Have a happy new year everyone, warm wishes from chilly Reykjavík!

"Secret" unlisted playlist: interesting #ARCRaiders runs, mostly me and my pal Ciaràn being pacifist raiders on the voice chat. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

If you'd told me at the start of the year that my GOTY list wouldn't feature Silksong or Hades II, but would have an extraction shooter and a business sim, I'd have thought you were smokin' something. But here we are. youtu.be/K5Z4bBENvW0?...

Update complete! The 4-hour GITW video game music master playlist now has added @bloodcultures.bsky.social, @alphachromeyayo.com, @fingerspit.bsky.social, JOON, @amosroddy.bsky.social, @woodkid.bsky.social, and more. music.apple.com/gb/playlist/...

It’s the last day of 2025 and what better time to release our Games of the Year! Find each So Many Games writers personal top three games and an honourable mention in this bumper size article to hopefully keep you entertained on this New Year’s Eve. somanygames.co.uk/articles/got...

I guess it had to happen sometime... a couple goons jumped my squad mate in #ARCRaiders so I finally downed another raider. Feels bad, man. Idk why people like PvP. But hey, we downed a giant flying death machine after. youtu.be/U48JGr3ZPYQ

"a stellar, period-piece soundtrack that's really creative" 🥰 Man oh man, I love seeing Promise Mascot Agency on cool GOTY lists by cool people And when the music gets a mention? OH MY HEART JUST MELTS. Thank you! 💖💖💖💖 (whole video - and channel - is a banger btw)

BTW if you dislike video player popovers, cookie popups, mailing list pop-overs, random "notification" popups, etc when trying to read things online, this Chrome extension is like an incredible lifesaver. chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ubloc...

If you'd told me at the start of the year that my GOTY list wouldn't feature Silksong or Hades II, but would have an extraction shooter and a business sim, I'd have thought you were smokin' something. But here we are. youtu.be/K5Z4bBENvW0?...

As we wrap up the year, I can't help but reflect on how special the Off the Shelf series has been to me. So, I want to take this moment to both thank and highlight my amazing guests (see more about these shows in the comments).

Hop in at 2pm GMT for a lil YouTube premiere of this high-effort, half-hour GOTY video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5Z4...

Early access for patrons: GOTY 2025 — The Final Cut. www.patreon.com/posts/146878... And live on YouTube tomorrow: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5Z4...

Here's a little roundup of the 34 game reviews I did in 2025, and some other fun stuff.

ARC can be impressively vindictive. I aggroed this Rocketeer off whoever it was hunting, and it crossed half the map to hunt me instead. youtu.be/bmwLG5kcY_M

This was a big year for Gaming In The Wild! 10k subs and 1m plays was far beyond what I expected. And there are still some codes for new/upgrading patrons!

Free today on Epic Epic indeed

If you want some chill listening while you're doing your shopping or wrapping or Christmassy prep stuff, check out this episode — the big listener GOTY vote for 2025.

Quote this post with the game you're currently playing... #ARCRaiders

If you want some chill listening while you're doing your shopping or wrapping or Christmassy prep stuff, check out this episode — the big listener GOTY vote for 2025.

Tons of great 2025 releases in this one sourced form a very smart group of people, plus you can hear all about my favorite games of the year as well!

The results are in! The listener GOTY poll had a record number of voters this year, and was very competitive — until one game ran away with the prize. But is it the one you think? Guest host @blinkoom.bsky.social dropped by to help deliver the results. Find it everywhere except Spotify.

This is wild. The Indie Game Awards retracted Clair Obscur's GOTY/debut indie wins for undisclosed use of AI during development.

Come see @blinkoom.bsky.social build his GOTY list live. Always a fun time. www.twitch.tv/blinkoom

#ClairObscur rules. Few argue. It's astoundingly good, especially for a studio debut. However, it winning indie game awards smells wrong to many of us. It's a AA production led by former Ubisoft devs, with a ~$10m budget, world-leading voice actors, hundreds of contractors, etc. Some thoughts:

Swen from Larian has positioned himself as a good guy in the games industry, and clearly feels and values that identity. He's been surprised and spiky about the AI-at-Larian backlash. I wonder how he'll ultimately respond. Seems like some kinda personal hubris test, with the heat turned up.

