It's been a complete mess of a year. I think there's a lot of tension about the state the world will be in in the future, and I think we've all been on edge as we question whether the world will get better any time soon. Me personally? I just don’t know… I’m keeping my eyes on signs of further decline.

But at the very least, There's still some good things that have happened, and I'm here to talk about them for one reason that's crossed my mind.

I've noticed that in some of the past years there's been a post late in the year counting the past victories we've seen, and I was kind of excited to see this year's edition of the post mention Concord/Dustborn/Whatnot - but the post never happened. so while we are at it, I feel I could do an unofficial edition counting all the things I've noticed.

• Sweet Baby Inc. Of course, it wouldn't be a post recapping both years if I didn't bring this company up! We all know the story now: Curator starts tracking their games, SBI tries to get it removed only to get blasted off twitter, more people are now aware of consultancy firms. And I will say that one thing I have noticed is that nobody who isn't directly involved in the company unironically defends them at all. Even a lot of people who contest the notion that diversity is bad for games will generally try to say that they aren't as big a deal as we say they are rather than say they aren't bad, as they seem (at least subconsciously) aware at least that nobody can defend Sweet Baby Inc without looking like a shill.

• Concord. This game may have been forgotten soon after launch were it not for the fact that it lasted only two weeks. It went from being hyped as the future of Playstation to something sony wants you to forget - especially since many have noted the bad character designs, lack of improvement on the hero shooter genre, and stories about toxic positivity at the studio, while also keeping eyes and ears out for the people who were responsible for the mess being involved in other projects.

• Dustborn. The embodiment of the "Modern audience" garbage (made even dumber by how they try to play a lot of it without any irony), this game is probably only anywhere near successful due to getting government grants. Having done even worse than Concord, it's highly unlikely we will be seeing a sequel any time soon or even ever.

• Unknown 9 Awakening. Not as greatly remembered as the previous two examples, though much like Concord it had an entire multimedia franchise planned out for it that got cancelled after extremely bad sales killed the developer. What little has been seen of the game and commonly talked about has not been promising, complete with a generic girlboss as the protagonist and the unpolished technical aspects.

• Dragon Age: The Veilguard. An underwhelming return to an old franchise after almost a decade in development, many people have panned the character of taash, the inconsistent tone and art design, the extremely limited roleplaying options and importable choices from previous games, the linear levels and combat, and the ending of the game. Perhaps one of the most well known stories of a developer putting on a front, many on this sub remember Jason Scherier hyping up the game as a success only to delete his posts on the matter and later making an article about the failure. While it hasn't killed Bioware (and even then the next Mass Effect is probably a do or die thing for them), it looks like it has killed the Dragon Age franchise.

• Ghost of Yotei. I don't know much about this game as much as other stories I have heard about, but from what I know, it seems that there have been several shitty devs linked to this game, and the reception is far below that of Ghost of Tsushima. I don't think there's been as much evidence to suggest it didn't do as well as it's claimed in the same vein as Failguard, but some people are still on high alert. EDIT: People have mentioned that a lead dev of the game got fired after the release, so there's that too.

• Assassin's Creed Shadows. Possibly the biggest story we've seen in 2025, Assassin's Creed We Wuz Samurai has been causing heat not just for it's hamfisted insertion of the myth of Yasuke and other blatant diversity shit, despite claiming to be historically accurate, but also the lack of care put towards the handling of Japanese culture and history (to the point actual Japanese people have spoken about how much they dislike it) and just feeling like more Ubisoft open world garbage. Despite Ubisoft claiming it did well, there have been several tells that things are not going well for them in the time since, including the freezing of Stock and the founding of Vantage Studios to hold all their major IPs, leading some to suspect that the Guillemot family is preparing a golden parachute. Also fun was that on the very same day it launched, some guy released a game called Yasuke Simulator which did the myth of Yasuke much better and is a much better game overall, even if I think it won't be remembered as much after the year ends.

• EA going Private. I don't think this is as big a win as usual, but people have seemed somewhat hopeful that there’s a chance that EA will clean itself up. I won’t hold my breath, but maybe this could be used as proof that private companies are less beholden to the whims of investment firms.

• The Nintendo Palworld Lawsuit. Really, I am mostly trying to focus on the good here, since the dawn of the Switch 2 has marked what many people believe to be Nintendo’s decline from the last remotely respectable AAA company to the Asian equivalent of modern Disney. But the good news is that the Palworld Lawsuit seems like it’s on track to fail, and it might have cost them a lot of money in the process. I especially hope this knocks some sense into them after Pokemon Legends ZA proved that Game Freak is no longer capable of making worthwhile games or designing interesting mega evolutions. It’s also made me dig up Palworld for another go, especially since the game has grown a lot in the time since it launched.

• Honorable mentions would likely go to Avowed ‘s underwhelming sales, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet already looking pretty crummy out the gate, rumors about Elon Musk buying D&D (which would be good for a laugh, at least) and Expedition 33 seemingly blowing the entire AAA industry out of the water.

