The use of Generative AI (or GenAI for short) is on the rise, with many examples in some of the biggest games of the year using art, voice recordings, and narratives, just to name a few, now coming to light. For many players, a studio’s use of AI as a shortcut, instead of commissioning an artist, hiring a voice actor, or paying a writer to create assets for the final product, is something they actively don’t want to buy.
So this curated list that’s human-approved with only a spellchecker to assist in its creation will highlight the best games in 2025 where AI is, as far as we know, not involved in the development process. They all come from a whole bunch of developers, big and small, spanning a wide range of genres. The one thing they have in common is that a dedicated team of people worked on it without any assistance from GenAI tools.
It’s important to clarify that any procedural generation of maps, or randomized abilities or enemies, uses AI to determine what appears, and is not the same as GenAI. We’re specifically excluding games that use AI to generate any assets, whether it’s disclosed at the point of sale or found out after publishing. If it’s ethically problematic for any of these reasons, a game won’t be included on the list, no matter how much of a Game of the Year contender it is. With that, here are the best games without AI involvement in their development.
Hades 2
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5
- Developer: Supergiant Games
- Release date: September 25, 2025
Hades 2 is the long-awaited sequel to Supergiant Games’ Game of the Year, which puts you in the shoes of the immortal Princess Melinoë as she attempts to save her father Hades and his kingdom from the time-looping clutches of the Titan Cronos. It largely follows a similar Roguelike structure, where each run has you collect powers from the Ancient Greek Pantheon to augment your chosen weapon and crush the foes in your way.
Of course, with every sequel, you need to outdo what came before. Naturally, this means having two separate paths from the beginning, each with its own layout. One leads to the depths of Hades to Cronos, while the other has Melinoë ascend to the peak of Mt Olympus to defeat the invading monsters. Fans of the first will likely already have this one, but you don’t need to have mastered the original to enjoy everything that Hades 2 has to offer.
Dispatch
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5
- Developer: AdHoc Studio
- Release date: October 22, 2025
Released episodically, Dispatch is a wonderful throwback from the team behind The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. Throughout its first season, you are a former superhero, Mechaman, who becomes a dispatcher for a new generation of heroes. However, he ends up managing a team of miscreants who are easily sidetracked by a little bit of arson or petty theft. It’s up to you to keep everything on track, even when things go south.
Whether it’s allocating the right person for a particular job or making sure another hero doesn’t get sidetracked, each chapter has significant decisions that drastically change the outcome of a mission. By reading each hero's bio and upgrading their skills, you’ll increase your chances of success. You’ll also occasionally need to hack into systems remotely to assist your heroes when they’re in peril.
Dispatch’s stunning cast, which includes professional voice actors and some YouTubers branching out and doing a decent job in bringing these larger-than-life characters to life. By the time you reach the end, only one question will likely be on your mind: when’s season 2?
Absolum
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4
- Developer: Dotemu, Guard Crush Games, Supamonks
- Release date: October 9, 2025
For fans of retro beat-'em-ups such as Streets of Rage or Final Fight, it’s been quite a while since a brand-new series broke ground. Absolum carefully blends in Roguelike game mechanics to make what Steve Watts, in his review, described as “a match made in heaven”. You play as one of a band of rebel wizards led by Root Mother Uchawi, a benevolent god-like being, who attempts to take on the tyrant Sun King Azra and his Crimson Order army, who have taken over the world of Talamh.
With multiple characters to play with their own fighting style, a phenomenal soundtrack, stunning visuals, and a Hades-like elemental progression system for every run, it’s easy to see how this is a winning formula. On top of that, there are plenty of branching paths and hidden secrets to find along the way. Quests ask you to venture to specific points, but don’t always require that you reach them in the same run.
Some may feel that the Roguelike structure holds it back because it doesn’t lean into it enough, but it instead asks for the player to master its mechanics by giving them familiar challenges, and as such, may be somewhat fairer to their time. If you’re not convinced, there’s a free Absolum demo you can check out that gives you a small slice of just how wonderfully everything comes together, and like the full-price experience, you can bring a friend with you in your quest to save the realm.
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Blue Prince
- Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, macOS
- Developer: Dogubomb
- Release date: April 10, 2025
Solving the mystery behind a weird house with constantly shifting layouts that you inherited was not exactly on our bingo card for 2025, but Blue Prince is one of the best puzzle games we’ve played in years. Each day, you have a set number of steps to explore a house with randomized rooms. These rooms can give or take away steps, grant you items, or even house escape room-like puzzles that reward you with more trinkets.
On top of this, Blue Prince has a rather intricate mystery throughout. Clues hidden in certain rooms will allude to the house itself, including what’s in room 46, the former owner Herbert S. Sinclair, and a children's author called Marion Marigold. It might take you only a few attempts, or it may take you many. If you find you’re struggling to make a dent, you should check out our Blue Prince guides hub for some tips. Persevere, and you’ll find out why it’s worth continuing until you find that fated room.
