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If You Only Play One Game This Year, Make It One Of These

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Nazarii Verbitskiy

Gaming - April 27th 2026, 17:00 GMT+2

15. Deep Rock Galactic (2020)
*Deep Rock Galactic* turns four dwarves loose in procedurally generated caves with mining equipment, explosives, and absolutely zero respect for structural integrity. The co-op shooter thrives on controlled chaos, where every mission devolves into frantic tunneling, desperate escapes, and arguments about who brought the beer. It captures that rare feeling of a plan falling apart in exactly the right way. The game proves that shouting "Rock and Stone!" while your teammates accidentally blow up the escape route never gets old. | © Ghost Ship Games

14. Forza Horizon 5 (2021)
*Forza Horizon 5* drops you into a version of Mexico that feels more alive and varied than most open worlds twice its size. The driving physics hit that perfect balance where every car feels distinct without punishing casual players, and the festival atmosphere never gets annoying because it actually serves the racing. Most racing games either go full simulation or full arcade, but this one lets you drift a supercar through ancient ruins one minute and fine-tune suspension settings the next. It is the rare game that makes both car enthusiasts and people who just want to go fast equally happy. | © Microsoft

13. Animal Well (2024)
*Animal Well* looks like a simple pixel art adventure until you realise the rabbit hole goes deeper than anyone expected. The game hides layers of secrets beneath its charming surface, with puzzles that extend far beyond the screen into real-world mysteries that still have players collaborating months after release. What starts as a cute Metroidvania about exploring underground caves becomes something closer to an ARG, where the community itself becomes part of solving the game's most cryptic challenges. It respects your intelligence in ways most games never attempt. | © Bigmode

12. Lies of P (2023)
*Lies of P* takes the Pinocchio story and turns it into a brutal soulslike where every lie you tell changes who you become. The puppet protagonist faces moral choices that actually matter, slowly becoming more human through deception rather than honesty. Combat feels weighty and deliberate, with a weapon-crafting system that lets you build truly bizarre combinations. It proves that even the most oversaturated genre can feel fresh when someone finds the right twisted fairy tale to tell. | © Neowiz

Doom eternal msn — 11. Doom Eternal (2020)
*Doom Eternal* takes the shotgun-and-chainsaw formula from 2016 and turns it into a ballet of violence that never lets you stop moving. The game demands constant motion through platforming puzzles, resource management, and enemy weaknesses that force you to switch weapons mid-fight or die. Every demon becomes a piece of an elaborate puzzle where the wrong move means instant death, but the right combo feels like conducting a symphony of destruction. It transforms mindless shooting into something that requires actual skill and rewards players who learn to dance with chaos. | © Bethesda Softworks

10. Resident Evil 4 Remake (2023)
*The Resident Evil 4 Remake* takes everything that made the 2005 original a legend and rebuilds it with modern precision, keeping the perfect balance of horror and action that made Leon's village encounter so memorable. Capcom somehow managed to update the graphics, tighten the controls, and add new story beats without losing any of the ridiculous charm that made chainsaw guys and merchant interactions feel special. The game still lets you suplex cultists and collect typewriters, but now everything moves with the kind of smooth responsiveness that makes every shotgun blast feel exactly right. Twenty years later, it turns out the best way to honor a classic is to make it play like it always should have. | © Capcom

9. Hades II (2024)
*Hades II* takes everything that worked about the original and doubles down on the family drama, this time casting you as Melinoë trying to rescue Hades from the titan Chronos. The combat feels even more fluid than before, with new weapons and magic systems that make each escape attempt feel genuinely different. Supergiant somehow found room to expand the mythology without losing the tight pacing that made every conversation and upgrade feel meaningful. Early access has never felt this complete. | © Supergiant Games

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 — 8. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025)
*Clair Obscur: Expedition 33* promises turn-based combat that actually looks like it belongs in 2025, with real-time dodging and blocking woven into classic RPG battles. The game drops you into a world where a mysterious Paintress erases anyone who reaches a certain age, and this year she's coming for all the 33-year-olds. Developer Sandfall Interactive built their debut around that brilliant central hook, then surrounded it with some of the most striking art direction you'll see in any RPG. It's the kind of premise that makes you wonder why nobody thought of it sooner. | © Kepler Interactive