Do you know any other notable wins that have occured this year? Feel free to put them in the comments below.

Feel like it's worth making this post, especially in light of the last Switch 1 Presentation only a while ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrTVeYm4iIM

Personal Thoughts:

Really, it does just seem to be an attempted linear upgrade of the switch. I had a suspicion a while ago it might be hard to top the Switch era in some respects, so this seems to be more just a matter of new hardware... though for a lot of hardcore gamers (and people of scored), that probably won't do much for them.

I feel like Nintendo at least seems to be subconsciously trying to do a convergent evolution with PCs to some degree, at least with the new mouse controls. I've heard similar things about the next Xbox effectively being a PC, so if they are smart they might try this too.

Raidou Remastered and the New Professor Layton are the only new games that stick out at me right now, and those were announced before this point.

The New Donkey Kong and The Duskbloods seem to be the only real things that might grab major attention.

I hope the freeze in the middle of the stream isn't an ill omen of things to come.

Otherwise, not much of note here, at least to my eyes. Maybe they will pick up from this period of little note once the Nintendo Switch 2's successor arrives next decade, but for now it seems rather quiet.

EDIT: I did just see on that they have seemingly joined the 80$ for a game bandwagon with Mario Kart World Tour. Let's hope this isn't a sign of a worrying trend to come... though fate doesn't seem so kind these days.

Yes, I know about the very real possibility that we could see America going down the path of hell tomorrow, but I feel like there is something good that I know has happened - about why we are here.

I still think if there is one victory that still endures in my mind, it's the one we had against Sweet Baby Inc. earlier this year. I did wonder if steam was actually going to be pressured into kicking the curator off of steam. And I think it was a wise choice not to, since it would have become another blow to their reputation on top of admitting to people that they don't own their games a month or so ago. Now that these consultancy firms are trying to avoid notice, people are getting more active in looking for games that are written by consultancy firms and funded by government initiatives, spreading the word whenever possible.

And that's not the only good thing that happened. Both famous flops like Concord and Dustborn and lesser ones like Capes have given signs that people seem to understand the problems we are having, even if developers are missing as much as possible. It's even spread to in-development games like Assassin's Creed: We Wuz Samurai, where Ubisoft completely shot themselves in the foot with their buckshot of forced multiculturalism, and the delays show that they aren't having a good time, and it might be the death knell of Ubisoft in the same way that Return: to form (Dragon Age: the Veilguard) might be the end of Bioware despite how much they prop up their sales numbers.

Hell, I think people are getting less and less tolerant of major publishers and developers in general trying to force anything onto them - not just wokeness. Bethesda is stagnating horribly, EA has become even more borderline memetic for their bad displays, Sony killed a profitable game by making people log into PSN for it, the list goes on.

So, at the very least, I have a whitepill: Even if Kamala gets in, she won't be able to save the growing list of AAA flops that deserved it that we have seen this year from financial failure. Joe Biden certainly didn't care and probably couldn't. Even if we are unable to save the USA tonight, we at least have something we are winning. Some may see it as a small comfort in the bigger picture, but I feel that it means that we won't be able to be shut out entirely.

I feel like this is something we might need to talk about.

As you all know, we cannot guarantee that Trump will be sitting in the white house a year from now, as much as that would be a good thing to happen. Some of you might argue whether or not it would actually matter and whatnot (I still see a lot of debate), but I still feel that it would at least have enough of an impact that it would give us hope. (Admittedly, one of my liberal relatives has admitted he no longer thinks it would be the end of the world if Trump wins again).

However, what is scarier is the possibility of Kamala getting in. It might not be the end of the world, but I could easily see her continuing the damage that has been done during Biden's time - and I think that we all agree that there is a good chance the country goes to World War 3 under her.

At the same time, though, we need to remember what we gathered together under. I feel like even with the utterly abysmal state of the vast majority of the video games industry (and other industries) we have managed to do some good, such as exposing Zoe Quinn and her associated cronies, spreading awareness of Sweet Baby Inc, and working against a lot of the garbage in modern AAA titles like Assassin's creed: We Wuz Samurai and Dustborn. However, there is still a lot of shit to be done, as it looks like it will be a while before DEI policies or other bad decisions lead to the death of a major company (well, maybe Ubisoft, but I feel like they could get bought out to survive).

Regardless, in any case, there are some questions that need to be asked:

1. How do we survive four to eight years of Kamala, whether next year or a term following that?

2. Even if Trump makes it another four years, how do we take advantage of that? I fear even if he tries his best a lot of his best policies might get blocked by house democrats or doormat republicans.

3. Regardless of either of the last two questions, how can we ensure that more of the good fight is fought? Are there any more good efforts being done against DEI? Some good lists of consultancy firms like SBI might be a good start, at least.