Donkey Kong Bananza
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2
- Developer: Nintendo
- Release date: July 20, 2025
Nintendo’s big ape smashes his way onto the Switch 2 with Donkey Kong Bananza, from the creators of Super Mario Odyssey. Our gorilla hero travels to Ingot Isle to mine Banadium Gems, only to have his hoard stolen by a sinister simian syndicate known as VoidCo. Buried deep underground, DK soon finds an odd sentient rock that later turns out to be a younger version of Pauline. The two team up to excavate through each layer of this underground world to stop VoidCo.’s president from reaching the planet’s core.
The big selling point of Donkey Kong Bananza is that DK can dig his way through levels with his bare hands, uncovering secrets while using rocks and soil to bash his way to the end. Pauline’s singing also helps unlock transformations that enable DK to fly or charge at high speed, amongst others. Much like 3D Mario games and their equivalent macguffins, you’ll also gather crystal bananas for completing objectives. However, these bananas also tie in with the upgrade system that unlocks more powers for the duo.
What sets it apart is that, despite being vastly different from every other Donkey Kong game, it manages to pay homage to the series. Cameos from DK’s animal friends, musical homages, and so much more. It’s one of the few essential games to own for the Nintendo Switch 2 in its first year on the market. In case you’re wondering, you can safely skip the DLC: DK Island and Emerald Rush unless it’s put on sale, or you really enjoy Roguelike modes.
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5
- Developer: Square Enix
- Release date: September 30, 2025
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is a remaster made with love, care, and passion. Since the source code was lost, as was sadly the norm back in the 1990s, the effort made to bring the entire campaign to currently available platforms is staggering. It does have the newer translation, added voice acting, and support for higher resolutions than its PlayStation, PSP, or mobile iterations, and all of that is created or performed by talented people. And yet, despite the modern additions, it’s still the same punishing, yet charming, and above all, epic classic RPG from Square Enix’s golden age.
It would have been so easy just to churn out a ‘modern reskin’ of the classic permadeath game, or mangle its existing assets with generative AI upscaling tools. However, the team behind Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles evidently cared, wanting to retell the War of the Lions saga that captivated many with its twists and turns. Rebalancing encounters and adding the ability to skip non-story fights help ease newer players in, allowing them to experience some of what makes this tactical RPG so special.
Peak
- Platforms: PC
- Developer: Team Peak
- Release date: June 16, 2025
Peak is high up there when it comes to games with humble origins. It started as a Game Jam experiment that people loved so much that it inspired the developers, whose previous effort was the crustacean Soulslike game, Another Crab’s Treasure, to expand it into a full multiplayer experience. It’s one of the best Steam co-op games of the year, and that’s largely thanks to its tense gameplay and proximity-based voice chat.
As you ascend the biomes, you’ll encounter many dangerous obstacles such as toxic plants, chilling winds, and lava that rises and falls. Sometimes, you have mere seconds to cross perilous gaps, and sometimes it’s unclear if your constantly fatiguing scout can even make it until you try. Every major update adds a new environment filled with hazards, and new items make every run an unpredictable challenge.
Playing it with friends lets you share tools and food across your backpacks, and even grab a partner’s hand to reach the ledge they’re on. Once you’ve reached the top of the final level, you can begin tweaking runs with difficulty modifiers, which gives Peak a great amount of replay value. Whatever you do, though, don’t let the Scoutmaster see you if you split from the party.
Silent Hill f
- Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5
- Developer: NeoBards Entertainment
- Release date: September 25, 2025
As the name would suggest, Silent Hill f is not for the faint of heart. The latest in the horror game series takes place in the fictional town of Ebisugaoka in 1960s Japan, where the protagonist Hinako Shimizu finds her homeland shrouded in fog and infested with grotesque monsters intent on killing her and her childhood friends. It soon becomes apparent that all is not quite as it seems, as Hinako discovers an alternate dimension where she encounters a guide wearing a fox mask.
To survive, you’ll need to find and maintain gathered weapons while mastering both the focus attack and the timing of dodging enemy strikes. You’ll also solve puzzles with cryptic clues, all while the Silent Hill f tries its hardest to unsettle you. An early part taking place in a paddy field is particularly memorable, and it’s not even the game’s evilest trick.
Silent Hill continues the series’ track record of weaving a tale within its enemy design, the documents and letters you find, and even item descriptions. All of which provide intricate clues as to what’s really happening. Some will probably find that one playthrough is enough for them, but persevere with subsequent playthroughs, and you’ll soon uncover more layers that need unravelling to get the next ending.
