Features archive
December 2025
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196 articles
- December 31
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- "It gave us more opportunities for variety": How Banjo-Kazooie helped the Nintendo 64 compete with PlayStation
- Absolute Martian Manhunter isn't just the best superhero comic of 2025 – it pushes into the wild spaces of the form itself
- The 25 Best Comics of 2025
- "We never planned the game to be for everyone": Escape from Tarkov's creator reflects on the unwavering vision that pioneered an FPS genre
- We will never get another game like Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Ditch the light strips, here's how to build the ultimate RGB gaming setup in 2026
- Test your 2025 games knowledge with our crossword
- December 30
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- Nintendo's 2025 has been all about the hardware, but 2026 is going to be its year for games
- "Bully was chaotic from the day I started until the day it shipped": Inside the making of Rockstar's 'GTA in boarding school'
- 5 games that have defined the first year of Switch 2 (so far)
- "The horror is almost secondary to the menial task": From Crow Country to Resident Evil 9, here's how horror games keep us scared
- Monster Hunter Wilds is on my GOTY list for a reason, but after a messy year I just want Capcom to wipe the slate clean with Master Rank DLC
- Our experts' favorite board games of 2025
- My gaming new year’s resolution? Finally buy this one peripheral for my PC
- December 29
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- The Hundred Line's "Spiderverse"-inspired 100 endings might continue to grow, the Danganronpa creator tells me: "You'll end up with quite a Frankenstein's monster of a game in the end – but I absolutely have the ambition to make that"
- 25 years since Jak and Daxter challenged Naughty Dog to find "the most beautiful thing we could pull off" on PS2, its writer "still misses" the action duo's world
- 2025 was a triumphant year for DC Comics – can it sustain its momentum in an uncertain future?
- "We want you to feel like it's the game you remember playing, not necessarily the game that you did play": System Shock and Dead Space devs on the art of the remake
- Upcoming Game of Thrones movies and TV shows: every spin-off in the works based on George R.R. Martin's fantasy world
- December 28
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- From Routine to Silent Hill f, the best horror games of 2025 were heart-pounding terrors that left me sweating with glee
- How Rayman 2 "offered 2D gameplay situations in a 3D environment" to deliver the best of both worlds
- The year of Minecraft: How Jack Black's block-tastic video game adaptation started the most chaotic cinema trend of 2025
- Survival games are more popular than ever, but is one of the decade's most influential genres more endangered than it seems?
- December 27
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- From Borderlands 4 to Battlefield 6, the best FPS games of 2025 are high-octane, frenetic experiences
- How Ape Escape's DualShock legacy lives on in today's PS5 games: "We'll never make it compatible with regular controls!"
- Golden is the KPop Demon Hunters chart topper, but What It Sounds Like is the real anthem to celebrate
- These budget accessories can help kick-start your new Switch 2 setup for less than $30
- Open world games are some of the most popular in 2025, but as GTA 6 looms on the horizon, 2026 is about to get competitive
- I didn't need to spend 60 hours with Donkey Kong Bananza for it to be my game of the year, but I'm convinced it's one of the greatest platformers in Nintendo history
- The ultimate GamesRadar+ kit list 2025
- December 26
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- Elden Ring Nightreign was a bold yet flawed Soulslike experiment, but I think it could shape the entire industry's future
- "The physical world gave us possibilities we didn't have before": How Grim Fandango's 3D environments revolutionized PC gaming in 1998
- I desperately hope this headset color trend continues to be a big thing in 2026
- Vampire games were neglected in 2025, but their shunning only proves my point: this was the year of the underdog bloodsucker
- Sentimental Value stars Elle Fanning and Stellan Skarsgård discuss unlikely friendships and avoiding cliche in their new movie from The Worst Person in the World director: "Joachim Trier is not interested in characters that are one-dimensional"
- 6 years after Untitled Goose Game's viral success, its devs seek solace in a chill co-op puzzler: "We were building the game around ourselves as we went"
- I tried to make my own Analogue 3D using a $35 N64 HDMI mod, and it's not as terrible as you'd think
- Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 ending explained: who dies, what is the Upside Down, and how does it set up the final episode
- December 25
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- From Dispatch to Spilled and Peak, covering indie games every week in 2025 has been packed full of welcome surprises
- Dino Crisis is more than "Resident Evil with dinosaurs" – it shaped survival horror as we know it
- Got a PS5 for Christmas? I've gathered the best games, controllers and goodies your Sony setup needs
- From Andor's shocking massacre to Pluribus's strange invasion, these are the best TV episodes of 2025
- "We are buying into your vision": Blue Prince publisher Raw Fury reflects on 10 years of indie game magic
- After 44 years as second banana, Donkey Kong Bananza makes Nintendo's first star a mascot to rival Mario and Link in the Switch 2 era
- Here's your 2026 Fallout merch supply drop, all the best loot for anyone already missing the Wasteland
- Take a break with our GOTY wordsearch
- Can you guess the game review from the review quote?
