The RPS Selection Box: Callum's bonus games of the year

Dungeons, deliveries and delectable tea, served with a hearty broadside of person slop.

When I looked backmost connected 2025 to assemble my advent calendar votes, I was amazed however galore of them were smaller titles, particularly successful a twelvemonth that saw some a caller Silent Hill and Doom hitting the shelves. But past I remembered this twelvemonth the Steam algorithm's whispered successful my receptor similar the Green Goblin Mask to Norman Osborn, guiding maine to beauteous indie gems (and telling maine to squash that Spider-Man).

Neither Doom: The Dark Ages nor Silent Hill f could trump the amusive I had playing the smaller delights. When the last Advent Calendar votes were tallied, a fewer of my favourites were near connected the cutting country floor. Clover Pit, No, I'm Not A Human, and The Roottrees Are Dead. Routine would've been successful the premix excessively if it dropped anterior to our submissions. But the pursuing 5 games merit their infinitesimal successful the wintry sun.

Easy Delivery Co.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun / Sam C

I emotion Euro Truck Driving Simulator. I emotion Death Stranding. In short, I emotion delivering large ol’ packages portion listening to a podcast and gesturing my hands aggressively erstwhile things spell wrong. Easy Delivery Co. was catnip to me. Appropriate, arsenic you play a feline successful a snowy town, bombing astir successful a pick-up motortruck delivering packages.

Its driving physics are chaotically arcadey, and I spent hours zooming implicit large heaps of snowfall with a towering heap of cardboard boxes haphazardly duct-taped to the cargo bed. But that loop rapidly expanded into thing acold much involving.

The quiescent streets of its 3 quaint locales hid an eerie enigma unravels arsenic you adventure. On apical of that are the eccentric locals who loop you into their broadside plots. I particularly loved the feline successful the wide store, who had a crush connected the miss moving astatine the bakery. The aforesaid Bakery miss that would exclusively speech astir however overmuch she loved dirt. The surreal silliness astir felt similar Eurotruck Simulator meets Animal Crossing meets Twin Peaks, a delectable trifecta.

The lone crushed it didn't look higher successful my voting was due to the fact that it was a unfortunate of its ain perfection. I rinsed it adust of caller parcels to present successful conscionable 3 days.

Oblivion: Remastered

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun / Bethesda

Yes, a remaster made my list. I’m transgression scum, and I volition wage the tribunal a good oregon service my sentence. But I won’t unreal Oblivion: Remastered isn’t among my favourite games this year. I grew up with Oblivion and played it endlessly, truthful returning to Cyrodiil, customising my revolting Argonian and closing unopen the jaws of Oblivion for the hundredth clip felt similar coming home.

The remaster did marque things prettier, an appreciated uplift considering the archetypal looked similar over-saturated sludge. But Bethesda kept Oblicion's charming blemishes portion giving them a fewer modern touch-ups. They improved the AI, but townsfolk inactive prosecute successful “groundbreaking” idle dialogue, wherever they basal astir having asinine, wholly nonsensical leap betwixt mud crab sightings and slagging disconnected their neighbours with zero segue. Combat feels better, but each clip you level up, the satellite inactive levels up too, starring to a scrounging beggar pulling a mythical greatsword from his rags to smite you if you pickpocket him.

Oh, and of course, they didn’t get escaped of NPCs lunging retired of obscurity to initiate conversations. It wouldn’t beryllium Oblivion if you weren’t jumpscared by a magnified close-up of a potatoey look accosting you for violating the law. Oblivion has ever been a blistery mess, but it’s my blistery mess.

Peak

Image credit: Team PEAK

If we’re truly coining “friend slop” arsenic a genre, Peak has already sat its butt close beside Lethal Company, Phasmophobia and Among Us connected my person slop Mount Rushmore. Screw Arc Raiders. This was my multiplayer juggernaut of the year. Over countless runs landing connected its randomised godforsaken land shores, scavenging for endurance resources and past opening my drawstring of long, physics-based upland scrambles with friends, I’ve go obsessed with it.

Dragging my small customisable goober up the mountain, watching my dwindling stamina barroom drain and proceeding my friends' screams arsenic they plummet down to their doom from below, I came distant with truthful galore integrated stories. Almost each of them revolved astir maine being a menace. I’ll ne'er hide investigating whether a mushroom was edible by force-feeding it to my acold excessively trusting buddy, who seemed good until helium started shouting expletives, entered a comatose authorities and comically slid disconnected a stone into the bubbling lava pits beneath us.

And it’s made each the funnier by however expressive and adorably mischievous its Saturday greeting cartoon creation benignant is. I play co-op games each week with my long-distance pals, and if my passionate recounting of Samwise Gamgee’s Mount Doom monologue arsenic I lugged my passed-out person onto my backmost and hauled america up the upland is thing to spell by, Peak was the astir amusive I had successful those play sessions.

Repo

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun / semiwork

Assembling this list, I knew Peak and Repo were going to beryllium cervix and neck, and for bully reason. I duel-wielded these games each clip I’d hop online with friends. Repo’s woody is simple. You play a colourful unit of bug-eyed bailiff robots that research haunted buildings and ransack them for cursed items. Problem is the erstwhile residents are home, and astir of them are floating skeleton heads with chomping teeth oregon laser-firing clown monsters.

Going in, I expected different textbook Lethal Company clone, and man, it blew maine away. It’s got truthful overmuch charm, from the unsettling monster designs to the physics-based systems that powerfulness its gameplay. Every clip you assistance an item, you person to cautiously manoeuvre it truthful it doesn’t slam into walls and shatter, which led to a cardinal arguments. But you tin ne'er reason for excessively long, due to the fact that Repo’s spooky ghouls are ever lurking nearby.

My archetypal fewer runs were each amusive and dysfunctional bickering until my squad encountered a unsighted force with a double-barrelled shotgun, and his heightened proceeding exposed my kryptonite: Keeping my trap shut. Every clip I play, I’m shaking successful my small booties, and it's adjacent funnier knowing that’s due to the fact that its enemies conscionable travel the dependable of maine yapping done proximity chat.

Wanderstop

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun / Ivy Road

Wanderstop’s a crippled I privation made the Advent Calendar, purely due to the fact that I person acold excessively overmuch to say. The communicative of Alta, a prizefighter trapped making beverage successful an inescapable forest, was a virtual therapy league that truly spoke to me. On the surface, it’s a farming game. You turn crops, crook them into tea, and past springiness said beverage to the array of magical patrons that get and load you with their problems.

But the mundanity of that gameplay loop serves a purpose. Alta enters the wood arsenic a formerly unbeatable warrior coming disconnected her archetypal loss, and present she’s aggressively brute-forcing a “fix” to the portion of her that’s been beaten down and can’t look to get backmost up. My mindset tin beryllium frustratingly similar. I’m the king of mounting ambitious goals and bullying my burnt-out encephalon erstwhile I deed a wall, instrumentality my ft disconnected the pedal and question whether I adjacent privation them anymore.

Alta’s quest to marque the cleanable cuppa felt similar a dev reminding maine to look aft myself. Its farming mechanics are monotonous, but that monotony offered a interruption from beingness to absorption connected thing insignificant. And done that break, Wanderstop impressed the value of taking stock, respecting myself and befriending my brain. It was therapeutic, and if thing I’ve said sounds relatable, it’s a interruption I'd implore you to take, too.