The 2025 Games That Made Carlo Azzari Hopeful About Our Industry | Winter Spectacular 2025
Talking about how dire the situation looks for the Games Industry in the last couple of years is becoming a cliché, like COVID and the phrase “Unprecedented times.” We live in a period where TOO MANY articles start with something that more or less can be translated to: “We know how bad the past couple of years have been for the games industry, but this article is about a new way in which it is getting worse. Please continue feeling awful about it!!” It’s gruelling, so I’m not here to tell you it’s bad, I’m here to tell you why I think it could be better (maybe). There are a few games out this year that make me truly hopeful about the future of the medium, and that someday in the near future, we won’t have to read articles that start on a down note.
These games don’t give me hope because of how good or revolutionary they are, or how much they sold. Those things play a part, but that’s not it. As a game developer, how these games were made, where they were made, why they were made, and even the fact that they were made at all is what gives me hope for the industry that is my favourite source of art, entertainment, and income. So, in no particular order:
The French Game
You know it, you love it, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. An impressive RPG that looks like an FMV from an old Final Fantasy game, plays like a Paper Mario, and makes you cry like a stale baguette tothe gut. There are already some obvious things about the development of Clair Obscur that could easily make a lot of people hopeful. For starters, a lot of folks point out the fact that it’s a small team punching above its weight as something that could really change how games are made, but I think this is somewhat overstated, and glazes over the help the team got from contractors, so that’s not why it makes me hopeful.
To understand what I mean, let’s talk about AAA games for a bit. Something that has bothered me about them in the past few years is how polished they are to the detriment of everything else, including a reasonable budget and development time. The ultra-polished AAA+ experience costs a lot of time and money; having an open world with hundreds of different activities, NPCs, voice acting, elaborate cutscenes, reactive animations, those cost money too, let alone the gargantuan effort of cramming all of that into something coherent. All of that doesn’t necessarily make the games better. It makes them look seamless and have less friction, which makes you (the player) less likely to think about the fact that you’re playing a game, which, by extension, stops you from thinking about the fact that the game was made by people. Their goal is to make you think a fully formed experience magically appeared out of thin air, by the grace and mercy of a corporate monolith with the logo of the publisher emblazoned on it.
Clair Obscur repeatedly gets compared to games like those, but it’s actually nothing like that. It’s janky, rough around the edges, you can see the corners being cut all over the place, and there are loads of bits that should’ve been cut but were instead shipped as jokes or side missions. But it’s also quirky, unapologetically over the top, and transparently in love with its influences. In other words, a flawed, idiosyncratic piece of art that reflects the strengths, shortcomings, and preferences of its makers, and where you can see the choices that had to be made to get the game out the door. A truly vintage experience that makes me feel like I’m playing an underappreciated 6/10 PS2 game. I love it.
My hope is that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 teaches people to see past those points of friction, to suspend disbelief and fill the gaps in their minds, to be able to appreciate the game for what it is; the result of passion, talent, and above all, struggle. Maybe then, AAA publishers will stop being so obsessed with polish and allow developers to make more games, and those can be riskier, cheaper, jankier, more human games.
All Those Cool Friendslop Games
I’ll admit I’m not much of a multiplayer person, but as an outsider, it’s been pretty cool to see the rise of those small social games to play with your friends like Lethal Company, R.E.P.O., Gorilla Tag and Peak. It’s a natural and social way for humans to play; they’re fun, cheap, usually made by small indie developers, and rarely have predatory monetisation. All these things are excellent in my book, but the main reason I want to talk about them is in opposition to something on the all the way on the bad side of my book; that cesspit of predatory monetisation, child labour profiteering, and predators: Roblox (Please insert legalese that would protect me from being sued).
Now, I may be hopeful, but I’m not delusional. I don’t think this wave of small games is going to supplant Roblox overnight, or even in the long term. My real hope is that these games can serve as a bridge for children growing out of Roblox, so that instead of abandoning video games altogether, they can transition into a healthier environment. After all, if there’s one thing kids are good at, it's growing out of things, and once they do, they can find the same social gameplay of Roblox in these games, minus all the bad stuff.
Of course, I absolutely do not have numbers or any sort of proof to back this up, but luckily for me and this article, hope doesn’t care about facts! Who knows, maybe the games industry is bound to be swallowed up by Roblox, and I’m making my future self un-hireable by writing this, but I refuse to believe that the future of games resides in such a toxic wasteland. People used to think Facebook was the future of games for a while, remember?
The Explosion Of Great Irish Games
I have been very subjective, biased, and unscientific in the previous two points, but as a member of the Irish games industry, that will only get worse with this one, because this is very close to my heart, and some of the games mentioned are made by friends and folks I’ve known for years. Despite all these caveats, I really think that 2025 has been the best year for Irish games. If you think you’re not interested in this point, hear me out:
Ireland has never been a powerhouse of game development; a small island overshadowed by its European neighbours, including a certain you-know-where, the path many have taken is to move abroad, either to work in big AAA or to find funding as an indie. A lot of the most known Irish developers found their success outside the island: Terry Cavanagh (VVVVVV, Super Hexagon, Dicey Dungeons), Sean Murray (Hello Games), Brendan Greene (PlayerUnknown), etc; and while it always had a vibrant scene, and some successful indies like the amazing ‘If Found...’, most struggled to break through or even release.
This year has been different. Even though Ireland has suffered from the now commonplace studio closures and layoffs, I’ve never seen an output like this, and it’s easy to believe this is just the beginning. I’m gonna cheat right off the bat and say it started last year with games like ‘Amber Isle’, ‘CROWDED. FOLLOWED’ and ‘[ECHOSTASIS]’ because they deserve mention, and arguably they are part of the same wave.
This year though, it’s been juicy: horror co-op deck builder ‘Eyes of Hellfire’, handmade stop-motion puzzler ‘Éalú’, Kula World-like ‘Axyz’, narrative adventure ‘The Pale Beyond’, top-down RPG ‘The Necromancer’s Tale’, Martian park-sim ‘Mars Attracts’, and of course, the critically acclaimed spooky detective game ‘The Séance of Blake Manor’; published by Raw Fury, and currently holding an 89 on Metacritic. All of these are great, and interesting games that deserve an article of their own on why you should play them, but at some point, I need to make my argument and prove to you that this is just not an ad for Irish games.
Yes, as a member of the Irish games community, it’s easy to be hopeful about this, but why should you care? Well, for starters, we could be witnessing the beginning of a new, interesting, and (hopefully) consistent “place where games come from”. One that could join the US, Sweden, Canada, That Other Island in the Atlantic, Japan, Australia, Finland, among others, in producing a constant supply of distinctive games, one that comes with a whole new perspective we didn’t have before. The best part about this though, is that it's not just about Ireland; if it’s happening here, it can happen anywhere else, and even in the future, if a local games scene were to collapse. It reminds us that a new landscape is possible and that creativity can overcome the current turmoil and the ossification of international capital.
And That’s It.
Yeah, those are my hopes for the future. Admittedly, just a dude’s opinion, but I hope reading this brings even a tiny glimmer of that light at the end of this tunnel. A different games industry is not only possible, but will inevitably happen, and whether it is a better or a worse one depends on us. We’re not going to get a better version of it by lamenting the death of its former self, but by dreaming and building the new one.
