Purely Academic #27 - The Top 10 Video Games of 2025

The time has come, once again: Sean and Jonathan are here to count down the Top 10 Video Games of 2025. It was an undeniably weird year for the medium, with some exciting developments – like the launch of Nintendo’s Switch 2 and a strong first year of exclusive – marred by a lot of depressing industry upheaval, and the AAA space was largely pretty thin. We go quite a bit off the beaten path this year discussing our favorites, and while you’ve heard us talk about some of these before, there are a lot of surprises along the way. And this is the only Game of the Year podcast where you won’t hear anyone talk about Clair Obscur, because we simply didn’t play it. If nothing else, our lists are very unique. TIME CHART:Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:15:27#10: 0:15:27 – 0:32:00#9: 0:32:00 – 0:48:23#8: 0:48:23 – 1:03:48#7: 1:03:48 – 1:20:06#6: 1:20:06 – 1:44:22#5: 1:44:22 – 2:07:28#4: 2:07:28 – 2:21:02#3: 2:21:02 – 2:39:17#2: 2:39:17 – 3:06:48#1 GOTY Picks: 3:06:48 – 3:39:40  Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.comSubscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://www.japanimation-station.com Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vKSubscribe to our YouTube channels! Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcastSupport the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuffOriginal Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman