I've been reviewing Madden's annual installments nearly as long as I've been writing online, and I've been playing the series since the mid-'90s as a little boy. It taught me not just how to play football, but also how to play video games. It has been in my life for as long as I can remember and tied to my career as closely as any game. But lately I've wondered if it may be time for me to take a year off. Madden NFL 25 is--for the third consecutive year, by my count--noticeably improved whenever you're on the field playing football. In this regard, last year's game was the best I'd seen in the series' history, and this year's game outdoes that. If you're going to excel at one thing, it's good to have that be the on-field gameplay. However, describing the game's problems off the field is proving to be a difficult task due to so many of them being repeat offenders year after year.

It was a few years ago when EA started using the term Fieldsense to describe Madden's multi-year overhaul of on-field mechanics, and though the term is primarily a nice shorthand for the marketing folks to play off of, it coincided with an obvious intent to fix the game on the virtual gridiron itself. Madden 23 was the first game in the Fieldsense era, and here in its third year, the investment in football fundamentals continues to pay off with Madden 25.

This starts with the game's marquee new feature, Boom Tech. Like the umbrella term of Fieldsense, Boom Tech is the back-of-the-box marketing jargon for what is nevertheless a great new feature. With Boom Tech, the game's collision system has been overhauled considerably. In past years, the Madden team has touted how things like weight and height would matter more, but never before has it really felt so different. This year, the difference is evident and welcome.

In a world where a large enough portion of the population has access to a magical ability of some kind, it's easy to envision how that might affect their career path. The military would make great use of those able to see into the future or others that travel along a different plane of time, making for the ultimate espionage tools. A surgeon who isn't burdened with the risk of losing a patient on the table could be invaluable for some of the most complex and dangerous tasks in a hospital room, while an adept pyromancer could find honest (or incredibly dishonest) work in a variety of fields. Tactical Breach Wizards has a lot of fun toying around in this space, thrusting together a renegade party of regular, but magically capable, heroes in a globe-spanning adventure that is supported by an engrossing turn-based tactics system that rewards smart thinking and creative experimentation.

The adventure starts with Jen, a plucky witch who gets by as a loose-cannon private investigator. Her latest job gets her involved in a wider conspiracy involving a wizard mafia, a presumed-dead spec ops agent, and a war-torn nation with a valuable resource ripe for exploitation by capitalist countries. It sounds like a checklist for any number of po-faced Tom Clancy novels, but the tongue-in-cheek approach to deconstructing such stories is what makes Tactical Breach Wizards’ lengthy campaign such a joy. It does rely too heavily on occasional exposition dumps to catch you up on why you're moving from one locale to the next, but it's otherwise lifted up by its endearing cast of protagonists and villains alike, with their consistently entertaining banter quickly establishing itself as a highlight.

Jen might be the de facto leader of your party, but she isn't the only one with a personality you'll likely fall in love with. Zan is a retired military man whose entire career hinged on his ability to see just one second into the future, but was hamstrung by his inability to act on this clairvoyance during critical moments. He's a grizzled but often bumbling war veteran, doling out strategic prowess in one scene while defending his inability to keep a cohesive dossier system during the next. Banks, on the other hand, is a skilled surgeon who happens upon the ability to resurrect people, which makes her a target for some nasty people involved in all manner of illegal activities. She's viciously blunt in comparison to Jen and Zan, but equally playful at times, even if it's just by poking fun at Jen's insecurities or pointing out the sheer ridiculousness of the mission they're on.

Black Myth: Wukong surprised me. Going in, I knew not to expect a souls-like, despite it seemingly sharing many of the genre's hallmarks. The game's Chinese developer, Game Science, has been adamant that it's not a souls-like, preferring to define it more generically as an action-RPG. This is at least partially accurate, as Black Myth: Wukong is definitely not a souls-like. What I wasn't expecting was for it to be essentially a lengthy boss rush. It's not uncommon to go from one boss fight into another and then another, and it's in these elaborate battles where Black Myth: Wukong shines. The moments in between, however, aren't quite as strong, sometimes devolving into aimless tedium. But its satisfying combat and unique variety of boss fights mostly manages to overcome these flaws.

Black Myth: Wukong's story is based on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. Originally published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty, the epic saga has proven to be incredibly long-lasting and influential since its release, inspiring everything from Ninja Theory's Enslaved: Odyssey to the West to Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga. Black Myth: Wukong's take on the enduring tale is set sometime after the original story while still retaining many of its characters. Names like Zhu Bajie, Kang Jinlong, and the Bull Demon King will be instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with Journey to the West, even if certain characters' allegiances sometimes differ from the source material.

You play as a mute monkey, known as the Destined One, who shares more than a few similarities with the titular Sun Wukong--a legendary simian commonly known as the Monkey King. Sun Wukong is a prominent character in Journey to the West, so your unexpected presence is one of the game's central mysteries. Are you the Monkey King reincarnated, or perhaps one of his clones breaking off on your own quest? The answer isn't the most surprising, but it makes for a thrilling conclusion to the adventure.

Dustborn is written as though its creators heard complaints like "Keep politics out of games" and defiantly went in the opposite direction. It is one of the most overtly political and, more specifically, unapologetically leftist games I've ever played, and that uncommonly brazen setup makes its early hours very interesting, but it falls apart in the second half due to monotonous combat and a final few chapters that undo the stronger first half.

A near-future dystopian and plainly fascistic America, fractured into territories following a second civil war, plays the sea-to-shining-sea enemy of a group of bleeding hearts on an undercover road trip to fuel a better tomorrow. With a punk-rock cover story aiding its diverse collection of cast-offs from the new America, and gameplay mechanics akin to a Telltale game, Dustborn checks so many of the boxes of a game I'd normally adore. So it was surprising to me, though ultimately not difficult to explain, when the game left me feeling empty and wanting.

Dustborn's cel-shaded comic-book art direction is captivating right away, and like the broken world it colors in, it immediately caught my eye. I didn't mind, at first, when the opening scene featured the four main heroes being rather annoying. I figured this would be their arc, from awkward pals barely dodging the game's federal force of corrupt cops to defiant leaders toppling tyranny nationwide. I was in for the ride… until I wasn't.

As the name implies, Farewell North is a game about saying goodbye--to a place, to people, and to the lifestyle that those things represent. Though the narrative adventure is short, it packs a lot of characterization and resonance into that time, with only occasional stumbling blocks to blunt the impact of the experience.

You play as Chesley, or Ches for short: a sweet-natured border collie who had once worked as a sheepdog on a farm in the Scottish highlands. Your human companion, a young woman named Cailey, ventured off her family farm and into the city but was summoned back when her rural mother became ill. Cailey helped with the farm for a while, relying on Ches' herding skills, and then when her mother passed away, they moved back to the city together, where Ches became a homebound pet rather than a working dog. This game captures what seems to be Cailey's first time coming back to the area since then.

On one level, this is a game about loss, and how it manifests in different ways. Cailey lost her mother, and as you explore the Scottish highlands with her, you get bittersweet reflections about her farm life and how it felt to slowly lose her mother to a terminal illness. Though it's less pointed, you also get the sense that Ches lost her home when she became a city dog, so this return to the highlands is a reunion of sorts.