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The Coolest Games of 2025 That Aren’t Owned by Microsoft
Xbox’s heart is gone
Just for fun, every year I like to make a top ten list of my favorite new game releases. I also like to check-in on my progress with this task occasionally, so that I can sort out my thoughts as the year goes on and not just rush the whole thing in the last week of December. Too often, larger outlets that give out actual awards will completely forget about games that released earlier in the year, and I try my hardest not to do that.
Microsoft was doing so well this year, at first. They had a strong slate of game releases, and I put some serious time into some of them. Avowed is one of the best and most enjoyable action RPGs released in quite some time, and I played it as multiple characters. It seemed like a strong competitor for the top slot of my list. Doom: The Dark Ages is a fantastic romp of an action game, and even though it’s a weird design swerve compared to the earlier titles and filled with tons of nonsense lore, I could see it still sneaking on my list right near the bottom. Oblivion Remastered took one of my all-time favorite games and updated it with modern graphics, and in a year that already had Avowed I suddenly felt like Microsoft was releasing games targeted directly at me.
