The biggest annual awards presentation on the internet is back!

A note from Alex “Jeddy“ Jedraszczak, GameCola’s Editor-in-Chief:

It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes the entire GameCola staff to vote on the 2025 GameCola Videogame Awards. We’ve joined forces, linking together like Voltron, to decide the best games released last year. The games listed below? Those are those games. You can go see the winners right now, so what are you waiting for?! Scroll down already!

Best Licensed Game

Terminator 2D: No Fate

John Rizzi: It’s back. The opening music drop ALONE makes the price of admission worth it. The Terminator license has endured greatly since its video game inception with only a couple of decent lite-gun arcade titles to its name, and multiple console games all ranging from abhorrent to mediocre. 2019’s cult hit Terminator Resistance by Teyon was a quiet success that led to the Terminator license being loaned out to more game devs. Leading to Slitherine Ltd’s successful RTS Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance in 2024, and 2025’s Terminator 2D: No Fate by Bitmap Bureau. A retro arcade inspired side-scrolling shoot-em up using beautiful pixel art, a rockin’ soundtrack, multiple playable characters, and a variety of modes and challenges to make the best Terminator 2 inspired video game we never got. While the first play-through can be completed in about 2 hours, the polished gameplay and clever level design make this an enjoyable romp to play through more than a few times.

Honorable Mention: Marvel Cosmic Invasion

Best Remake or Re-Release

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles

Alex Jedraszczak: If you’ve listened to the GameCola Podcast, you’ve heard me complain about plenty of remakes. When I heard there was going to be a Final Fantasy Tactics remake, I was worried it was going to be the same type of low-quality cash-grab excuse to pass work off on the interns that we’ve seen with the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games. Don’t even get me started on the mobile ports.

Imagine my surprise when I see the finished product! Not only is the “enhanced” version a tasteful improvement that maintains the beauty of the original pixel art, but there is also a “classic” mode that lets you play the original game as it was. There have been a number of quality of life improvements that make the game more approachable for modern players, and the addition of quality English voice acting helps make an already beautiful game feel more cinematic.

I’m happy to see that such a top-tier game has received the attention to detail it deserves in a remake, and I hope a new generation of players is able to enjoy this classic.

Honorable Mentions: Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster and Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered

Best New Character

Kid Pauline (Donkey Kong Bananza)

Cam: Kid Pauline is such a delight in Donkey Kong Bananza, and all of her interactions with DK are so sweet. Her constant narration, quips, and singing prowess add to the game’s fun, whimsical nature. All the songs she sings in the game are so catchy and fun to vibe to while powering through with a Bananza power! She also brings a collection of different outfits to help DK as well, and they look so cute too, almost like a small souvenir from each area DK and Pauline visit! Kid Pauline is a fantastic character, and helps make DK Bananza a joy to play!

Honorable Mention: Esquie (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33)

Best Story

Silent Hill f

Diana Gray: I’ll admit it. I’m a scaredy-cat who can’t play a Silent Hill game. But the aesthetics and the whispers of an amazing story drew me to watch several full playthroughs of Silent Hill f, and I was left emotional and floored by the journey I got to experience. I’m trying to keep this as spoiler-free as possible because I truly do believe that even if you’re like me and jump at the slightest noise, this game is worth it to experience, and also if I wrote about every nuance, this would be WAY too long. Silent Hill f’s narrative was written by Ryukishi07, a prolific Japanese author and creator of another very successful psychological horror series, When They Cry. The featuring of both traditional Japanese themes, as well as a female protagonist, marked a departure from recent Silent Hill games (which have become more and more Westernized), but in my opinion, made the game’s narrative stand out very successfully. Silent Hill in general tends to focus more on psychological and internal themes rather than external horrors, and this game is no exception. The overarching narrative in Silent Fill f is one about marriage and its effect on a woman, as well as on her family and friends. While the game is set in 1960s Japan (with a much more traditional societal view), some of the themes definitely still echo today. Each character in the game is written with its own flaws that (even if they are only onscreen for a short time) provide another nuance to Hinako’s journey. Each enemy design is integral to its role in the story. Everything serves to further the narrative about marriage, a woman’s sense of self, and fighting for the right to choose for oneself the course of one’s life.

The supernatural elements of the story are handled with such a deft hand that they only serve the entire narrative of a woman’s decision. There’s still a level of debate about whether the gods are “real,” and I think that the ability for a game to have such a strong narrative but still have ambiguities for discussion is proof of a good narrative that will stand the test of time. As a recently married woman (just under 3 years), watching Hinako lose parts of herself through each ritual was an incredibly emotional experience. I talked my husband’s ear off during my playthrough watches of the subtle details—conversations between Hinako and other characters where she is dismissed, the complexities of female friendships (especially when boys are involved), and familial relationships before and after marriage. As is typical for Silent Hill, the monsters are not external, but internal. In Silent Hill f, the central theme, to me, was an exploration of a woman’s personal identity and how it can be lost through marriage, through family, and through friendships. Most characters in the game are not entirely right or entirely wrong (at least when considering factors such as cultural tradition vs. modern perspective, and the effect one’s family and surroundings can have on one’s upbringing). That to me is what makes a story award-worthy: Things are painted in shades of gray, much like the town itself.

