This year’s showcase featured over 80 games to look forward to in the new year.
The council has spoken, and the votes have been finalized. This year’s nominees for the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted included over 100 PC games our group of experts narrowed down into a definitive list, ending this year with a Top 25 Most Wanted for 2025. We laughed, we cried, and through blood, sweat, and tears, the votes rolled in.
Right—maybe not that intense, but it’s a fun spin on some of the usual most anticipated formatting, and this gives us a way to involve the staff at PC Gamer along with experts from the industry. This year’s showcase hit the two-hour mark, streaming over on PC Gamer’s Twitch channel, YouTube, Twitch Gaming, Steam, and Bilibili. Studio talent like Innersloth’s Victoria Tran, New Blood Interactive’s Dave Oshry, Firaxis Games’ Sid Meier, and Monolith Productions’ Tanya DePass were among the many who made the whole affair so special.
If you missed out on the live broadcast, I reckon that’s fine since we’ve got it all rounded up below. The first list breaks down the 25 Most Wanted, while the follow-up section includes every game featured during the showcase and a montage from Indie World. There are a lot of first reveals to catch up on, like Moonlighter’s sequel and details on The Outlast Trials’ next update, so get to scrollin’.The 25 Most Wanted PC games for 2025#25: Judas
Developer: Ghost Story Games | Release Date: TBD
Ken Levine, the creative director on BioShock and BioShock Infinite, has another narrative FPS in the works with his team at Ghost Story Games. Judas is, just as the name implies, a story of forging new alliances or enemies, but it’s all happening within a doomed starship. We didn’t have anything new to share at the show, but we’re watching you, Judas.#24: Killing Floor 3
Developer: Tripwire Interactive | Release Date: Early 2025
The next Killing Floor takes its hellish co-op horde shooter to 2091, but we’re crossing our fingers the third game makes its «early 2025» release window as soon as possible. Thankfully, developer Tripwire Interactive did have a little news to hold us over regarding some old friends, the Husks.
Read More: Killing Floor 3 is bringing back its fireball-hurling mecha zombies, and now they have jetpacks#23: Control 2
Developer: Remedy Entertainment | Release Date: TBD
Our knowledge of Control 2 begins and ends with «Control 2 is happening», but Remedy’s pedigree is more than enough to land it on a 25 Most Wanted list any year. The wait has us all vaguely whispering some nonsense about «it’s not a loop, it’s a spiral.»#22: Crescent County
Developer: Electric Saint | Release Date: TBD
«Witch tech» looks as cool as it sounds, and Crescent County is all about it with tricked out brooms and fancy, witchy time powers. Toss that in with a bit of flirting, racing, and decorating more cozy dwellings, and it’s easy to see why this one makes the cut.#21: Citizen Sleeper 2
Developer: Jump Over the Age | Release Date: January 2025
We know the next Citizen Sleeper is just around the corner, launching sometime next month. We’re excited to see how the cyberpunk RPG’s sequel shapes up, and fortunately, the team over at Jump Over the Age sat down to chat with us about some of the new features we’ll see in Citizen Sleeper 2.
Read More: Citizen Sleeper 2 will be even more of an RPG than the original was#20: Perfect Dark
Developer: The Initiative | Release Date: TBD
We wouldn’t blame you if you were getting anxious about the status of Perfect Dark, but much to our collective relief, the sequel to Rare’s original N64 popped up again earlier this year during the Xbox Showcase. Joanna Dark’s return looks a lot like Mirror’s Edge, and even without any updates to share, we’re hoping this one squeezes into a 2025 window.#19: Menace
Developer: Overhype Studios | Release Date: 2025
We’re eager for another turn-based tactics game any day of the week, but Menace looks like the stuff of dreams for XCOM sickos everywhere. It’s from Overhype Studios, the same developer behind Battle Brothers, another strategic RPG we were all in on. To celebrate its spot in our 25 Most Wanted, Overhype confirmed Menace is out next year and sent over a new trailer to detail its sci-fi skirmishes.