- December 24
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- From Metal Gear Solid Delta to Silksong, the best action-adventure games of 2025 are a rollicking good time
- "I adored working on this level of the game, but it gave us serious problems" – The making of Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
- 28 Years Later's Alfie Williams is 2025's newcomer of the year, as the star talks about the "life-changing" breakout role
- 12 years in the making, here's how Warframe went from "Hail Mary" to ongoing success story: "It feels like you're always 4, 6 months away from annihilation"
- "Stay true to your gut": Indiana Jones and the Great Circle dev on making a successful adventure for such an iconic hero
- Fallout season 2 episode 2 explained: What is Caesar's Legion?
- Pluribus episode 9 ending explained: Will Carol be converted? What is Manousos working on? And is there a season 2?
- Pluribus season 2 release date speculation, story, and everything else we know so far
- December 23
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- Peacemaker season 2 delivered the best joke of 2025 — and solidified Vigilante as DC’s answer to Deadpool
- Dungeon Keeper was meant to feel like "D&D, but you're running the dungeon", and it wouldn't have existed without some very surprising inspirations
- 2025 is the year PS5 came into its own with fantastic exclusives, but is it too little too late?
- "There's always a loose end, trailing off into the distance": Inside the mind of a Metroidvania creator and how they spin up mysteries
- Peak put friendslop on the map in 2025, but neither of its 2 studios expected it to blow up: "We were ready to hit the launch button and go into vacation mode"
- Duet Night Abyss is getting one of the biggest updates I've seen in 2025, and I fear you think I'm joking
- December 22
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- If Marvel wants to stay the House of Ideas, it needs to come up with some new ones
- Game on: Why we were so obsessed with survival game stories this year, from Squid Game season 3 to The Hunger Games
- Arc Raiders and The Alters would have been my GOTY picks, until I discovered the depressing thing they have in common
- Anaconda stars Jack Black and Paul Rudd on their meta comedy reboot of a mid-90s B-movie: "It's just funny as hell"
- After a 10-year silence, Ninja Gaiden 4 "continues the legacy" of an arcade classic while revitalizing it for the modern world: "It's not a Ninja Gaiden game without Ryu"
- December 21
- December 20
- December 19
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- Timothée Chalamet achieves greatness with Marty Supreme – a frantic New York odyssey wrapped up in a ping pong sports movie
- The Long Walk is one of the best Stephen King adaptations of all time – and the saddest movie of 2025
- Many have tried to dethrone it, but Sinners' time-travelling juke joint scene is still 2025's best set-piece
- Power up your PC gaming with Xbox Game Pass
- 7 years into the MMO's journey, Fallout 76 has become a living world that connects every point in the series – within reason: "We can't put Lucy in there"
- "As long as the couch is there, there's going to be a need for couch co-op": Split Fiction studio COO on standing out "in a year when every third week, the greatest thing comes out"
- New anime in 2026: the biggest upcoming and ongoing shows, including release dates
- I spent 4 hours scouring the Steam Winter Sale with our expert brand director, these are the 10 best games I'd absolutely get
- Can you guess these famous game creators' weird early jobs?
