6 games that could be bigger hits than you’re expecting in 2025
We and our council of games industry luminaries ranked Helldivers 2 highly in our 2023 Most Wanted list, which is a small point of pride. The buzz around Arrowhead’s 2024 co-op shooter wasn’t nothing before it came out, but it was getting a whole lot less mainstream attention before it became PlayStation’s fastest-selling game ever than after. Sometimes we can still call ’em.
And sometimes we can’t—I’ll never live down my prediction that Concord would be popular (and hopefully no one remembers how much I liked Brink)—but I think our hit radar is pretty well tuned on a team-wide scale. As we enter 2025, here are six games PC Gamer staff members think you should know about, because they might turn out to be bigger hits than the current hype levels indicate. (Though maybe not Helldivers 2-level hits.)
Solasta 2
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We can only replay Baldur’s Gate 3 so many times. (He said, though his Honour Mode run is still in act two.) Solasta: Crown of the Magister provided an alternative way to get your fix of D&D 5E in videogame form, and a sequel that did the same thing with better writing and more of D&D’s character options available at launch—rather than having to wait for DLC to fill in the weird stuff—would be welcome. Don’t underestimate the audience of people who yearn for opportunities to upcast magic missiles. Solasta 2 doesn’t have a release date yet, but an early access release on Steam is expected this year. —Jody Macgregor, Weekend/AU Editor
Menace
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The developer of the excellent Battle Brothers has a new game on the way that looks to combine that game’s emergent storytelling and brutal scrabbling for survival with an XCOM-style alien invasion. There’s not a ton of turn-based strategy games on the docket for 2025 yet, and I think this could end up being a real high point for the genre this year. I think the one thing that held Battle Brothers back from being a much bigger hit was its quirky and slightly basic visuals—Menace’s more cinematic looks feel like the final piece of the puzzle dropping into place. –Robin Valentine, Senior Editor
Big Walk
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When the developer of Untitled Goose Game announced its “online walker-talker” I thought to myself “oh neat” and then sort of forgot about it. But I think there’s a good chance Big Walk has a viral moment this year equal to the chaos goose antics of 2020.
Big Walk looks like it could arrive near the peak of one of the current PC gaming trends we’ve been watching: the rise of co-op proximity chat horror games like Lethal Company. This one isn’t horror but it has that goofing about with friends, physics, and puzzles energy that makes me think of my favorite moments in Phasmophobia, Sea of Thieves, and We Were Here all smashed together. The reveal trailer for Big Walk makes it pretty clear that House House is absolutely still in touch with its mastery of physical comedy and comedic timing. I can already hear my Discord group chat having a good cackle while wandering around Big Walk and if it lands in the right month it could be an unexpected multiplayer hit for the year. —Lauren Morton, Associate Editor
Hyper Light Breaker
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Hyper Light Breaker isn’t exactly niche or a complete unknown, but I think it has a good shot of breaking containment and finding a sustained, explosive success like Risk of Rain 2—a game HLB has no shortage of similarities with. And since RoR 2 has had a ton of difficulties since transitioning to Gearbox’s stewardship from creator Hopoo Games (now part of Valve), there could be an underestimated appetite out there for “3D action roguelike sequel to 2010s pixel art indie favorite.”
Further bolstering my vibes-based prognostication, it’s always seemed to me that Hyper Light Drifter was a game well-loved outside the usual indie game appreciator crowd, and a big portion of its audience may have skipped Heart Machine’s initially Epic-exclusive follow-up, Solar Ash. Breaker’s definitely on the right track releasing in early access (and on Steam) right at the beginning of the year on January 13 though—Elden Ring: Nightreign, which is slated to release later on in 2025, presents some stiff competition in the 3D roguelike action-RPG space. —Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor
Psycho Patrol R
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Cruelty Squad should be a true sicko’s game, an action-forward immersive sim whose complex systems, psychedelic art style, and surreal writing all feel actively hostile to the player. So I’ve always been struck at how enduringly popular it is: Nearly 18,000 overwhelmingly positive Steam reviews at the time of writing, with clips from and references to the game surprising me where I least expect them on social media. Its comically nihilistic vision of a financialized, gig economy-ified far future really makes it the perfect game for our moment though—I thank my lucky stars Luigi Mangione never played it and the funny papers had to try and spin up a controversy about him being into Among Us instead.
Consumer Softproducts’ next game, Psycho Patrol R, has a lot of shared elements with Cruelty Squad: That anarchic, pitch black sense of humor, sprawling and intricate immersive sim level design, and an in-game stock market responding to the player’s actions, to name a few. There’s at least one big curve ball though: It’s a mech game where you can freely swap between on-foot and armored exploration, Titanfall-style. Not only did Cruelty Squad inspire tons of imitators and show there’s a clear audience for its type of thing, but I also think the free flow from on-foot shooting to mech piloting and back again is a rarely attempted, difficult to pull off concept that could broaden Psycho Patrol R’s appeal even further. —Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor
Midnight Murder Club
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I’m taking a wild swing here, because I hadn’t heard of Midnight Murder Club until this week, and if you were following along last year, you know that I am zero for one when it comes to predicting the fortunes of multiplayer shooters being published by Sony—but hear me out!
Midnight Murder Club looks somewhat similar to Phasmophobia—flashlights, prox chat, spookiness—but it’s PvP and everyone has a revolver. I’m not sure how I feel about the red laser beam tracers following the bullet paths (maybe I’ll get it when I play it myself), but otherwise it looks like a lot of fun. It’s made by Velan Studios, which previously developed Knockout City—that game didn’t have the best longevity as a live service thing, but it was excellent, so there’s a precedent for quality here.
Aside from its thematic similarities to games like Phasmophobia and Lethal Company, I pick up a ‘Hunt: Showdown lite’ vibe from Midnight Murder Club. There was a beta in December, and the response has been good. It’ll be out in February, according to the Steam page, and I think we’ll see it climb pretty high up the Twitch charts. —Tyler Wilde, US Editor-in-Chief
Bonus pick: Grand Theft Auto 6
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I know what you’re saying: there are six of these games I’ve never even heard of? Weird, but true: GTA (that’s what fans apparently call it) has been around since 1997, developed by studio “Rockstar Games” (OK, calm down, you’re not real rockstars!). Though it’s largely been ignored by the media and gaming community, I think GTA 6 has some potential to be a breakout hit: the trailer looks decent, though a bit heavy on the driving segments. Maybe that’s why it’s called Grand Theft “Auto”? We’ll know for sure later this year.—Christopher Livingston, Senior Editor
