Permit us to toot our own horn for a brief moment. GamesIndustry.biz put out an incredible range of features in 2025, and with 2026 rapidly approaching, now seems like an opportune time to pick out some highlights. Below are some choice cuts that are well worth your time to revisit.

Big games

We spoke with the people behind some of the biggest games of 2025, including Blue Prince creator Tonda Ros and the folks behind the breakout hit Dispatch, while François Meurisse from Sandfall Interactive and Matthew Handrahan from Kepler Interactive explained why they were keen to keep team sizes small following the enormous success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

We also found out how other big hits are affecting studios’ plans, with Brandon Sheffield detailing how Necrosoft Games was forced to postpone the release of Demonschool to avoid the juggernaut of Hollow Knight: Silksong. And we looked ahead to tomorrow’s titles, interviewing Quantic Dream about their unexpected pivot into MMOs with Spellcasters Chronicles, and grilling Neon Giant about No Law and their continuing love affair with cyberpunk.

Reactions and insights

GamesIndustry.biz gathered up insightful reactions from industry leaders to the shock buyout of EA, the rebrand of GDC as a ‘Festival of Gaming’ (we talked to its organisers, too), the surprise delay of GTA 6, and the impending purchase of Warner Bros. by Netflix in terms of what that will mean for its video games division.

We also looked into the shortage of Switch 2 development kits at the console’s launch, and questioned the co-founder of Metacritic on how the site actually works. Jeremy Peel asked ‘What’s going on with Steam and itch.io’s crackdown on adult content?‘ and, in a similar vein, investigated how games and websites were being blocked as a result of the UK’s newly introduced Online Safety Act.

BAFTA’s executive director of awards and content told us exactly how the BAFTA Games Awards are judged, and two studios explained how they dealt with the unpleasant business of layoffs. Unity provided some insights into recovering from the Runtime Fee debacle, while the head of Godot explained how the open-source engine has benefited from that same episode, and is continuing to grow.

One of the most-read features on the site this year was a look at what went wrong with the To The Moon Expo at the Birmingham NEC, and we also interviewed Santa Ragione co-founder Pietro Righi Riva about why Steam’s ban of their game Horses could mean curtains for the studio.

Finally, zooming out a little, we asked whether the games industry will grow or plateau, and in a huge, two-part feature entitled The Big Picture, analysts including former PlayStation head Shawn Layden thoroughly examined the problems of the present and the possible future trajectory of the games industry as a whole. Plus, we asked the all-important question: Where did all the money go?

Industry trends

One of the biggest trends in gaming at the moment is transmedia, and we looked at what the barnstorming success of A Minecraft Movie might mean for future game adaptations, as well as talking to Thatgamecompany about their struggles to find funding for a movie based on their huge hit Sky: Children of the Light.

We saw a number of relatively tiny games seemingly blow up out of nowhere on Steam this year, and Rick Lane examined how one of them, the drug-dealing simulator Schedule I, managed to find such a huge audience. Similarly, a new audience is emerging in the form of VR natives: young people who mostly play multiplayer games in VR.

The general advice on chasing gaming trends is generally not to do it, since by the time your trend-chasing game is finished, the audience will have moved on. But Allan Smith explained how he was able to leap on the Vampire Survivors bandwagon by pivoting his in-progress game incredibly fast, something that involved some very late nights indeed.

The move towards unionisation in the games industry continued apace in 2025, and we spoke to the IWGB union about their efforts in the UK, as well as covering ZA/UM’s successful formation of a union.

In terms of tech, we spoke to the people behind the new game bundle platform Digiphile, the ‘Goodreads for games‘ app Playnist, and the AI NPC concept Teammates from Ubisoft. And in terms of publishing, we examined the pitfalls and opportunities of user-generated content, as well as talking to Devolver Digital and 11-Bit Studios about their move towards focusing on smaller games.

CEO chats

Company heads were queuing up to speak to GamesIndustry.biz in 2025. Below are some of the highlights:

• Playstack CEO Harvey Elliott on the success of Balatro and Abiotic Factor
• Build A Rocket Boy head Leslie Benzies on MindsEye and Everywhere
• ProbablyMonsters founder (and former Bungie CEO) Harold Ryan on pivoting from AAA to smaller titles
• Atari CEO Wade Rosen on purchasing Thunderful
• Relic Entertainment CEO Justin Dowdeswell on trying to make games more quickly
• Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy on why he’s happy for it to remain as the Runescape company
• Wizards of the Coast president John Hight on his hopes for making a new Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG
• Tetris Company CEO Maya Rogers on why we need more women in the games industry
• Revolution Software head Charles Cecil on why AI was an “expensive mistake” for Broken Sword: Reforged
• Amplitude Studios co-founder Romain de Waubert de Genlis on why the studio had to break away from Sega
• Bonfire Studios head (and former Blizzard CCO) Rob Pardo on why it has taken nine years to make the PvP multiplayer title Arkheron
• Tencent Games VP Yong-yi Zhu on the company’s strategy for its Western studios and Chinese dev teams
• IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak on James Bond, Hitman, Dispatch, and the GTA 6 delay
• Coherence head (and Playdead co-founder) Dino Patti on making multiplayer easy, Stop Killing Games, and ongoing legal wrangles with Playdead

Gaming history

As well as examining present concerns and looking ahead to the future, several features on GamesIndustry.biz this year looked at gaming’s past, as well as how to preserve it.

Nightdive Studios CEO Stephen Kick told us that it was “disheartening” to see Nintendo introduce Game-Key Cards for the Switch 2, as we looked into the state of games preservation more generally. Digital Eclipse, meanwhile, talked about the games they’d like to bring back, including a Sega Saturn-based fighting game collection.

Peter Molyneux shed some light on what happened to his much-vaunted Kinect game Project Milo, and former Deep Silver head of communications Martin Wein explained why Yager’s version of Dead Island 2 was canned (“It would have killed the franchise”).

Former SIE Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida shared his memories of the European launch of the PlayStation 30 years ago, including his wish that more Japanese games had made it to the West, and Alex Josef explained why he wanted to resurrect Acclaim, and why the new version of the publisher isn’t bringing back the old games.

Final spotlight

Finally, we want to highlight a trio of thought-provoking features. Ignas Vieversys spoke to Palestinian Voices in Games about their effort to empower current and emerging Palestinian game developers, and we also spoke to a range of actors about how contract negotiations are something of a nightmare in the UK – and why that is. Lastly, Vic Hood interviewed a dozen women about their experiences in the industry in the decade since Gamergate, and how things need to change to encourage and retain more female talent.