BEST
GAMES
of the
YEAR
2025

A Wonderful Wizard

Inspired by classical fantasy fiction, the game allows you to become the wizard of your dreams. You’ll begin in a magical tower combining arcane ingredients into a boiling cauldron with the help of your assistant, the skull assistant aptly named Skully. But you’ll soon head outside of the wizard’s tower for a mysterious adventure with a large storyline, combat, and challenges. Skully is one of the best parts of the game. You can chat, juggle, or event torment him. The skull assistant has thousands of reactions to enjoy.

Who Did It?

You definitely want to get Expelled! The new game is a mystery from the team behind the popular mystery Overboard! While you’ll definitely be doing some detective work, there are some wicked twists. You’ll be transported to Miss Mulligatawney's School for Promising Girls in 1922. To begin, you’ll take on the role of Verity Amersham, a student at one of the best boarding schools in England. But there’s a slight problem, she is about to be expelled for attempted murder after supposedly pushing a prefect out of a window. Help Verity avoid expulsion, at all costs. You can navigate the school day and talk to other characters. All of your actions affect other characters, who happen to remember everything they see and hear. And as you might expect, everyone has secrets.

Please Picky People

Is This Seat Taken? takes a fun new twist on the usual logic puzzle. Instead of pressure-packed timers, the game features a simple premise. You’ll need to help seat picky people according to their preferences in a number of venues including a movie theater, crowded bus, wedding reception, or cramped taxi cab. You’ll have to read the room, for example, and not sit a sleepy passenger next to someone listening to loud music.

The Console Game Arrives for Apple Devices

It’s a great time to be a Resident Evil and App Store gaming fan. Capcom has just released Resident Evil 3 for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. A series of strange disappearances have been occurring in the American Midwest within a place called Racoon City with the "cannibal virus" taking hold.

A Fun, Free Game for Groups

Imposter is a perfect party game for a group of any age. You’ll need three or more players, and it can be played without an Internet connection. During each round, each player gets a secret word except for the imposter. The imposter has to guess the word while the others must figure out who is lying. There are multiple categories and difficulty levels to enjoy.

A World of Wonder and Peril

You can literally dive right in and explore an alien world’s ocean in Subnautica. To begin, you crash land on an aliment planet with a world of underwater wonder. While trying to survive the watery landscape, you’ll need to find water, food, and develop the equipment needed to explore. During dives, you’ll need to manage hunger, thirst, and oxygen supply while encountering friendly and hostile creates and scattered clues from a previous time. Collecting resources from the ocean will help you craft more advanced items. Some items you’ll look to build include a shelter, vehicles to pilot, tools for survival, and aids for navigation. There are multiple ways to play. Along with the original challenge, you can also switch to Freedom or Creative mode without the extra pressure of thirst, hunger, or oxygen.

Enjoy Nature’s Beauty

The Art of Fauna is all about the wonders of nature. It’s simplistic and beautiful. Each puzzle is made from stunning wildlife illustrations from the 18th and 19th century by artists like John James Audubon and John Gould. Along with the picture, there is a detailed description about the animal. You can take two routes for each puzzle—put together the image or piece together the text for even more of a challenge. There are 110 puzzles from five different biomes to explore.

An Adorable Puzzler

LOK Digital is sure to put a smile on your face. The puzzler is a word game with much more. While you start out small, you’ll learn the language as you go and learn how each new word can change the world around you in unique ways. Each of the adorable LOK creatures can only live on blackened tiles, so when you solve each puzzle, you can expand their horizons and help their growing civilization thrive.

Truly the Wild, Wild West

Strap on your spurs and head to the Old West in Red Dead Redemption. The console classic is a great way to game on the iPhone or iPad. Former outlaw John Marston is forced to hunt down the gang of criminals he once called friends across the American West and Mexico. Also included is the Undead Nightmare. That turns the game into an apocalyptic fight for survival battling a zombie horde. The game offers the complete single-game experiences of both games and bonus content from the Game of the Year Edition and more.

Get Into More Sticky Situations

It’s about to get sticky in here. More than 15 years after the original was one of the first smash hits on the App Store, the World of Goo 2 is now available. The sequel offers much more of the same goo-filled formula. You can build bridges, towers, terraform, and fuel flying machines. In the game, there are five new chapters with a total of more than 60 levels filled with challenged to explore. A powerful company has re-branded as environmentally friends and a Goo processor. But there’s more to the story.

The Popular Card Battler Series Continues

Get ready to rumble in the latest addition to a popular card brawler as Meteorfall: Rustbowl Rumble has landed on the App Store. The Rustbowl Rumble is the the great tournament in all of Meteorfall. Where players will duke it out to win the legendary Mask of the Uberlich. You’ll hopefully win over legions of fans and help fill Bramble’s wallet as he tries to rebuild his arena.