- GamesRadar+ Hardware Awards 2025: the best gaming gadgets we've tested this year
- Avatar: Fire and Ash ending explained – who dies, what happens to Varang and Quaritch, and does it set up another Avatar movie?
- Is there an Avatar: Fire and Ash post-credits scene?
- Avatar 4 release date, cast, story, news, and everything else you need to know
- December 18
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- From Battlefield 6 to Peak, these are the best multiplayer games of 2025 to play with friends today
- "It's very important for us to feel like we are defining our game": Phantom Blade Zero devs want their kung-fu action game to shake up the genre, and I'm already spellbound by its stylish grace
- Weapons' Aunt Gladys is an instant horror icon – and 2025's best villain
- Bethesda reflects on 10 years of Fallout 4: "You have to accept the creative choices you make on every game, even in retrospect"
- Skin Deep is "an immersive sim for sickos," a Die Hard-inspired stealth game where you're not a "walking pile of guns that just shoots down everything, you are this fragile bag of meat"
- December 17
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- The best Rider and Machine combos in Kirby Air Riders
- 2025 was anime's biggest year yet – and may have provided the blueprint for a decade of domination
- Blue Prince is a "true hybrid" of video and boardgame genius – the fact that it's an award-winning roguelike was never part of the plan: "Things spiraled way out of control"
- “We started with the solid foundation that we inherited from Fallout 3”: How Fallout: New Vegas delivered a bigger, better post-apocalypse by sticking to the script – mostly
- Give the gift of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate this Christmas
- From College Football 26 to WWE 2K25 via Rematch, the best sports games of 2025 kept us playing
- Timothée Chalamet on dreaming big and his “vastly different” roles in Marty Supreme and Dune: Part Three
- How does Fallout season 2 connect to Fallout: New Vegas?
- Fallout season 2 Easter eggs and cameos: All the nods to New Vegas and the Fallout video games you might have missed
- December 16
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- As Xbox refuses to play the console wars game in 2025, it's traded exclusivity for a multi-platform future – but its biggest names are still at large
- I've played every Fallout game, and these are the best Fallout NPCs I want to see in the Amazon show
- It: Welcome to Derry features the scariest scene of the year, and Pennywise is only part of the horrors
- "Fallout was one of the first games that really shocked:" Our first glimpse of Fallout 3 showed how hard Bethesda worked to inherit and maintain an RPG legacy
- Pokemon Z-A missed its chance to unravel the franchise's creepiest mystery
- "Players are very precise and very demanding": Rematch "was a very strong learning curve" for the Sifu devs, but Sloclap is still working to find the back of the net
- On the Radar: Fallout season 2
- It: Welcome to Derry showrunner breaks down the "Avengers: Endgame of season 1," and explains the final episode's "most hopeful moment": "Sometimes you just gotta tell evil to f*** off"
- December 15
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- From Avowed to Hades 2, the best RPGs of 2025 are the cream of the role-playing crop
- Squid Game season 3 only needed two words to deliver the most moving line of dialogue of 2025
- 007: First Light is "not a role-playing game" because it's James Bond's story, says dev who reveals what to expect from Lenny Kravitz's villain
- Silent Hill f writer knows you don't really want to see "a happily ever after," and the game's horrific portrayal of young womanhood makes it my GOTY
- Almost 30 years later, Fallout 1's depth of choice, chance, and consequence is still an RPG gold standard
- Have Your Say: Help us determine what the greatest Fallout game of all time really is
- IT: Welcome to Derry episode 8 ends with a clever twist that simultaneously sets up season 2 and fixes my biggest frustration with other prequels
- It: Welcome to Derry episode 8 explained – Who dies? How does it connect to The Shining?