So thankful to Six One Indie and their Jury for this award! 🥳

The #IndieGameAwards nominees are out, celebrating a whole bunch of amazing stuff that came out this year, and giving rise to a familiar question: what is indie, anyway? www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUTM...

If anyone has been feeling the fomo on #ArcRaiders — well, yeah. It rips. And I say that even as a lifelong non-multiplayer enjoyer. The good news is, you can get a -30% code to activate on Steam with this affiliate link from @fanatical.com. Just don't shoot me as I try to extract, y'hear?

Ludocene - the handy game discovery and matching service with human curation (no AI!) - has been updated with monthly recommendations, game pages, hot-keys, and more. (Support Ludocene here)

That's a wrap on #PowerWashSimulator2. A low-key, unassuming kind of game, but also some of the most relaxing, cathartic comfort gamin' I can think of. Are any of the other borecore dad-sim games as satisfying?

“I don’t care what anyone says. I like that movie.”

New video! My final upload of the year shines a spotlight on some of my favourite games I almost missed in 2025 - including Nubby’s Number Factory, Simogo Legacy Collection, Once Upon a Katamari, Sektori, and many more 👀 📼 youtu.be/EbmAcuxMM9A

The Routine 80s PC-early NASA aesthetic is A+.

For the record, I cut myself off from Balatro in the summer.

#ARCRaiders was such a big surprise this year. It wasnt on my bingo card to be habitually playing a multiplayer extraction shooter. It's added to the Steam curator reccos page, along with #SkateStory, #DISPATCH, and more: store.steampowered.com/curator/4345...

The first year highlight that sprang to mind was the taste of a miso black cod dish at The Ivy in Manchester. Not sure that's what they're after tho :) Gaming-wise? Maybe the first glance of that amazing ocean-bottom area in Clair Obscur. My jaw dropped.

My top ten most-played games of 2025 include red-hot hit Lumines (2004) — but wait, wait, it's the remaster! .... (2018) I blame @minnmax.com for giving me the code.

What is *wrong* with this guy

Most played top ten 2025: 84hrs: Death Stranding 2 81hrs: Dragon Age: The Veilguard 69hrs: Ball x Pit 62hrs: PowerWash Simulator 2 56hrs: Lumines Remastered 41hrs: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 31hrs: Citizen Sleeper 2 25hrs: Sektori 25hrs: Donkey Kong Bananza 24hrs: ARC Raiders

Kompleted a run in #Sektori. No more Sektors. Viktory is mine. What a hard, intense, addiktive game that is.

New Side Quests out today with John from @gaminginthewild.bsky.social talking about Signs of the Sojourner. Go listen!

Also on this anti-woke forum's cancellation list was Deus Ex, because it features "subtle transhumanist themes". No word yet on whether American Truck Driver Simulator will be added for featuring "transport themes", or Moonlighter for featuring "transaction themes".

I was a guest on @funandgamespod.bsky.social's Side Quests series. They asked me to talk about an indie game I love. I chose #SignsoftheSojourner. It's a deck-based conversation game set in a post-collapse future; no Mad Max gangs, no cannibals—just small, loving communities hanging onto the edge.

A great episode on a strange little indie game: #MetalGarden.

#Despelote is a pretty little game. Well-judged autobiography, sun-kissed nostalgia, World Cup fever, a halcyon portrait of childhood.

I made the mistake of posting this #SkateStory review on the same day as The Geoffs — and it got buried. It's a fantastic, weird, vibey game... RTs for exposure appreciated! 🍿 youtu.be/-j6iPpWqKnA

This is fun — a five year old Reddit message when Sandfall were looking for volunteer voice actors for the Clair Obscur pitch demo. Aside: self-describing as "ambitious AA" back then.

Two of the most fun moment-to-moment games of the year. I rly love it when games give a sense of motion and freedom, like a brief holiday from being subject to gravity.

Is there ever gonna be a point when people get so sick of crap AI implementation in every single app and subscription that AI fatigue and anti-AI sentiment hits critical mass, and the tech industry has to be like: sorry, it wasn't ready yet.

The 2025 game music patron episode is out! I always look forward to this one. It's sequenced with all the melancholic/wistful ones up front, and the wavy bangers in the back 😁 and some chat about how music impacts games in different ways. Every new patron gets a code for an awesome indie game, btw