7. Astro Bot (2024)
*Astro Bot* turns PlayStation nostalgia into pure mechanical joy, filling every level with references that feel earned rather than forced. The platforming never relies on callbacks to carry weak design because the fundamentals are rock solid. Each world introduces new ideas that build on what came before, creating momentum that makes you want to see what clever trick comes next. Sony found a way to celebrate their history while making something that works perfectly on its own terms. | © Sony Interactive Entertainment

6. Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)
*Cyberpunk 2077* launched as one of the most hyped games ever made, then immediately became a cautionary tale about promising too much. The bugs, crashes, and missing features turned what should have been a triumphant sci-fi epic into a disaster that got pulled from the PlayStation Store. But here's the thing: underneath all that broken code was actually a compelling RPG with sharp writing, meaningful choices, and a neon-soaked world that feels lived-in once it works. Three years of patches later, it's finally the game CD Projekt Red always claimed it was. | © CD Projekt

5. Balatro (2024)
*Balatro* disguises itself as a poker game, then quietly becomes the most addictive thing you will touch all year. The rules are simple until they are not, because every hand lets you bend poker logic with joker cards that multiply scores in ways that should not make sense but absolutely do. One more hand turns into three hours of chasing bigger numbers, better combinations, and that perfect run where everything clicks. It is the kind of game that makes you understand why people get obsessed with systems designed to never let you win. | © LocalThunk

4. Alan Wake 2 (2023)
*Alan Wake 2* turns survival horror into something that feels more like stumbling through a fever dream where Stephen King collaborated with David Lynch on a very expensive art installation. The game splits time between a trapped writer and an FBI agent, both trying to solve mysteries that keep rewriting themselves in real time, complete with full musical numbers that somehow make the nightmares more unsettling instead of breaking the tension. Remedy Entertainment built something that uses every trick in the medium to mess with your head, from live-action sequences that bleed into gameplay to story beats that literally change the environment around you. Most horror games try to scare you with jump scares or gore, but this one gets under your skin by making you question what kind of story you are actually in. | © Epic Games Publishing

The Legend Of Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom — 3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023)
*The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom* hands you a toolbox and tells you to break everything you think you know about how games work. The fuse ability turns random junk into weapons, while ultrahand lets you build flying machines, death traps, and solutions the developers probably never imagined. What starts as a familiar return to Hyrule becomes something closer to engineering chaos, where every problem has a dozen different answers and half of them involve rockets. Nintendo built a sequel that makes the original feel quaint by comparison. | © Nintendo

Elden ring — 2. Elden Ring (2022)
*Elden Ring* takes the punishing Dark Souls formula and drops it into an open world that actually rewards curiosity instead of punishing it. You can wander off the critical path whenever a boss becomes too frustrating, find new weapons and abilities, then come back stronger and angrier. The collaboration with George R.R. Martin shows up in the world-building more than the storytelling, creating a fantasy landscape that feels both epic and mysteriously broken. FromSoftware finally made a game where "git gud" comes with multiple paths forward instead of just one brick wall. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment

Baldurs gate 3 — 1. Baldur's Gate 3 (2023)
*Baldur's Gate 3* treats every conversation like it might completely derail your carefully planned story, because it probably will. The game lets you seduce a bear, accidentally start wars through bad dialogue choices, and watch party members leave forever based on decisions you made twenty hours earlier. Most RPGs promise that your choices matter, but this one actually builds entire plotlines around the weird, impulsive things players do when they think nobody is watching. It turns the messiness of human decision-making into the actual game. | © Larian Studios

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With so many games competing for your time, picking just one can feel impossible – but some titles are so rich, so complete, and so endlessly replayable that they genuinely deserve your full attention. These aren't just good games; they're the kind that stay with you long after the credits roll. Clear your schedule, because one of these might be the only game you need.

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With so many games competing for your time, picking just one can feel impossible – but some titles are so rich, so complete, and so endlessly replayable that they genuinely deserve your full attention. These aren't just good games; they're the kind that stay with you long after the credits roll. Clear your schedule, because one of these might be the only game you need.