The Best Games Turning 10 in 2025
It turns out 2015 was a crazy good year for gaming. It wasn’t until I sat down to make this that I realised how many amazing games we got to play that year. Saying that, it has also sent me spiralling into an existential crisis because there is absolutely no way that these games came out a whole decade ago. FPS games, RPGs and JRPGs, narrative adventures, incredible indies, horror games and sheer Nintendo fun – there’s a game for everyone in here, so make sure to hang around, find out if your favourite game has made this list of the best games turning 10 this year, and let me know in the comments what game you loved the most and whether there is anything you would have put on this list. Now, if you need me, I’ll be in my comfy chair with my pipe and slippers on. You’ll have to speak up though, my hearing aid is running low on batteries.
Witcher 3 Wild Hunt
We can’t start a best games from 2015 list without talking about the GOAT, the big daddy, the butcher of blaviken – The Witcher 3. Geralt of Rivia returns for his third and final game in the Witcher trilogy. This time Geralt is hot on the trail of Ciri, a child that prophecy says can alter the fate of the world and possibly stop all of the monsters from wreaking havoc on the world.
The Witcher 3 tops many best games of all time lists to this day and is beloved by many for its perfect combination of compelling story that plays out different based on the options you pick, difficult but rewarding combat, and fascinating world building that will have you exploring and tackling side quests for hours before you remember the main quest again.
Fallout 4
Oh, Todd. It’s insane to think that Fallout 4 was the last mainline Fallout game to release, and we haven’t had another mainline entry in the series to release. And no, Fallout 76 doesn’t count because that was… well… Fallout 76 HURGH. This time around, you enter the wasteland as the sole survivor of Vault 111, tracking down what happened to your son, Shawn.
Some people didn’t like Fallout 4 as much as Fallout 3, and MANY people didn’t like it as much as New Vegas, but hey, they’re not turning 10 are they? Fallout 4 moved the series to Boston and its surrounding areas, heavily focusing on New England themes, like The Institute, Salem and the minutemen. It also added base building for the first time in the franchise, which players have a love-hate relationship with. We love getting lost in base building, we hate Preston Garvey chasing us around the world telling us all the bases are under attack. OKAY PRESTON, WE GET IT.
Metal gear solid 5
As if 2015 didn’t have enough games that slap, Kojima’s unfinished Metal Gear Solid masterpiece landed on our consoles and hard drives. Metal Gear Solid 5 the phantom pain was the ultimate culmination in tactical espionage action and had everything we ever wanted. No, not that, naughty Kojima.
A prequel to most of the series except snake eater, phantom pain finally bridged the gap in the big boss story and wrapped up many loose ends. It also introduced many new loose ends because it had a troubled development because Kojima was fired by Konami, but hey, did I mention Quiet already?
The game is completely open-world, and offers players a sandbox to do whatever they want in. Capture enemies and tie them to a balloon, drop in vehicles and weapons, or just airstrike Russian military camps into dust. Regardless of where you think it sits in relation to the rest of the series, Phantom Pain is Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid finale and one of the best games of 2015.
Bloodborne
I don’t think FromSoftware has ever been able to top Bloodborne in the 10 years since it came out. It was made as a PlayStation 4 exclusive at the beginning of the console’s life and is no doubt responsible for selling absolutely boatloads of Sony’s consoles in that generation. Strangely enough, though, it has never had any kind of release on other platforms or even had the remake treatment, which would sell like hotcakes. I mean, it hasn’t even had a PS5 update. Frankly, they must have lost their minds because that’s the only explanation at this point.
ANYWAY, Bloodborne is so adored by so many because of its unique setting and standalone nature. You start off as a person entering the dark, gothic town of Yharnam, which is infested with some kind of blood plague that has turned its inhabitants into mutated monsters who definitely don’t like you very much. FromSoftware took risks with Bloodborne, giving us blood vials instead of estus flasks and rewarding extremely aggressive behaviour and parrying, because there’s no real option to turtle up with a shield like there is in Dark Souls.
It features one of the best storylines in the Souls series so far and… look… just go play it if you haven’t.
Life Is Strange
The OG Life Is Strange started it all and turned French company Don’t Nod from a studio that was fairly small at the time into the publisher that it is today. When we first enrolled in Blackwell Academy as Max Caulfield, there wasn’t a lot of hype surrounding the game, and I don’t think anyone realised just how large and passionate the fan base would grow.
At the heart of it all are Max and Chloe, two troubled teens who are dealing with their own issues, the disappearance of a local girl, and a mystery that still has one of the best reveals in a game to this day. It might appear to be all teen drama on the surface, but Life Is Strange is Deeper than an iceberg and is rammed full of interesting characters and amazing music. It was so successful that we’ve had numerous sequels in the subsequent years, but none of them even hold a candle to the original. Yeah, I said it.