Honorable Mention: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Funniest Game

Donkey Kong Bananza

Cam: Playing this game put a big ol’ smile on my face from start to finish! What always gave me a good laugh were the many expressive animations DK, Kid Pauline, and the rest of the main cast always displayed at every moment in this game. The moment-to-moment gameplay, whether that be tossing rocks across the level to hit a baddie, or transforming into one of several Bananzas, was a perfect mix of chaotic fun and glee that I highly recommend to anyone who loves a good movement-based platformer.

Honorable Mention: Dispatch

Best Multiplayer

PEAK

Anna Bryniarski: If I was stranded on a deserted shore with my friends in real life, I’d panic. Thank goodness PEAK is a videogame and screwing around is part of the fun. Even if the goal is to make it to the top of the mountain after surviving several biomes worth of trekking with only the items and food you find on the island/from the plane crash that stranded you. I’m not a fan of playing videogames with others—I usually prefer my single-player experiences—but I think PEAK works best as a co-op game. Who else will help me up ledges I can’t quite climb or bring me back as a skeleton if I die? Who will toot the bugle while being thrown around in a tornado? Who would I yell if I got lost? Myself??? No, I’d be yelling for my friends who walked too far ahead and are now falling off a cliff. I love me some fake mountain climbing.

Honorable Mention: Abiotic Factor

Biggest Improvement

Cyberpunk 2077

James Pelster: I think Cyberpunk 2077 needs little introduction. If you were paying any attention to videogame media coverage in late 2020, you know the negative reputation this game garnered. While its setting was gritty and gorgeous, and its writing and storytelling praiseworthy, its faults at launch killed much of its hype and the trust of the gaming community. Glitchy as hell (unplayably so on the last-gen console versions) and with poorly-balanced systems that struggled to function as the developers intended. It was one of the highest-profile blunders in AAA gaming since No Man’s Sky. However, much like that aforementioned game, developer/publisher CD Projekt Red have managed to turn things around in their favor, against the odds. Incremental updates fixed the bugs, and a huge 2.0 update rebalanced and overhauled the systems. Now that the game can finally live up to its programmers’ ambitions, it shines as a spectacular RPG. Top it off with a good DLC side story, and you’ve got the recipe for a comeback worthy of Night City folklore.

Honorable Mention: Marvel Rivals

Most Disappointing

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

John Rizzi: Announced during E3 2017, I remember jumping out of my chair when Nintendo announced Prime 4 with nothing but a logo. The first Metroid Prime was one of my favorite games ever, having just played it on the Wii via the Metroid Prime Trilogy disc. Little did I know at the time that I would have to wait a whole eight years and some change to finally play it. The wait was so long that three whole other Metroid games released during this period. Prime 4 had the misfortune of restarting development and switching to a new developer midway through its conceptual cycle. Because of this and a multitude of other unfortunate reasons, the game released to middling reception. While it’s not a total disaster of a game, with some clear moments of inspiration, for the Metroid series, it’s a major letdown. The game is way too linear in its level design, the side characters range from uninteresting to Navi levels of annoying, and then there’s the desert. When you think Metroid, you think of dense, cold, isolating environments filled with secrets on top of secrets and a large variety of vicious enemies. The desert feels so out of place, being easily the worst-looking part of the game with the other environments being legitimately stunning graphics wise. There are few interactable environments, it takes forever to traverse, and has only a few enemies that are very weak against your attacks. In 2025, it’s a sad excuse for a hub world. It feels supremely dated and it completely destroys the pacing of the entire game, that would’ve been just okay to begin with. Such a shame.

Honorable Mention: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

“Uh, excuse me, did you know that you forgot the Game of the Year???” You’ll need to come back tomorrow! Today is just the little winners. This is but an hors d’oeuvre, an appetizer—something to get you excited about the big winners we’ll be announcing in the next article.

If you really need to complain about our taste in games, you can come tell us on the official GameCola Discord Channel. If you desperately need more GameCola content and just can’t wait for our livestream awards show, you can instead check out our official GameCola YouTube Channel! Oh, did I not mention The Tac? It’s our annual awards stream, where we play the winners! We used to just play the games together at GameCola HQ, but after Paul was exiled to Rome, we decided to start streaming so that he could see what he was missing and regret his life choices. But that means that you can watch and enjoy—tomorrow!