Goodnight Universe
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5
- Developer: Nice Dream
- Release date: November 11, 2025
From the people who brought you Before Your Eyes comes Goodnight Universe, a game with a great story where you interact telepathically with your surroundings as a 6-month-old baby. Having gained sentience moments before your grandfather’s death, Isaac soon has to contend with a world that doesn’t understand him. Your interpretation of everything that’s happening around you, or what you mean to your family, is soon complicated by symbols in his old book that you can somehow decipher.
Before long, you begin controlling things with your mind, from swiping dog food to tipping it over, spilling its contents into a dog bowl, to shunting the old mutt closer to the food, and that’s just one of the many telepathic scenarios you’ll encounter. It’s more of an interactive story than a game, but the writing and performances are what bring Goodnight Universe to life. The further in, the weirder things get as you discover more about the dormant powers Isaac has. By the end of this fairly short tale, you’ll likely shed a few tears, especially if you are a parent yourself.
Lego Voyagers
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
- Developer: Light Brick Studio
- Release date: September 15, 2025
As one of the few exclusively co-op games on the market, Lego Voyagers is a beautifully crafted journey where players control a red or blue Lego brick. After witnessing a rocket launch go wrong, and part of it washes up on their island, the two bricks set out to discover the wonders of the archipelago. It might be a little fiddly at first, but soon you’ll be crossing rivers with makeshift bridges, sliding down pipes, and constructing new methods to cross a gap or reach the top of a ledge with Lego pieces.
Lego Voyagers is fairly light in tone, nothing speaks, and its puzzles aren’t mind-numbingly easy, making it a perfect game for a parent and child to share. There are lots of things to just mess around with, bringing out the inner kid and satisfying that curiosity, while also sharing in the game’s more whimsical moments, such as sitting on a swing set to take in the scenery. It’s not the longest game on the list, coming in at only a couple of hours from start to finish, but this is the definition of an experience that’s short but sweet.
The best bit is that only one of you needs to own the Lego Voyagers for you to play with a buddy, thanks to the Friends Pass. It also now has full crossplay, which you can use across any device despite previous announcements saying otherwise. You can even play with a buddy via the Friend Pass on a different console or PC from the one you are using.
Cabernet
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S
- Developer: Party for Introverts
- Release date: February 20, 2025
Cabernet plays a lot like the social life part of a modern Persona game, but with a macabre twist. You are Liza, a newly turned vampire in a 19th-century Eastern European town, navigating her eternal life. Along the way, she’ll meet the locals, both human and vampire, with whom she’ll form bonds by sharing in passions of art, literature, science, and politics. Liza also has vampire powers she can use to manipulate those around her, should she choose to, but these usually come at a cost.
For us, it’s the level of choice that truly sets Cabernet apart from the crowd. Dialogue options not only appear based on friendship levels with the person you’re talking to, but can also require points in skills (which you can give a quick boost by wearing certain dresses) or by having more points one way or the other in the game’s morality system.
It’s also clear that Cabernet doesn’t get bogged down by its light RPG game mechanics. Instead, it focuses on telling a story with stellar writing, supported by its wide range of talented voices, bringing it to life. Compared to more combat-heavy RPGs, Cabernet offers a drastic change of pace, rewarding players who carefully plan their next moves and giving agency to their choices.
Sonic Racing: Crossworlds
- Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
- Developer: Sonic Team
- Release date: September 25, 2025
2025 was a good year for kart racing games, and Sonic Racing: Crossworlds brings dimensional portals that alter the courses mid-race. One moment you’re speeding across a desert city, and the next you’re bouncing on alien plants, before returning to the original course for the final lap. Combined with Sonic All-Stars Racing: Transformed’s shifting vehicles from kart to plane to boat, depending on the terrain you’re racing on, this wacky racer is the perfect multiplayer game both online and locally. In fact, it has crossplay enabled across all platforms, so it’s far more accessible than its current competition.
What’s more, the single-player offering is actually substantial. For every Grand Prix, you’re given a rival that you must try to beat on every track. Their behavior is more aggressive than that of other competitors, and the level of heat they have indicates their overall difficulty boost. Each race you win, outpace your rival, and collect all five red rings in the first three courses. The finale of each cup has everyone drive one lap of the previous three tracks in sequence, rewarding those who learn the shortcuts ahead of time.
Sonic Racing: Crossworlds also features vehicle customization and a huge roster of familiar characters, each with stats that change the kart’s handling, acceleration, and overall speed. What’s more, the list of drivers will expand thanks to a host of DLC characters from different universes coming out in the next year. Soon, it will be a bit like the Super Smash Bros of kart racers, but with free Sega-owned characters and paid-for crossover ones. These paid-for ones include Minecraft and SpongeBob SquarePants, which are already available, with the likes of Pac-Man, Mega Man, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Avatar: The Last Airbender already announced to be coming throughout 2026.
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