Go Green

The new game Eco Power Towns is a truly sustainable puzzle game. You have one goal—power a tiny town with sustainable energy like solar, wind, tidal and biomass technologies. But you’ll need to manage limited resources at the same time before running out of them. With the energy, you will light cup cozy homes across forests, swamps, hills, and rocky terrains.

A Celebration

One of the most iconic gaming series on the App Store is celebrating a birthday, and you’re getting the present. The Rusty Lake series is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and to celebrate the developers behind the popular games have unveiled The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show. Step up and enjoy the incredible Mr. Rabbit and has mysterious magic shows. It’s filled with dark secrets, illusions, and a huge twist. There are 20 bizarre acts bound to rest your ability to determine what’s real and what’s not.

What Lies Beneath

Take control of a fishing trawler and find hidden treasures and much more in Dredge. You’ll head to different remote islands. Each one has inhabitants to meet along with wildlife and stories to discover. Don’t expect an easy time as fog will envelop the night.

Grab a Shovel

There’s a whole lot to love about A Game About Digging a Hole. Pretty much everything you need to know is in the title. You’ll start with a single shovel in your backyard and enjoy a very minimalist (and dark) adventure. While digging up the garden of your new home, you’ll collect and sell resources to upgrade your gear. The further you dig, you’ll discover a mysterious secret lurking underneath.

A Beautiful Mutant Soap Opera

Small-town gossip is just a bit different in Mutazione. Be prepared for both mutants and the supernatural. You’ll explore the community of Mutazione as 15-year-old Kai as she travels back to the town to care for her dying grandfather Nono and hopefully bring him back to health. But he has many other plans for her. And that’s not even to mention the odd bird-like character who keeps appearing in Kai’s dreams

A Kingdom Come to Life

Thronefall is a classic strategy game without all of the unnecessary complexity. With that, it throws in a fun amount of hack and slay. You’ll build up your base during the day and then defend it at night. Finding balance is key.

The Puzzle Fun Continues

A Little to the Left was easily one of my favorite games of 2024. Instead of worrying about blocks, letters, or something else, you’ organize a messy household into pleasant arrangements. And that fun continues in Cupboards & Drawers. One of the fan favorites of the original game was organizing those parts of the home. So you’ll get enjoy 25 new puzzles. There are more to the puzzles then you’d think. There are puzzles nested within puzzles and secret compartments. There is even a new functionality where there are multiple steps needed to organize a single level.

Adventure and Elevators Come Together

Adventure, survival, determination, and elevators come together for a unique puzzler The Valley of the Architects. You’ll follow writer Liz as she journeys through Africa to find the secrets of the lost architect. Challenges are ahead as you’ll only be able to use elevators to make your way through the trials and completely the test that the architect left for you. Going through those will help you find the true story lying below.

What's Lost is Now Found

Looking to add some chaos to your day? Try out the fun game Is This Yours? You’re tasked with a big job—running the lost and found counter. But the job isn’t as simple as it might seem. Impatient customers are looking to be matched with their lost items, everything from earbuds, burritos, passports and a suspiciously emotional teddy bear.

Grab Your Can-Do Attitude

It’s definitely a bit hard to think outside the box when playing Boxville 2. The sequel continues the original and focuses on a pair of cans living in a box city. Both cans are given an important task to set up fireworks for a celebration. But chaos ensues after the fireworks go off incorrectly. That also sees one of the friends disappear. The red can is tasked with exploring different areas and secret corners of Boxville, and beyond, to set things right and find his friend.

Hard to Say But Fun to Play

Don’t try saying Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley three times fast. But you’ll definitely want to dive right in and enjoy this amazing story-rich musical adventure game. A beautiful storybook world is brought to life on the screen of your iOS Device. In the game, a series of hideous parks have cropped up in Moominvalley that have disrupted the landscape and harmonious nature. You’ll play as Snufkin to distract police officers, pull out signs, and knock over misplaced statues while restoring nature to its rightful place in the world.

Build the Best Zoo

Dive into the world of zoos and conservation in the digital adaption of the popular board game Ark Nova. Players are tasked with planning and designing a modern zoo with the eventual goal of it becoming the most successful. To do that, you will need to build enclosures, accommodate animals, and support conservation products all around the world. To do that, you will need both specialists and unique buildings. The game features 255 cards with animals, specialists, unique enclosures, and conservation projects, each with a particular ability. You’ll use the cards to increase the appeal and scientific reputation of your zoo while collecting conversation points.