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[WRITE-IN] Rad 2025 Games That Slipped Under the Radar | Firelink Podcast (Patreon)

Published:
2025-09-18 18:20:00
Imported:
2026-06

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It's been a bit of a slow news week (at least for gaming...), so we're gonna take a look back at some of the games that we've enjoyed that slipped under the radar a bit this year!Send in your thoughts, questions, or topics you'd be interested in us discussing! We won't have time to read and discuss everything, and please keep posts topical, safe for work and not huge walls of text.Submissions close at 6 PM CT on Thursday, September 18th

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Rad 2025 Games That Slipped Under the Radar | Firelink Podcast

This video is brought to you by LAN Party Adventures, a nostalgic single-player adventure that blends detective storytelling with a retro tech management simulator. – https://store.steampowered.com/app/3566720/LAN_Party_Adventures/ This week on Firelink, Marty, KC, and Nick chat about their favorite games from this year that didn't get the love they deserved, plus what they've been playing recently (spoilers, it's more Silksong. Keep up to date on the standings of our Firelink Fantasy Critic Draft -- https://www.fantasycritic.games/league/6093c943-c06e-4f44-8206-157e410d7914/2025 If you dig the podcast, considering supporting us over at Patreon -- https://www.patreon.com/SecondWindGroup Check out our excellent selection of merch over at our DFTBA store -- https://store.dftba.com/collections/second-wind Snag yourself an Adventure is Nigh! plushie over at Shark Robot -- https://sharkrobot.com/collections/second-wind

Comments

Fas

Keeping it to 3 simple highlights with Lost Records Bloom and Rage, AI Limit and Metal Eden. All 3 are not exactly unknown but still easy to miss in a year like this

Matt Couture

It came out back in 2023, but Gravity Circuit was one of my favorite games of the past few years. A 2D action platformer styled after the Mega Man Zero series, lots of fun with a really slick presentation and an amazing soundtrack by Dominic Ninmark.

Far Too Many Frogs

I've said a LOT about Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth, and my excitement for its sequel, Time Stranger. But aside from that, 2025’s been the year of catchups. Been playing old GameCube and Gameboy games I never got to experience, no thanks in part to Marty, and it's been like this so much that I never really got into Wanderstop or FF7RI/Rebirth. Respectively, a game I was excited for, and a game I'd been morbidly curious about. This year's been weird. On an unrelated topic, any suggestions for turn-based games like Cyber Sleuth that isn't just Persona/Metaphor?

Dread Pirate Mittens

How about that Randy Pitchford? It sure is entertaining whenever he opens his mouth.

GayMountainBear

I'll continue to tout the call on this one, but "Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist" came out in January. I'll forever put the Ender series games above Hollow Knight's games for story, aesthetic, music, and gameplay. As for questions of upcoming games: have any of you tried the "Digimon Story: Time Stranger" demo? While I'm less interested in the story than overall Digimon gameplay, it made me go back to playing Digimon World 3 for more Digimon nostalgia rearing.

Shane Z

While not my typical kind of game, and also not new to this year, but new to Xbox.... I have been absolutely hooked on Helldivers 2 for the last 2 weeks. Also probably not under the radar. Oh well. All I can think when I play it is that if 343 has thought of this concept and released an ODST game following the same gameplay loop, Halo might not be on a ventilator.

Thomas Dempsey

Ooo is one of the best tutorialized games I've ever played. You can 100% in less than 2 hours, but there's never a moment where you feel you're repeating yourself or wading through padding.

ImmenseCookie

I enjoyed my short sweet time with Minami Lane earlier this year, possibly the most cozy game I've ever played. For an older game I've only just picked up, Inscryption is such a great subversive experience I'm happy I eventually came to it.

Mopman43

Only new games I’ve played this year besides Silksong are He Is Coming (Roguelike RPG, get gear across three days then fight a boss, very 8-bit art and sound, entered Early Access) and April Grove (little cosy game, cut trees to get better at cutting trees while enjoying the stellar soubdtrack, perfect for anyone that enjoyed leveling Woodcutting in Runescape). Otherwise the only other game I played to talk about is Ocean’s Heart, a Zelda-like which released a couple years back. Fun world to explore, loved the music, lot of touches that show the dev(s) played a lot of Minish Cap, but pretty janky gameplay.

Horus

The King is watching came out in July that I have put some good time in. Back to the Dawn dropped its 1.0 also in July. And Ale Abby are all things thing that dropped that I have been putting time in.

A Winged Potato

Backyard Baseball ‘01 being playable on something besides my old desktop i mostly keep around for a few older games is the under the radar release of the year for me

TooManySpreadsheets

Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson is a music-themed rhythm turn-based RPG that I've enjoyed a lot. I treats itself as a pretty chill experience, with small areas to explore and combat that's engaging but not too challenging. Totally different, but my go-to mobile game is on Once Upon a Galaxy, a card auto-battler that JM8 played on a sponsored stream a while ago. They had a Steam release recently, and it’s just a phenomenally well-designed game. Minimal monetization for a free-to-play mobile game, and a very generous reward economy.

kasdeya morgana

I loved White Knuckle. I think horror games work because of cycles of tension and relief. the relief part of the cycle is a form of juxtaposition gratification. climbing games already have these cycles in their core gameplay loop (you're tense as you climb, and relieved as you find a safe perch to rest), so making a climbing horror game was a brilliant move

Blackmage

Thank you preemptively for all the recos yall're about to drop. I feel like I don't hear about as many smaller games just because there have been SO MANY good ones this year. How do you think smaller projects should get noticed? I feel like my feeds, which I try to curate to show a lot of game stuff just don't and are filled with titties and ai slop despite my efforts. Is there a good gaming/social media app or feed for discovery?

Mrticketron

Just wanted to shout out some of my favorite less mentioned indies this year: Starvaders, Astral throne, Star of Providence and Keep driving.

Josh Akram

Many Nights a Whisper. It made you consider your decisions carefully and didn’t reward or punish you based on the success of your final task. Very cool game.

Hunter Jorgensen

2 under the radar games I've played this year are Dawnfolk (a tile laying, city/construction game that is much deeper than you expect and works great on the Steam Deck) and Nurikabe World (very chill and quite pretty puzzle game)

Inverse Skies

Ohhh the stuff I have played aside from the bigger releases is mostly retro sorry. Although looking back at my completed list I did play bokura planet which was an asymmetrical two player cooperative game which came out this year which I don’t believe was picked up by second wind?

ShivaKP

The Alters! On the basis that multiple GOTY discussions on this very channel managed to ignore it..

KingRaptor28

Spilled, A Game About Digging a Hole, and Union of Gnomes. Any update on Subnautica 2? There was supposed to be a new Unpacked on it, right?

Juicy Jeff

Shout out to 'Cast N' Chill' with all that sweet, sweet crankbait.

Blackmage

That Fretless game sounds nuts, and it has a demo! Thanks for the reco

speakeasy

eternal strands? post trauma? skin deep? blades of fire? a few games i heard of that nobody really talks about after it launched