete. Don’t expect this one in early 2025. And we wouldn’t be bowled over if it was bumped into 2026 at this rate. New for this sequel is a photo mode that, unusually, will have a significant role in the story.
Mafia: The Old Country
Release date: 2025
Back in its early days, the Mafia series was considered a more story-led and linear alternative to the open-world Grand Theft Auto games. But we haven’t had a new Mafia entry since 2016’s Mafia III, which received mixed reviews. The Old Country heads back to the classic mobster era of 1900s Sicily, though, and with any luck will be able to evoke the movie-like feel of the first two games. Fingers crossed there’s nothing quite like the migraine-inducing airplane-shooting section from the original, though.
Borderlands 4
Release date: 2025
What happened to Borderlands? It was once a gaming juggernaut, but seemed to disappear into the gaming mists after developer Gearbox moved on. And, well, the Borderlands film of 2024 was an epic misfire, making $32m (£25m) from a production budget of $120m (£94.7m). Borderlands 4 is back in the hands of Gearbox Software. Will it retain the looter-shooter gameplay of the originals and that… Marmite sense of humour? That’s not certain yet.
Judas
Release date: March 2025
This is the next game from Ken Levine, one of the key figures behind Bioshock and System Shock 2. It sounds like an ambitious story for an action game, with a “narrative Lego” system that means your choices and actions impact what happens. And while that’s not unusual in gaming, it is not standard fare in what is still on some level a first-person shooter. While there’s no official link to Bioshock, the way you use both guns and special abilities does have a certain whiff of Bioshock to it.
Fable
Release date: 2025
Fans have been waiting more than a decade for a new Fable game. And, while the one-time figurehead of the series, Peter Molyneux, is no longer involved, perhaps that’s no bad thing. He has, after all, become infamous for promising the moon and delivering a low-resolution print-out of it. The brilliant Playground Games is now working on Fable – a team known solely for making the Forza Horizon series, and they are real technical wizards. The trailers so far suggest the series’ staple sense of irreverent humour is intact.
Civilization VII
Release date: February 11, 2025
Prepare to sacrifice dozens of hours at the altar of Civilisation VII. It will be the first mainline civilisation game in eight-and-a-half years by the time of release. And, while most of the usual flavour remains intact, there are some core changes this time around. For example, rather than choosing a civilisation to take you through the entire couple of thousand years of a playthrough, you pick one at the start of each of the three game ages. What does stick, though, is the leader you choose. We’ll have to see how the fans respond to this one.
Monster Hunter Wilds
Release date: February 28, 2025
The next Monster Hunter game combines the best bits of the last two juggernauts in the series, Monster Hunter World (2018) and Monster Hunter Rise (2021). It also has a much more lush graphical presentation than Rise, meaning Nintendo Switch owners are left out in the cold this time. But, by the time it comes out, the Switch 2 will only be around the corner.
South by Midnight
Release date: 2025
This one had our interest in 2023, when South by Midnight’s first trailer revealed its enigmatic Southern Gothic theming and stop-motion-inspired puppet-like presentation. This year, we learned it’s actually a somewhat familiar third-person action adventure that mixes exploration, platforming and combat. But, still, the world building still has our attention even if the gameplay looks a little familiar in early teasers.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
Release date: 2025
Metroid Prime 4 may be the last hurrah for the original Nintendo Switch, a continuation of the Metroid Prime series, which began in 2002.
Nintendo already tested the ground for this one, in 2023’s Metroid Prime Remastered. That was widely hailed as one of the best Switch games of the year, and of the console’s entire catalogue. But can the design of a brand-new game hope to match a bonafide classic? Fingers crossed.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A
Release date: 2025
Little is known about Pokémon Legends: Z-A at the time of writing. Nintendo pushed out an announcement trailer, but we’re yet to see what the game looks like in action. We do know, though, it will be set in Lumiose city, where humans and Pokémon co-exist happily. And it will apparently be set entirely in this city, making it a big departure from the wide vistas and semi-open environments of Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
Avowed
Release date: February 18, 2025
The developer behind The Outer Worlds and Fallout: New Vegas is back with something new. Avowed is a first-person adventure whose combat revolves around swords and spells rather than guns. And it’s not a true open world either, split into large but manageable zones. It’s set in the universe of Pillars of Eternity, but you don’t need to have played either of the games in that RPG series. It is an indication of the vibe you’re going to get – a vibrant fantasy world.
