Roblox, James Bond and a billion-dollar online game – listed below are our most-read gaming tales of 2025

[ad_1] W ith the perfect video games of the 12 months duly famous (yours and ours), I’d like to focus on among the work we’ve finished protecting them. Reviewing the top-performing articles that we revealed in 2025, I see a portrait of a conflicted 12 months: loads of nice works and video games that captured the creativeness and the world’s consideration, but additionally rising nervousness about their place in the actual world, and the political circumstances they mirror. And a whole lot of (justified) hand-wringing over Roblox.

However first: I wished to increase heartfelt due to everybody who reads this article and the remainder of our work on the Guardian. For those who’ve loved our protection, do take into account supporting us to do extra of it – both by a recurring or one-off contribution. With out your help, not one of the nice journalism we produce could be potential. Thanks for being with us in 2025, and I hope you stick round to observe me slowly lose my thoughts working extra time within the buildup to Grand Theft Auto 6’s launch in November 2026. (Lastly).

In no explicit order, listed below are probably the most learn characteristic articles of the 12 months.

The Guardian coated Roblox loads in 2025, largely from the attitude of kid security. As Sarah Martin found on this article, this can be very straightforward to get into inappropriate conditions and chats on this free-for-all of a recreation platform, which has greater than 150m each day customers (most of them youngsters). I'm no fan of Roblox and don’t let my very own children play it, but when your little ones get pleasure out of it and also you don’t need to prohibit the sport fully, then I like to recommend ensuring it’s supervised the place potential and people parental controls are locked down.

For some cause this story of my self-flagellating travails with Child Steps appeared to talk to lots of people. I felt considerably vindicated for spending greater than 12 hours of my life marching a ineffective individual up a hill.

Nobody’s favorite … Sega Grasp System. {Photograph}: Keith Stuart/The Guardian Our video games correspondent Keith Stuart, goes down certainly one of his favorite rabbit holes right here, rising with a splendidly researched tribute to certainly one of Sega’s lesser-appreciated consoles. Revisionist historical past usually crowns the NES because the winner of the 80s console wars, however that was solely true in Japan and the US – in Europe, dwelling computer systems and the Sega Grasp System reigned.

I need to admit that this was extraordinarily satisfying to write down. After boasting about his gaming prowess on X, Elon Musk was revealed to have been dishonest in some baffling try to acceptable gamer credibility. Because the 12 months wore on, this proved to be simply certainly one of many embarrassing self-owns from the richest man on the planet.

Video games have a whole lot of financial and cultural energy. They have been the unique web site of the trendy on-line tradition wars, throughout Gamergate, and now the Trump administration isn’t shy to make use of gamer imagery to mobilise its base. This report from Alyssa Mercante is a narrative about how Pokémon and Halo imagery is getting used to recruit for ICE, but additionally a narrative about the place video games sit now within the wider political context of our instances.

Tears of pleasure … 007 First Gentle. {Photograph}: IO Interactive Who wants Grand Theft Auto: the upcoming recreation that Guardian readers are most psyched for in 2026 is 007 First Gentle. Presumably as a result of the movies’ future was nonetheless up within the air when it was introduced, or possibly as a result of the love for GoldenEye 007 nonetheless runs deep. Joshua Rivera interviews the individuals at IO Interactive who persuaded Eon Productions to allow them to free on James Bond.

Checklist options get a foul rap however that is such a great, considerate instance of the shape, in my (biased) opinion, from Keith Stuart and Christian Donlan. We keep in mind the locations we tread in video games as in the event that they have been actual, and a few of these digital mansions really feel like childhood houses. (We ought to be so fortunate as to develop up in Croft Manor.)

Out of the gaming closet … the older gamers. Composite: The Guardian/Getty Pictures I do know many Pushing Buttons readers are avid gamers of a sure classic. Adrienne Matei speaks to a few of Twitch’s older online game streamers (a lot like to TacticalGramma) to search out out why half of individuals over 60 play video video games, and the potential advantages of doing so.

This story has been ongoing within the Guardian video games pages for years, ever since Keith wrote what he thought could be a really area of interest article querying why some individuals play video games the other way up. Lastly, after that article impressed an precise scientific examine, we've the reply.

I've been within the spaceship recreation Star Citizen for a very long time, largely as a result of I've questioned the place the lots of of hundreds of thousands of kilos it has raised in funding have been truly going. (It’s been “in growth” since 2012 and its creators don’t faux it's wherever near completed.) Oliver Holmes talks to gamers to search out out why they've invested 1000's on this science-fiction dream. Since this text was revealed, Star Citizen’s income has risen to $924,266,846, and it now has six million gamers.

What to play Staying in … Sony’s SingStar on PlayStation 3. {Photograph}: Sony This week, I shall be taking part in Guitar Hero and Rock Band, as I've young children and may’t exit for Hogmanay. So as an alternative I’m getting all the traditional plastic devices out of the attic and bringing the get together to me. I can’t insist that you simply do something so impractical – final time I attempted this I acquired the dreaded purple ring of dying on my trusty previous Xbox 360 and the entire plan fell aside – however for those who do have some forgotten SingStar mics and an previous PlayStation 2 or 3 hidden away, that is your PSA that each one of it nonetheless works, and really it’s simply as enjoyable because it was in 2008. Glad new 12 months!

Obtainable on: 2010s console of your choiceEstimated playtime: Twenty years and counting

What to click on Query Block Illustration: Guardian Design No reader query this week as a result of we’re all nonetheless on vacation, however to kick off 2026, I’d like to ask you to write down in with a couple of sentences in your most anticipated recreation(s) of the subsequent 12 months. Simply hit reply to this article or electronic mail us at pushingbuttons@theguardian.com, and your picks may characteristic in a January situation of the e-newsletter.