2025 gave us all-timers like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which is what most people will likely remember down the line, but it’s not entirely representative of this year. Despite great games, the industry lost countless developers and studios, and adopted some incredibly disappointing strategies. Let’s list them, lest we forget.
Black Ops 7
The Call of Duty: Black Ops subseries began as an examination of the darkest parts of warfare. Black Ops 7, however, ditches all of its themes to have players fighting off ridiculous monsters that players have compared to Skibidi Toilet, a series of silly YouTube shorts for kids.
Also, the game is full of AI slop. I absolutely get why a corporation would use AI to create bland iconography for achievements and whatnot. Still, Microsoft jumping on the bandwagon of copying Studio Ghibli via AI slop to create calling cards that have nothing to do with CoD months too late felt especially cringe-inducing.
The EAcquisition
A few months ago, we learned how video game giant EA is being acquired by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Now, most wealthy countries are responsible for unforgivable stuff. I don’t care that “a” Saudi Arabian company now owns a considerable percentage of the biggest games out there; I care that “the” people directly responsible for all sorts of human rights violations are the ones acquiring EA.
Was the Mass Effect series somehow getting an even worse conclusion on your bingo card? Well, too bad.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2
Don’t get me wrong: no one is saying Bloodlines 2 is a terrible game. It’s actually a decent game, which is, somehow, worse. Let’s clarify.
The original Bloodlines went through a gruesome development cycle that culminated with the release of an unfinished game. It only became a classic because fans reworked it to the point of making its great mechanics, story, and world not just playable, but greatly enjoyable.
Bloodlines 2 went through an even longer and more gruelling development cycle, which saw publisher Paradox going as far as to swap development studios for the project. The result, after so many years of waiting, was ok. Bloodlines 2 provides an incredibly diluted experience when compared to the original, but it plays well. Fans had spent these past dark years getting ready to fix this one when it came out, only to come to the dire realization that there’s just not much below the already functioning surface to save.
Microsoft leaves us in the dark
Microsoft had been acquiring game studios as if they were Infinity Stones in the past few years. This is never a good sign, but, in this case, at least, it would likely point out that they were at least really serious about making new games, right? Well, not really, as 2025’s version of Microsoft seemed hellbent on layoffs, studio closures, and, naturally, game cancellations. We often hear about the cancellation of games that the public had never witnessed past the screenshot format, but that was not the case with Perfect Dark. It was one of the many games that Microsoft killed out of nowhere, and it looked great.
If you don’t know much about Perfect Dark, it’s a series that conquered the hearts of many back in 2000 on the Nintendo 64 before fumbling it with the 360’s Perfect Dark Zero in 2006. Then, for nearly 20 years, it was just a promise Microsoft dangled in front of our eyes out of what now seems to be just pure cruelty.
Civilization VII
The Civilization series has usually been a slam dunk, the rare series whose perceived errors are fun enough to become the stuff of legend. That, however, didn’t ring true to Civilization VII, a new entry that made the baffling decision to remove many of the series’ beloved mechanics, and to add a bunch of confusing bloat that nobody really liked. Even before Civ VII was out, there were already mods out to try to bring it closer to the glory of Civilizations past.
Borderlands 4
After Black Ops 7 and Civilization 7, Borderlands destroyed its winning formula at just the fourth attempt. What a great year for “worst in the series” 2025 has been!
Fans complained how the game was demanding on their wallets with its $70 to $80 price tag, and on their PCs, as it struggled on most systems. Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford downplayed the game’s issues and claimed “real fans would find a way to make it work.”
The good news is Borderlands 4 has a good game underneath all the bad coding, if you can still stand the series’ juvenile humor, that is. If not, just try out the best game in the series.
Deus Ex Remaster
The original, and only the original, Deus Ex is one of the most celebrated games of all time. Fans were hyped for Aspyr’s remaster as they’d done a stellar job with both the Tomb Raider and Soul Reaver reworks. They absolutely didn’t do a great job here, considering how almost parody-level bad this looks
To end on a better note, Aspyr has recently removed Deux Ex Remastered‘s presence from the Internet, which seems to point to an attempt to do the game justice.