Doom: The Dark Ages
Release date: 2025
Doom goes even more metal in The Dark Ages. And, for the veterans out there, we think it has more than just a touch of Quake feel to it. This is a prequel to the 2016’s game that so powerfully reinvigorated the classic first-person shooter series. Compared to the last title, Eternal, it looks like The Dark Ages focuses more on ranged combat.
Dying Light: The Beast
Release date: 2025
The second Dying Light zombie game hasn’t proved quite as successful as the first, but Dying Light 2 fans are still being treated with The Beast. This standalone story DLC will be released for free to those who have the Ultimate Edition of the game. You’ve been held captive for more than a decade, subjected to medical experiments, but you escape and enact revenge. But, in doing so, you’ll also uncover a larger story.
Dune: Awakening
Release date: “Early” 2025
The Dune movies have turned this nerdy sci-fi world into a bigger deal than it has ever been. Dune: Awakening is a multiplayer online role-playing title from the developer that made Conan Exiles in 2018. You harvest resources, including spice, and construct bases. And, yep, there are sandworms. This one is expected to launch in early 2025 as an early-access release.
Little Nightmares III
Release date: 2025
The Little Nightmares games are deceptive. On the surface, they look like a kiddie take on horror, with cartoon-ish graphics and a simple puzzle-platformed style. The atmosphere and tension created in the second game in particular is borderline disturbing, though, and that looks set to continue in the third game. There’s no need to upgrade from an old console for this one either, as it’s coming to PS4 and Xbox One as well as the newer crowd.
Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra
Release date: 2025
Marvel games haven’t had the best run, with even the brilliant Guardians of the Galaxy a relative flop. This next attempt at a hit follows the adventures of Captain America and Black Panther. So far, we have only seen a dazzling cinematic-style trailer. We’ve heard it’s made in-engine, suggesting it approaches the level of visuals we can expect in-game. But there’s a big question mark over what the gameplay actually is. As the title suggests, it’s set during the time of World War II, as Hydra is gaining power.
The First Berserker: Khazan
Release date: 2025
This anime-influenced game, due in early 2025 in early access, is part of an increasingly packed sub-genre: the souls-like – games inspired by the Dark Souls series. It’s from the much faster end of the spectrum, though, the trailer looking as much like a classic third-person hack ’n’ slash as a more strategic style title. The fighting dynamics are big on parrying, though, so timing is a key part of the experience here.
ARC Raiders
Release date: 2025
This handsome game is a multiplayer extraction shooter, where you’re dropped into an environment, have to find valuable loot, take down enemies or rivals, and make it to the extraction point alive. It’s set on Earth, but a future version of it where the planet has been savaged by a robot force known as Arc. The developers’ dream is no doubt to replicate the success of mega-hit Helldivers 2, and the game lands with a $40 price (likely £34.99 in the UK).
Terminator: Survivors
Release date: 2025
The Terminator series now has higher expectations among gamers than it once had. 2019’s Terminator Resistance has become a cult hit, raising the bar. But Terminator: Survivors has a very different sensibility. As the title suggests, it’s a survival game in which you play a human trying to avoid being killed by the Terminators. We’ve not seen much in the way of gameplay footage yet, but publisher Nacon says it’s planned for an early-access launch on PC in 2025.
Crimson Desert
Release date: Q2 2025
A giant open-world medieval role-playing game from the developers of popular massively multiplayer RPG Black Desert. It’s anything but a repeat of that project, though. Crimson Desert is a single-player title with lush visuals and dramatic-looking third-person combat. You can watch a 52-minute gameplay video above, or on YouTube, for an idea of the feel of this one – a bold move from the developer given Crimson Desert isn’t even out that soon.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
Release date: February 11, 2025
The Kingdom Come series looks like a fantasy RPG from a distance, but it’s far more grounded than The Witcher 3 or Skyrim. This is a role-playing game set in medieval Europe. And you play not a hero but, well, a guy called Henry who is a bit of a chump. It’s that very angle that will make Kingdom Come so very immersive for some players. The sequel takes place during a time of civil war.
Atomfall
Release date: March 2025
Atomfall is set in a fictional version of Yorkshire, in which a nuclear disaster has broken society. The disaster it’s based on actually happened, the 1957 Sellafield/Windscale tragedy. But, thankfully, its results are rather different. Fallout set in England? Maybe not. IGN called this a "detective/survival game hybrid”.
