The truth about Game of the Year season is that it’s near-impossible to consider everything. No list could ever be thorough enough. No ranking could ever account for a full calendar year. With the volume of games released annually, there’s simply not enough time for any person — or group of persons — to fairly assess the entire spectrum of “every game released in the past 365 days.”

As a result, some hidden gems are bound to slip through the cracks. For every Hollow Knight: Silksong, there’s an Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist; for every Blue Prince, a Séance of Blake Manor — some lesser known gem that was every bit as exemplary in its genre as the more mainstream hits that nevertheless didn’t quite achieve cultural saturation.

So consider this an addendum to Polygon’s list of 2025’s 50 best games. Here are 15 under the radar games we loved this year that we feel deserve some recognition. Let’s call it extra credit for anyone who has already finished their 2025 backlog catch up and wants to throw just a few more things to that list.

Angeline Era feels like a long-lost PS1 game — but not in the way you’re thinking. Yes, it certainly looks the part, with its blocky overworld that looks like it was pulled right from Final Fantasy 7. But the oddball adventure game plays nothing like it looks, trading in RPG battles for “bumpslash” combat that has you tactically bumping into enemies to auto-attack them. To defeat enemies, though, you’ll first need to find them by searching the overworld for levels that aren’t marked on the map. Those two hooks come together to form a totally inventive puzzle-RPG that’s built on discovery. It’s up to you to prod the world, figure out where to go next, and learn how to master its unusual combat. I can’t think of a PS1 game that plays quite like it, but it has the spirit of the generation down perfectly.

I wouldn’t blame you if you saw Battle Train this year and wrote it off as another indie deckbuilding roguelike. That genre hybrid is old hat by now, yes, but Battle Train is anything but typical. Structured like an irreverent game show, players must win battles by building train tracks that connect from their own stations to their enemies and blow up the latter by dispatching explosive train cars along their route. It sounds like a strategy game, but it’s more so a board game-like puzzle as you need to deploy your cards wisely to make tracks. But that’s not even what I love about Battle Train. Its real strength lies in a hysterical overarching narrative that runs through it. All I’ll say is that it involves one very friendly turtle and a lot of dudes named Aaron.

Bionic Bay was clearly constructed in the Church of Limbo — a moody, wordless platformer that tests your logical reasoning as much as your reaction speed. You play as a scientist who screws up an experiment and ends up getting teleported to a derelict robot factory. At first, Bionic Bay is about scaling ledges and jumping across chasms. Then you unlock the ability to switch places with many of the objects you come across. Suddenly, you have to start thinking. With the right timing, could this box protect me from that laser? Can I drop a........

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