January’s Can’t-Miss Game Releases, A Surprise Horror Hit On Steam, And More Of The Week’s Top Stories

Image: Nintendo / Jump Over the Age / Yellow Brick Games / Kotaku, Apple / Kotaku, Arrowhead Game Studios, Rocksteady Studios, Nintendo / Kotaku, Game Science, Screenshot: AIHASTO, TES Renewal Project, TrampolineTales, Photo: SOPA Images (Getty Images)

This past week saw the end of 2024, the arrival of 2025, and, arguably, a predictably slow start to the often-relentless news cycle of video games. But slow news hardly means no news, and we kicked off the new year with a look at the games to keep an eye out for this month. Also, the chief creative officer at Arrowhead, the studio behind Helldivers 2, chimed in on “DEI” in games in an online exchange, the devs of Black Myth: Wukong hinted at why last year’s blockbuster has yet to arrive on Xbox, and the folks behind a stunning fan remake of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion using the Skyrim engine announced that we can expect that massive project to release this year. Read on for these and more stories.

Image: Nintendo / Jump Over the Age / Yellow Brick Games / Kotaku

Another year is in the books and that means that backlog season is officially upon us. We used to get several months for catching up on old stuff as the new year got off to a slow start, but now the season barely lasts a couple of weeks. January might be a good time to give your wallet a rest before the February onslaught, but that doesn’t meant there’s nothing releasing that’s worth checking out. Here’s everything, from Spider-Man 2 on PC to obscure PlayStation 2-era tactical RPGs, that’s on our release calendar radar for January 2025. – Ethan Gach Read More

Image: Apple / Kotaku

Apple has certainly carved itself a market for selling extremely well-made products at ludicrously high prices. Given an audience willing to fork out eye-watering amounts for its laptops and phones, it’s perhaps not surprising that the company assumed it could do the same in the cursed world of VR with the $3,500 Vision Pro mixed-reality goggles. Except, according to sourced reports, it couldn’t. The Vision Pro is said to no longer be in production. – John Walker Read More

Screenshot: AIHASTO

Steam’s latest mini-sensation has arrived and it’s called MiSide. The meta thriller in the vein of Doki Doki Literature Club has already racked up one of the highest ratings on Valve’s storefront just a couple weeks after its completely under-the-radar launch, thanks in part to streams by Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach and others. – Ethan Gach Read More

Screenshot: TES Renewal Project

In a gaming world where cease-and-desists are the most typical response to fan-made remakes or tribute games, it’s incredibly refreshing that Bethesda tolerates such projects. Following 2024’s free player-made Unity remake of Daggerfall, 2025 looks set to finally see the release of the long-developed total conversion mod of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in follow-up Skyrim’s engine. – John Walker Read More

Photo: SOPA Images (Getty Images)

The chess world is never short on scandals, and the latest one is incredibly on brand. Top-ranked former world champion Magnus Carlsen recently showed up to a tournament in jeans, refused to change, got fined, and then threatened to back out of the event altogether. The International Chess Federation (FIDE) then proceeded to blink first. – Ethan Gach Read More

Image: Arrowhead Game Studios

Helldivers 2 was one of the biggest surprise success stories of last year, selling over 10 million copies and becoming a cultural phenomenon. The alien shooter’s creative director kicked off 2025 by asking fans about their hopes and dreams for Arrowhead Game Studios’ future projects, culminating in a brief exchange about “DEI” and politics in games. – Ethan Gach Read More

Screenshot: TrampolineTales

Before Balatro there was Luck Be a Landlord, a roguelike deckbuilder about manipulating a slot machine to try to pay rent amid an ever spiraling out of control cost-of-living crisis. Despite the gambling aesthetic, there’s no part of the game that actually includes gambling with money, real or virtual. But that hasn’t stopped Google from trying to retroactively pull it from its mobile app store over age rating concerns. – Ethan Gach Read More

Image: Rocksteady Studios

PlayStation Plus’ free games for January includes Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League a year after the live service shooter’s critically-panned launch. It joins the paid monthly subscription service just in time for players to experience the final season and access the long-requested offline mode. – Ethan Gach Read More

Image: Nintendo / Kotaku

It’s finally 2025 and Switch 2 speculation is hitting a new fever pitch. A new patent published this week shows how Nintendo could use AI-upscaling to make new games look better without taking up tons of space, while alleged leaks of a motherboard have fans debating just how powerful the new hardware might be. – Ethan Gach Read More

Image: Game Science

Available on PC and PlayStation 5 for the last four-and-a-half months, 2024’s smash hit Black Myth: Wukong is still conspicuously absent on Microsoft’s consoles. Exactly why has been a matter of some speculation, with the Xbox makers previously suggesting it’s nothing to do with its tech. However, now Game Science CEO Feng Ji has posted to Chinese social media platform Weibo to say it’s absolutely because of that, and specifically the lack of it in the Xbox Series S. – John Walker Read More