- December 14
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- From Citizen Sleeper 2 to Hollow Knight: Silksong, the best sequels of 2025 expanded upon their predecessors
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 developers made my favorite RPG of 2025 by trusting their original vision: "We had the strength to say, 'Yes, that's what we want'"
- 25 years on, Pokemon Crystal is still the blueprint for modern Pokemon
- December 13
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- My Hero Academia's final episode cements the anime as one of the all-time great superhero stories
- From Metal Gear Solid Delta to Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, these are the best remakes of 2025 that revived the classics for a new generation
- "I wish I had the Katamari Damacy IP": To a T was meant to counter the "downer" vibes of 2019 America, but Keita Takahashi says it "didn't sell well" and fears it "just wasn't a good fit"
- Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic needs to put being an RPG before being a Star Wars game, but I'm already intrigued by its promises of "player agency and immersion"
- I've watched anime for decades, and these are my top 10 action-anime shows that you need to watch after My Hero Academia ends
- December 12
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- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle isn't just a solid translation of the classic movie franchise, it's one of the greatest action-adventure games of its generation and deserves far more love
- The Shining may be Stephen King's least favorite adaptation of his work, but it's my favorite – and features Shelley Duvall giving one of the best horror performances ever
- The 25 Best Movies of 2025
- Superman captured my heart as the 2025 movie of the year with its hopeful rejection of cynicism
- "RPGs can be divisive": Obsidian chats all things Avowed – how it overcame the Skyrim comparisons, why there's no Baldur's Gate 3-style romance, and what's next for the 2025 gem
- Dogpile is a roguelike deckbuilder with shades of Tetris and Balatro that has me trying to make the biggest dog of all
- How would you rank our picks for the top games of this year? Vote now!
- Larian's new Divinity game might mean a pivot back to classic RPGs, and I can't wait to see the Baldur's Gate 3 devs break their typecast role as turn-based royalty
- Forest 3: Everything we know so far about the upcoming survival horror game
- Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic – Everything we know so far about the new Star Wars RPG
- Total War: Warhammer 40,000 wants to be "the seminal Warhammer 40K game," says its devs, who sell me in just 8 words: "You can customize the fingers on Space Marines!"
- Highguard: Everything you need to know about the new F2P shooter
- Everything we know about Total War: Warhammer 40,000
- Control Resonant: Everything we know about Control 2
- Tomb Raider: Catalyst – Everything we know so far about the new Lara Croft game
- December 11
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- From Despelote to Ooo, the best games under 2 hours of 2025 are truly timely
- 2025 may have been the year the Hall effect keyboard went mainstream, but 2026 will be the year it flourishes
- Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle features cinema's best fight of the year, but only because it swaps out sword strikes for gut punches
- Total War's new Warcore engine will power Total War: Medieval 3, bring the strategy series to console, and restore modding: "We want to put these tools in the hands of players"
- "Fallout was always seen as a B project": 28 years since the post-apocalyptic RPG launched, its original creators reflect on a long legacy – starting with that very first bomb
- "We've learned to love and trust the process": How Hades 2 built on Supergiant's Early Access legacy to deliver the best roguelike of 2025
- "It felt like a great, natural fit, it was just a matter of tuning the gameplay": How Shogun: Total War marched into new territory and laid the foundations for a strategy game empire
- December 10
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- From Indiana Jones to Still Wakes the Deep, the best expansions of 2025 gave us new reasons to return to our favorites
- I've fallen in love with It: Welcome to Derry's new Losers, so it kind of sucks that season 2 will be set 15 years before they were born
- Silent Hill f turned my personal mental health journey into the most evil plot twist of 2025, and I’m not even angry
- My favorite character of the year was One Battle After Another's beer-drinking karate instructor
- I've got Samus on the brain and these Metroid gifts are all I want this Christmas
- These are the gaming books you need to read this holiday season, from my shelf to yours
- 5 years on from Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red reveals why making Night City the "main antagonist" created an irresistible RPG: "Exploring the darker side of human nature is exciting"
- For the creators of Baby Steps, one of 2025's best and weirdest games, there's no room or reason to surrender creativity to AI: "The player is in communion with a human designer"
