2025 is set up to be a landmark year in gaming, especially for long-awaited sequels that many of us have been craving for years! Without further ado, let’s get right into the Top 5 Games set to release in 2025 that you won’t want to miss!

1. Subnautica 2 (Date TBA; Xbox Series X/S, PC)

Starting right off, let’s take a look at Subnautica 2. The original Subnautica was a revolution when it came to survival crafting games, crash-landing you on a waterworn world, sick, alone, and with little hope of ever getting off alive. As a silent protagonist, you were completely immersed in the role of the lone survivor, delving into the deepest depths of a treacherous ocean in search of resources and rescue.

There’s a reason why the game is STILL rated Overwhelmingly Positive with nearly 300,000 reviews. Because it’s amazing! But there was one thing missing… multiplayer! Everything about the game begged to be played with friends, and, if you manage to build the mighty Cyclops Submarine, it even tells you that it’s meant to be piloted by 3 people.

There was such a hunger for co-op gameplay that a group of modders created Nitrox, a mod that added multiplayer to the first game. Now, let me be clear, it is janky, but hey, it works! Well, kinda. At least it worked well enough for my wife and I to have a (relatively) solid playthrough of the game together from start to finish.

But jank no more! Subnautica 2 is on the horizon with boosted graphics, new vehicles and gear, and promises to have up to 4-player co-op built right in! The trailer even hints at something like a kraken now lurking in the depths...??

I don’t know about you, but I can already smell the salt in the air! While there’s no exact date yet, we do know it’s set to release sometime this year, and I for one, can’t wait.

2. Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 (Date TBA; PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC)

If you love RPGs and haven’t played the original Bloodlines game, then do yourself a favor and sink your teeth in! It’s an iconic cult classic with a flavor all its own… maybe AB-? Originally released in 2004, it was swallowed into obscurity by the (rightful) spotlight of Half Life 2 and suffered from bugs and breaks as it was rushed out by the publisher. Still, it still won GameSpy’s Best Level of the Year Award and stole the hearts of many, arguably from the brilliant writing of Brian Mitsoda.

Now, more than 2 decades later, Bloodlines is back with an all new RPG adventure set in the stark city of Seattle! Like its predecessor, it hasn’t been without trouble. First announced in 2019, it has been through the hands of three separate publishers, the hiring and firing of writer Mitsoda, and numerous instances where it might have been dead before ever seeing the light of day.

But, like the vampires we’ll be playing, who needs daylight anyways?! Bloodlines 2 is alive and well and scheduled for release this year! Bloodlines 1 is in my Top Five Favorite RPGs of all time, and if Bloodlines 2 has even half the even soul of the first game, it’s going to be amazing.

3. Split Fiction (Available Now; PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC)

From Hazelight Studios, the creators of A Way Out and It Takes Two, comes their brand new co-op adventure, Split Fiction! I gotta give it to the team at Hazelight, they make games like nobody else. Their last game, It Takes Two, won 8 awards, including Game of the Year and Best Multiplayer Game, and was nominated for 28 awards all together! With a track record like that, I can’t wait to see what they’ve managed with their newest title.

In fact, I might do that right now as Split Fiction literally went live as I’m writing this! Players are already singing its praise, declaring it a triumph and Hazelight’s best title to date, and comments are amassing with speculation that it could be a serious contender for Game of the Year.

If you love playing games with friends, nobody does it better than Hazelight, and Split Fiction is sure to satisfy!

4. Elden Ring Nightreign (March 29; PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Series X/S, PC)

By now, we all know FromSoftware and Bandai Namco’s Elden Ring, one of the hottest selling game titles of all time. Now a (sorta) sequel is heading our way, with what seems to be a total reimagining of core gameplay. Rather than the open world RPG we’ve come to expect, Nightreign seems to have taken a page right out of the Battle Royale page book and hooked us with a new kind of gameplay loop.

Players will be back in the Lands Between but this time with only 3 days to prepare themselves for a final trial. Love it or hate it, the “shrinking circle” is a factor here, and you’ll have to carefully choose where to go and what to do as the play area constantly closes in around you.

Those who have playtested say that gameplay has been streamlined, fall damage is right out the window (and doing just fine!), and that the world is more accessible than ever. With up to 2 friends in stride, level up, grind loot, and survive for 3 grueling days to test your mettle and magic against the most fearsome foes the series has to offer.

While it’s bound to be different, Nightreign is certainly a game worth keeping our expectations high for, and we won’t have to wait long with its release!

5. Grand Theft Auto 6 (September; PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S)

It’s been nearly 12 years since Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto 5, and there’s been no lack of chomping at the bit for a new game. The love for GTA is almost impossible to truly fathom, but here’s just a taste of the fanbase. According to activeplayer.io, GTA 5’s player count is still at a whopping 28 million in just the last 30 days! Imagine a game so good that, 12 years later, it has more active players than Helldivers 2. More than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare! More than freaking DOTA 2!!?!

In movies, a film can blow up the box office, and in gaming… Well, I don’t know what it blows up in gaming, but I can promise you this -- when GTA 6 finally drops this Fall (at least on consoles, except PC, coming 2026), we’re going to see moon-high sales and fanatic-level hype like you wouldn’t believe. We’re talking “make Black Friday at Walmart crazy” look like a well-rehearsed fire drill!

With promises of the biggest GTA game world ever, massive improvements in open world realism, and not to mention more than a decade of technological advancements to work with, it’s likely that we’ll still be playing this game into the mid-2030s.

One major difference we know so far is that GTA 6 will feature two primary protagonists, and Grand Theft Auto’s very first female lead, Lucia! She and her accomplice Jason will be raising hell in Florida, and, knowing Rockstar Games’ signature style, the two gangsters will not be characters that you wanna mess with but DEFINITELY ones that you’ll want to play!