Read More: New Menace trailer shows off the sci-fi skirmishes that the Battle Brothers creators are making next#18: Mafia: The Old Country
Developer: Hangar 13 | Release Date: 2025
The next Mafia may be a little thin on details for now, but its promise of an organized crime origin story has us all packing up and ready for a trip to The Old Country. Hangar 13 is taking its series way back to the Mafia’s beginnings in Sicily, and we’re hoping it delivers another memorable PC gaming city we’ll be writing about for years.#17: Dune: Awakening
Developer: Funcom | Release Date: Early 2025
The third Dune movie, Dune: Messiah, won’t be here until 2026, but we’ll have Funcom’s survival game, Dune Awakening, to hold us over with all of the series’ staples—big mean worms included. It’s not Funcom’s first rodeo with making a survival game, either. This is the same studio behind another playground like it in Conan Exiles, and that’s reason enough to keep it on our radar.#16: Witchbrook
Developer: Chucklefish | Release Date: TBD
We’re convinced there’s something about 2D pixel art that’s just good for the soul, and just based on the screenshots, Witchbrook has the formula perfected. It is one of two cozy, witchy games in our Top 25 Most Wanted, and even if we can’t tell you anything more about it, we’re eagerly watching for the day we can.#15: Skate
Developer: EA | Release Date: 2025
It’s been an awfully long time since Skate 3, but the series is coming back as simply «Skate» in early access next year as a free-to-play game from some of the same folks who created the original. Since we know it’s already out there in the wild as part of EA’s playtesting program, we’re hopeful Skate is one of our Top 25 Most Wanted picks that make the 2025 window.#14: Project 007 (working title)
Developer: IO Interactive | Release Date: TBD
While «Project 007» isn’t even the game’s final name, we’re still excited over the placeholder and a future with more Bond. For now, all we know is that it’s from the Hitman folks, and that’s really the stuff of dreams for a James Bond fan.#13: Atomfall
Developer: Rebellion | Release Date: March 27, 2025
No matter how many times we’re thrown into the wilderness and told to survive, we still can’t seem to get enough of the survival genre. Atomfall looks like it has all the hallmarks of a good one, but instead of just any ol’ post-nuclear disaster, it’s a British nuclear disaster.
Read More: Atomfall is basically British Fallout with a metal detector, and that’ll do me chuck#12: Light No Fire
Developer: Hello Games | Release Date: TBD
The creative force behind No Man’s Sky, Hello Games, is headed right back into the survival game arena with Light No Fire, but this time, your massive sandbox will take place on a single fantasy planet. It’s hard to ever imagine there was a time when No Man’s Sky wasn’t doing so hot—the team truly put together a comeback story for the ages. With that legacy firmly in the rearview mirror, we’re rooting for them to hit the ground running this time and have high hopes after enjoying No Man’s Sky for so many years.#11: Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater
Developer: Konami | Release Date: TBD
Speaking of high hopes, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater bears the burden and the blessing of carrying on a legacy like Metal Gear’s. Not only is the series one of the medium’s most formative, but the third entry in particular is pretty beloved—it’s a tough bar to meet. It looks phenomenal from what Konami has shown, and we’re keen on revisiting Snake Eater in 2025.#10: The Thing Remastered
Developer: Nightdive Studios | Release Date: Today
Look, I know we said this is a Top 25 Most Wanted list, but Nightdive Studios did us all a solid: You can play The Thing Remastered right now. Yes, now, as in December 5, 2024. We’re just as delighted to share the news as we were to receive it. The Thing Remastered is a fresh makeover for the 2002 horror classic.
Read More: The Thing: Remastered comes to the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted with a surprise announcement—it’s out right now#9: Wanderstop
Developer: Ivy Road | Release Date: March 2025
It’s just another cute and cozy time management sim, right? Nothing foreboding or ominous about decorating a darling little teashop at all, and certainly not an experience that’ll send us spiraling into another crisis of self-discovery. Except it is, and Wanderstop creator Davey Wreden even chatted with us about how his project morphed into something both comforting and complicated.
Read More: ‘Healing is messy, and it is bitter’: The Stanley Parable’s creator has used his newest game as an outlet to explore his own burnout#8: Avowed
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment | Release Date: February 18, 2025
Avowed may have missed its 2024 target, but we’re happy to give Obsidian’s next big RPG a little more time in the oven if that means more polish for a game with such a lofty studio legacy to live up to. That said, time is not something we gave Avowed’s director, Carrie Patel, much of, but she was a pretty good sport about answering as many questions as possible in 60 seconds for the Most Wanted showcase.
Read More: Watch Avowed’s director set a new speed record for answering our questions about Obsidian’s upcoming RPG#7: Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Developer: Warhorse Studios | Release Date: February 4, 2025
Fitting that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 settles in right against Avowed in our Top 25 Most Wanted lineup because we couldn’t help but notice the delay of one big RPG put it way too close to another. Who has that kind of time? Well, perhaps you do now, as we revealed during today’s show that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will launch a whole week early on February 4 next year.
Read More: Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is arriving one week early, as its story trailer heralds an age of gunpowder, bloody war, and lots of medieval ultraviolence#6: Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Developer: Kojima Productions | Release Date: 2025
At some point in 2025, Kojima is sending poor Sam Porter Bridges back into the goop with a crying baby and a cast of weirdos on his case again. The confusion and curiosity that sentence stirs in some of you is the same reason it’s on our list as number eight. Unfortunately, we do not have another 10-minute Kojima trailer to show off as part of our showcase, but we’re still picking apart the one from 2022, so I reckon that’s fine.
