It’s almost a new year, baby! 2025 is sure to be a banger after 2024 brought the vibe of a Eugene O’Neil play where a meteor also hits the Earth. We got a lot ofgreat games in 2024- far more than any of us sinners deserve - but the past year has also beenroughfor the industry. Working in video games at this moment seems to be like a version of The Wicker Man where your entire development team gets to be burned to increase the crop harvest. Pretty awesome year for games, pretty terrible year for the people who make them.
That said, hopefully 2025 is better than 2024. Definitely not worse. There’s sure to be some snags along the way. And I’m definitely using ‘snags’ in the most euphemistic way possible. Still, there are amazing things that could happen next year and terrible things that could happen and - mostly - ridiculously stupid things that could happen. Here are some of my predictions.
Nobody Will Learn Any Lessons From Failed Live-Service Shooters
I’m starting off on an easy one. You can set your clock by it. After a year - nay,years- chock full of outrageously expensive failed live service shooters, you’d think theindustry would take the hint. It’s possible - just possible - that there is a finite market for live-service shooters and that market is already filled with too many big games. Of course, it’s not that easy. These things take years to develop and it’s not like a company can just give up on their current project because others have failed. It’s a bit of a Catch-22.
However, there is a 100 percent chance that corporate executives will see the success of newer games likeMarvel Rivalsand believe there is still gold in those hills. Which, sure! There might be! Why not spend hundreds of millions of dollars and find out?Concordwill not be enough to dissuade suits from pushing for massive triple-A live-service projects - some with expensive licenses or celebrity talent. There will be an entire cross-media universe planned, mapped out, written, and canceled within weeks. Again, not a very hard prediction, but at least it’ll be another prediction for 2026, 2027, and 2028.
Fighting Games Are Just All Cameos Now
Everything is a crossover. That’s the law of 2025. Every fighting game character will be in every other fighting game now. The ‘90s hinted at it.Smash Bros.made the dream come true. But in 2025, nothing in this genre will legally be allowed to exist unless 90 percent of the characters come from other franchises in the form of DLC that costs more than a train ticket between major cities. People will spit on fighting games that don’t pay fan service to a completely unrelated IP.
AI Slop In Triple-A Flops
Already happening, right? I know, I know.They made a zombie Santa with AI. But buckle up, because next year we are getting a blitz of AI slop in busted triple-A flops. AI character art where everyone has perfect cheekbones and seven fingers. AI background art where sci-fi skyscrapers have no doors and randomized window patterns. It’ll all look terrible, annoy fans, and still get pushed by companies trying to save a dime.
But that’s not all! I predict we’ll start getting our first bigger triple-A titles that use AI forcharacter barks or even conversations. These will often make no sense and there will be an uproar when they somehow spout a racial slur. The developers will patch out the possibility of the racial slur and this will cause a secondary controversy about wokeness where the weirdest fans on Earth will patch the racial slur AIback in.
The good news is that every game executive talking about AI will present it as if it’s going to open up players to infinite possibilities rather than just boiling lakes to give your avatar unique shirt designs or find a different way to say “this tavern is closed".
Possibly both. Not much more to say on this one.
Game Bans Are Coming Back, Baby!
Ready for a fun one that’s going to be annoying and suck even worse? We’re about to get a whole new generation ofJack Thompsons ready to ban video games with “questionable” content. Some of you are young. Life has been kind to you. You will learn. When I say ‘ban’, I don’t mean “the developer got yelled at online and therefore felt censored.” I mean, it will be harder to make, buy, and play games for full adult grownups.
Because let’s be honest: it’s already happening more and more with books. Folks, they are loving the book bans. And those are things people used towantkids to enjoy. Video games are still pretty young, art wise. Plenty of room to bring back panicked Congressional hearings with confused developers being interrogated by people older than God.
My guess is an edgy grimdark murder scene from a video game never intended for children will go viral somehow and parents will freak out. “My child was playingthis game! How dare the company make it!” Even though there are already a ton of parental controls on every single electronic device known to humanity, we’ll somehow still have to hear about this. We’ll hit some weird junction where a major corporation will promise to cut back on said “questionable” content and then a CEO will resign for the wrong reasons.
Esports Players Will Start Wearing Jerseys That Don’t Look Like They Come From ‘90s Sci-Fi Films That Show A Future Version of American Football
More of a wish than a prediction, but,hey, it could happen!
We’re Going To Have A Very Intense Discourse Around Erotic Games
On the flip side of censorship, I feel like there will be another intense discourse about erotic games. Whatever it is, the people arguing will come at it with the heat of a thousand suns and years-long friendships will dissolve. You’re going to hear about it and be like, “People are mad at that?” And it’s going to be like, “You would not believe how mad they are.” If I had to guess, it’s going to be an extension of the “is having an AI partner cheating?” discussion that’s starting to bubble up. There are going to be long Reddit threads about being in love with an erotic game character and hiding it from a spouse. It’ll be a whole thing.
This won’t just be limited to specifically erotic games, though. Discourse around romance in role playing games will only get weirder and more heated. Someone will say that having sex and romance in an RPG is a moral wrong that repeats bad patterns set by society. Someone will say that having sex and romance in an RPG is a key driver of a powerful narrative and part of human nature. Someone else will say that having sex and romance in an RPG is pro-accessibility and nobody will know what that means. Yes, we already have these discussions but - trust me - it’s gonna be more annoying.
Platformers, Platformers, Platformers!
Maybe this me being too hopeful, but with the success ofAstro BotandSonic X Shadow Generations- and the possibility of aMariogame on Switch 2 - I think platformers could make a big comeback next year. A slow revival has been brewing for a while. And we’re in theprime zone of PS1/N64 nostalgiain which indie game makers are bound to start churning out their ownSpyroclones. Maybe after years of scraps, we’ll have a feast of good platforming. God, imagine ifMega ManandCastlevaniaget actual new games next year. Imagine anything happy happening next year. There’s got to be something that will make us all smile and bring us together.
Available April 1, but youcan pre-order it now.
