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Compared to 2024, this year's best expansions might seem ironically a little more lowkey. After all, there's quite a difference between an expansion that introduces a new smaller story to the base game or some extra missions and a brand-new campaign for an MMO that's designed to occupy your every waking hour.
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That might however also have something to do with changing tastes where it's perfectly fine to enjoy a terrific game, have your fill, and then move on, but still have a surprise bonus that gives you the excuse to revisit the characters and worlds you had been engrossed with the first time round. These aren't just a few extra levels a developer cynically cut to be repackaged as DLC later but also feel worthy of your time, whether it's to bring in a new mechanical twist or give you a new challenge to keep you on your toes.
5. Still Wakes The Deep: Siren's Rest
Developer: The Chinese Room
Platform(s): PS5, Xbox Series X, PC
You could say that The Chinese Room already achieved everything it had set out to with its story-driven psychological horror – that happens to be one of the best video game stories – that combines workplace disaster with The Thing at sea, with some of the most authentically Scottish (and sweary) performances in a game. While a short expansion set a decade later, Siren's Rest introduces new characters now tasked with exploring the underwater ruins of the Beira D to try and find out what happened to the crew. Its brief playtime may not make it the deepest expansion, but for fans of the original game who perhaps found the original ending too bleak, beneath this new horror is also a collectathon given a profound context for providing closure to the families of those whose lives were cut horrifically short on the fateful oil rig.
4. Atomfall: The Red Strain
Developer: Rebellion
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4
Despite not quite being the British Fallout that was assumed at first glance, Rebellion's first-person post-apocalyptic action survival game was nonetheless a novel break from its Sniper Elite and Zombie Army releases (and one of the best survival games overall) that provided a surprising amount of player choice and when it comes to figuring out how to escape a quarantine zone in the northwest of England following a nuclear disaster inspired by the real-life Windscale fire in the 1950s. While there have been two separate story expansions released post-launch, its second expansion The Red Strain is recommended over the first's misfires. With new standalone location Scafell Crag, which also happens to contain a top-secret research site that houses a rocket ship, it offers another quirky slice of quintessentially British sci-fi where besides dealing with an even deadlier 28 Days Later-style virus you're also conversing with brains in jars.
3. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of Giants
Developer: MachineGames
Platform(s): Xbox Series X/S, PC, PS5
Given how MachineGames so faithfully recaptures the magic of peak Indy in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, with some fine work from Troy Baker doing his best Harrison Ford soundalike that even the man himself praised, it would seem a waste to not do more with one of the best uses of a license for a blockbuster game in years. The Order of Giants may lack the same globetrotting scope of the base game, instead offering a more streamlined four- to five-hour story. Nonetheless, it makes for a captivating side story to one of the best adventure games that excavates the lore of the Nephilim Order while also further expanding on (or rather beneath) the excellent Vatican level. You may not be punching Nazis much here but it's a definite treat for those who like to get their thinking fedoras on when solving room-scale puzzles and exploring the maze of Rome's ancient sewer system.
2. No Man's Sky: Voyagers
Developer: Hello Games
Platform(s): PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch 2, Switch
It's phenomenal just how No Man's Sky has continued to expand like the universe itself since launching almost a decade ago, adding multiple games' worth of new content and modes, and all at no extra cost. This year's Voyagers update may perhaps be its most ambitious yet, with the introduction of starships called Corvettes. These aren't just giant props but fully explorable and customizable, allowing you to build your ultimate sci-fi space fantasy before gathering a crew to boldly go and explore the universe. With new multiplayer missions or the freedom to just space walk in newly designed space suits while you leave the Corvette on autopilot, it's a staggering additional level of freedom that puts this procedurally generated open-world universe lightyears ahead of the competition.
1. Lies of P: Overture
Developer: Neowiz/Round8
Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Before Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 got us all talking, this Soulslike was another exquisite example of taking inspiration from the Belle Epoque era to give a dark steampunk retelling of the Pinocchio story. Acting as a prequel to Lies of P, it's a chance to experience the city of Krat before its fall to ruin, taking you to new locations like Krat Zoo and a carnival that is just a marvel in itself. In the two years since Lies of P's release, Round8 hasn't gotten complacent and has delivered a 20-hour expansion that's just as deadly with fearsome bosses that will test your mettle but also reward you with some exquisite new weapons, including a gun blade that does exactly what it says on the tin.
If you're done looking for the best expansions, be sure to check out the best games of 2025.
