by Vlad Mazanko
`Without a doubt, 2025 has been a great year for gaming, with tons of highly anticipated games and unexpected surprises that delivered everything players expected, and then some. While it'll be interesting to see which title takes the overall Game of the Year award, for many, it's not that important. With so many contenders, it's clear the real winners here are the players.
This year was strong for fans of any genre, both in the amount and quality of games released, whether open-world titles, adventures, soulslikes, or platformers. But it was a real paradise for fans of exploration across various genres, as developers pushed new approaches to this key aspect, blending the best ideas to create a natural, engaging, and rewarding sense of discovering virtual worlds firsthand. Below, let's look at some of the best new games of the year that truly nailed exploration as a major part of their gameplay experience.
Games below are sorted by release date from newest to oldest.
Ghost of Yotei
Go With the Flow
Alongside the combat, exploration was already among the standouts in Ghost of Tsushima, showing how it's possible to reinvent the sense of discovery in the open-world genre without throwing out the essentials. In Ghost of Yotei, Sucker Punch managed to improve in almost every area, including exploration.
When it comes to how organically everything feels in Ghost of Yotei, and the unmatched flow of constant discovery in a world of breathtaking beauty, the game is a true achievement to learn from. Shaping the world around distinct, smaller-scale explorable areas rather than a fully unbounded world was the right call, too, as each new region in the game feels fresh and unique.
Hell Is Us
For Those Tired of Handholding
Even with all the praise Hell Is Us has received since its demo, it can't be stressed enough how fresh and original the world of Hadea feels to explore. Hell Is Us takes exploration to new heights by deliberately avoiding the handholding players have grown used to over the years. No map with markers, no quest journal with step-by-step tips — everything's left to the player's own devices.
And what a world it is. Uncompromisingly bleak, torn by civil war, and layered with a rich ancient legacy, it's packed with countless mysteries and riddles to solve. While it's true that once the novelty fades and players fully grasp Hadea's rules, the game might feel a bit repetitive or artificial, that can't undermine the powerful first impression, one that will likely stay with players for a long time.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Two Ways of Playing
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is pretty unmatched in its exploration, essentially feeling like two different games depending on whether players go online in the shared world or play entirely solo, soaking in its atmosphere of melancholy and isolation.
Either way, Death Stranding 2's Australian world is as stunning to look at as it is fun to explore, with players finding new routes or using tools left by others to make deliveries faster and more convenient. With more tools than ever to ease the trip from point A to B, the sequel might not be as time-consuming as the original, but at times, DS2 can still feel almost like a survival game, with tense atmosphere and stacked odds against the player.
The Alters
Perfectly Balanced Survival and Exploration
As one of the most unique sci-fi games in quite a long time, The Alters has two very different sides: base building and relationship simulator as players try to make other Jans cooperate with the goal of survival, and an intense, time-restricted exploration of the planet's surface. Leaving the base is always dangerous, but necessary, as players have to gather resources, establish depots, and find ways to escape anomalies and other obstacles.
In The Alters, the clock is always against the players. Not only is the entire main mission time-sensitive, with a limited number of days, but the harsh planet conditions and radiation storms make it impossible to explore at night and during some intense periods of planet activity. The Alters balances all its numerous challenges brilliantly, nailing the feeling of “one more thing” to do before quitting the game, and rewarding explorers in various ways.
Dune: Awakening
Experience Arrakis at Its Best
Another standout sci-fi game of the year, Dune: Awakening, is still in early access, but already showing plenty of promise, delivering an unmatched atmosphere of exploring the iconic planet of Arrakis solo or alongside friends. Taking all the right lessons from the Conan games, Funcom created an alluring blend of open-world exploration, base building, crafting, and survival mechanics, spiced up with distinct traits from the lore and world of Dune.
Despite being an everlasting MMO, there's no sense of time-wasting in Dune: Awakening, as the game respects players' time and constantly stays engaging. Sure, it's still a bit light on content, but it's the early days of a project that'll stay with players for years, and it's only going to get better over time.
Read the full article on GameRant
This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