Xenoblade chronicles x
We’re switching gears now to a game that not many people have played but is seriously underrated. Not only do you have to be a Nintendo player who loves JRPGs to have played Xenoblade Chronicles X, you also have to be one of the suckers who bought a Wii U. Hello (wave). Xenoblade Chronicles is known as the weird fantasy JRPG where you fight on the backs of creatures that fly through the sky, but Xenoblade Chronicles X is set in the future and has mechs that you can fly around its huge open world.
Earth has been destroyed by an intergalactic war between two alien races, and humanity is on the brink of annihilation. A small number of survivors aboard a spaceship crash land on an untamed planet. You’re part of a small, elite group of soldiers who have been tasked with mapping the surface of the planet and rebuilding humanity by reconstructing New Los Angeles. You’ll battle huge creatures and enemies and unravel a seriously underrated story along the way. Xenoblade Chronicles X is one of the best JRPGs ever, and the good news is it’s now on the Nintendo Switch.
Undertale
Undertale is the indie masterpiece that took the world by storm. You can’t really say much about Undertale’s plot without spoiling the surprise of the game, but suffice to say you control a human who falls underground into the world of monsters. You’ll encounter a cast of interesting characters along the way, and you’ll also be given the choice to fight – or not fight – the denizens of the underworld as you try to escape.
Undertale is one of those games that will have you sitting with your jaw open when you finally finish it, and you’ll be thinking about its clever design and poignant themes long after the credits have rolled. Toby Fox’s Undertale garnered almost unanimous critical praise and a staggering amount of 10 out of 10 scores, so it absolutely had to make this list of best games turning 10 in 2025.
Splatoon
Remember how I said you had to buy a Wii U for Xenoblade Chronicles X? Yeah, same deal with Splatoon. Except for me, it was completely worth it. Superficially, Splatoon is a game about a bunch of squids squirting their ink all over the place (funny look), but it is so much more than that.
Splatoon was the first truly competitive game that Nintendo made outside of Smash Bros. It has a multiplayer ranked mode, a plethora of weapons to unlock and use, and a huge part of the game is all about style. You can listen to eargasmic music as you outfit your squid with the latest hairstyles and freshest drip, but it’s not just for looks. The clothes, equipment, and items you wear all have different buffs and affect gameplay. Let’s not forget the Splatoon also has a great campaign mode, and it pioneered the use of gyro aiming that was actually good.
Until dawn
It’s been remastered and remade and re-released in all kinds of ways, but Until Dawn was the PlayStation exclusive horror game from Supermassive Games that would cement the type of games they would mainly focus on. It laid the foundation for the team’s Dark Pictures Anthology and The Quarry games that would come later.
The premise of the game is that when eight friends return to the isolated lodge where two of their group vanished a year prior, things start to go wrong, and their mountain retreat descends into a nightmare with no escape. Until Dawn combines cinematic horror with a branching narrative, where the decisions you make have a great effect on how the story plays out and ends. Not to mention the cast is full of Hollywood greats, like Rami Malek and Hayden Panettiere.
Dying light
Speaking of horror games, Dying Light is one of the best games of the genre to turn 10 this year. It was made by the same team that created the original Dead Island, except this time they have a bigger budget and added more polish to the experience. Rather than being set on an island, this time around, players get to roam a city devastated by a mysterious virus epidemic.
Free running plays a huge part in traversing the game’s open world, as well as scavenging supplies to craft better equipment. It has a full day-night cycle, and the scariest undead monsters come out at night. And unlike other horror games with zombies, these guys are genuinely terrifying, so you don’t want to be out of the safe house when the sun goes down.
Dying Light has a compelling story, and it really took the zombie trope to the next level when it came out 10 years ago, which is why it screams its way onto this list.
Assassin’s creed syndicate
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate marks the last of the old-school Assassin’s Creed games, and it’s surprisingly good. At the time, we were all very burned out with Assassin’s Creed’s yearly release schedule, so many players either skipped this one or were too fed up with the franchise’s sameyness to see its great qualities.
Set in Victorian London in the late 1800s, you play as two main characters this time: the Frye twins, Jacob and Evie. Much of the game focuses around these two fighting for a sense of justice against those who exploit the less privileged in factories and workhouses, which is ironic given the current state of affairs at Ubisoft.
Regardless, Syndicate introduced a faster combat system that had a heavy emphasis on brawling in London’s foggy streets. The game also gave us the beginnings of more advanced traversal system with a grappling hook, and you can see how Ubisoft was slowly moving towards the gameplay style we would start to see in Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla.
Black ops 3
Last up on this list is possibly one of the last Call of Duty games to truly innovate in its gameplay. Black Ops 3 had a futuristic campaign that allowed you to choose your protagonist from male or female, and also let you choose different options while playing the campaign that affects how it plays out. You can use a whole bunch of skills and abilities that haven’t really made a return to the series since, and its multiplayer modes had us all flying around the map with our jetpacks or running on the walls of its maps.
Black Ops 3 focused on building out your robotic rig to fit your playstyle, and it’s hard to look back 10 years now and see the kinds of strides that the series made with Black Ops 3 that Activision has subsequently reversed. Black Ops 3 was a breath of fresh air for the series, and probably the best FPS game of 2015.