- Total War: Warhammer 3 devs sell you on their favorite faction and explain why Karl Franz has become Immortal Empires' Doomguy: "It's a testament to him when he does survive"
- I highly recommend these Disney ornaments if you want to add a little magic to your Christmas tree
- These Astro Bot gifts are bound to make any fan atomically happy this Christmas
- December 9
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- "I feel a strong need to prevent Japanese-style game development from being lost": 40-year games veteran argues Japan devs should make "unapologetically Japanese" games
- Obsidian hopes to stand alongside CD Projekt and Larian by making "best-in-class" reactive RPGs, says The Outer Worlds 2 director: "I don't know if we're there yet, but I'd love to get there"
- Despite censorship woes and the terrifying price of RAM, 2025 was the year I fell back in love with PC gaming
- 10 predictions for The Game Awards 2025: Half-Life 3, Resident Evil Requiem, and more on Steam Machine please and thank you
- The most influential Total War games, as chosen by 8 of its developers: "The team is incredibly introspective about our successes and failures"
- The It factor: Why Hollywood can't get enough of adapting the works of Stephen King
- December 8
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- Life is Strange developers made one of the most beautiful games of 2025, and it’s all because Lost Records: Bloom & Rage understands the magic of childhood
- Andor creator Tony Gilroy on being named GamesRadar+'s TV Show of 2025, what might tempt him back to Star Wars, and how it feels to have made the year's most politically urgent piece of art
- The 25 Best TV Shows of 2025
- Lords of the End Times will give Nagash "the podium that he deserves," says Total War: Warhammer 3 devs, but don't expect your campaign to survive the Great Necromancer's arrival
- It: Welcome to Derry's best episode yet offers up the show's second jaw-dropping bait-and-switch, and simultaneously retcons one of the darkest subplots in Stephen King's novel
- December 7
- December 6
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- From Skate to 2XKO, why wait when you can already play the best early access games of 2025
- Pokemon TCG Phantasmal Flames introduces a couple of tournament-winning cards you need in your deck
- The turn-based RPG secret sauce is that "you have time to engage on your own terms", Octopath Traveler 0's director tells me, which makes them perfect for "a wider age range"
- "We are hard to beat": 9 months since Assassin's Creed Shadows, its associate director looks back on what makes this RPG the best in series history
- The 10 best Total War games to play today ahead of Medieval 3
- Crucial could have been the brand to help consumers with RAM and storage costs, not make them worse
- December 5
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- Explore the future of Total War in the GamesRadar+ Big Preview
- I've watched 1000+ hours of D&D podcasts, here's what Critical Role 4 should learn from Dimension 20 and new DM Brennan Lee Mulligan
- Year in Review: The Best of 2025
- "The real reward in our heart is the emotional response": As Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 continues its GOTY domination, the devs and actors are still reeling from its success
- GamesRadar+ GOTY: The 25 Best Games of 2025
- The best twist of the year was the Last of Us season 2 death half the audience saw coming
- Here's how to use mouse controls on Metroid Prime 4, and how to make them even better
- Bryan Fuller's Dust Bunny is a weird and wonderful tale with one important lesson: "Believe children"
- Octopath Traveler 0 fulfils a wish I've had since the first JRPG in the series, but it also loses something that made its predecessors special
- Nearly 10 years later, Doom 2 mod Total Chaos is reborn as a standalone horror FPS I'll be playing all winter, and it makes Silent Hill look like a rom-com
- "Medieval 3 is, in some sense, our Half-Life 3" – Total War: Medieval 3 is finally in the works, and Creative Assembly is leaning on immersion to make it worth the 19-year wait
- Can you A.C.E this Fallout quiz?
- Is there a Five Nights at Freddy's 2 post credits scene?
- Five Nights at Freddy's 2 ending explained: Who dies, what happens to the Marionette, and how does it set up another sequel?
- Pluribus' surprise cameo deliberately flips the show's most horrifying scene on its head to chilling effect
- December 4
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- Octopath Traveler 0's devs see it as "new game" despite its mobile origins: "We wanted to go back to the beginning – to start from zero"
- With 25 years of Total War under its belt, the future of Creative Assembly's iconic strategy series looks brighter than ever: "We've got the best roadmap we've ever had"
- Everything announced at the Total War 25th Anniversary Showcase
- Kirby Air Riders is more like Smash Bros. than Mario Kart, and here's why
- Fallout season 2 is "taking some swings", but isn't committing to any canonical ending from New Vegas: "It's what we would want to see as fans"
- December 3
- December 1
