Staff Article Lists

Despite being a rather slow month for major releases, January does, once in a while, sneak in a surprise or two. The oddly titled 2XKO, a fighting game from the makers of League Of Legends and one I’ve called 2KXO more times than I can count, is one of those surprises of the month. Now, I’ll freely admit I know next to nothing about League Of Legends: I never played the MOBA, I never paid much attention to the lore, nor have I watched the Netflix series Arcane. The most I know of the series is the song ‘Get Jinxed’, which I’ll admit is a pretty darn catchy tune, so a lot of the in-game lore and references I won’t be delving into and, instead, will just be focusing on the game itself. Which, spoilers, is quite possibly one of the more fun fighting games I’ve played in a good while.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in an actual fairytale? To approach the castle of your archnemesis, knock down the door and…find it converted into an office space? That’s the premise behind Escape From Ever After, a delightful rpg inspired by the classic Paper Mario games. If you needed a fun game to take you back to those days and scratch an itch you didn’t know you had, Escape From Ever After is for you. This was one charming story that had me smiling the whole time despite a few minor kinks.

January has been a big month for Magic the Gathering as its latest in-universe set, Lorwyn Eclipsed, released on the 23rd with its pre-release the week before. What’s Lorwyn you ask? Lorwyn-Shadowmoor is a plane with a duel nature that’s often at odds with itself, as plants, animals and even the inhabitants themselves change drastically between the daytime of Lorwyn and the nighttime of Shadowmoor. Originally visited in the original Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block almost 20 years ago, the time has come to return to the iconic setting in this highly anticipated expansion.

Sitting down and deciding what to do with your precious free time can be hard. There’s a wealth of options, with experiences ranging from the most competitive face-offs with other gamers hell-bent on ruining your day, to the easiest gaming tasks accomplished whilst bundled up and sipping on a delicious coffee. All of these games have their place, just like the one I had the pleasure of moseying cozily through recently for this review. Tailside: Cozy Cafe Sim is exactly that; a simple yet satisfying coffee shop simulator where you’re the owner, decorator, janitor, and barista, all at once. What makes the experience special though is not just the addictive gameplay loop, but the lovely cast of characters that make their way through your doors and into your hearth.

Shoot-em-up top-down airplane games are some of the most classic gaming experiences in history. A simple formula that can be built upon in so many ways to produce a variety of challenges. Usually, this format is used to shoot bullets at armies of enemies whilst dodging a hellstorm of bullets. Air Hares puts a swerve in the expected style by having you be a bunny in the skies equipped with seeds and water shots, charged with defending and replanting their vital crops for the cities below. It’s a solo or co-op retro arcade treat that doesn’t have too much in the way of content, but doesn’t try to be too grand in scope to where it forgets its charming identity.

Annihilus has invaded the galaxy from the Negative Zone and is threatening to destroy all life as we know it (so, a typical Tuesday in the Marvel Universe). It’s up to a team of heroes to band together to stop Annihilus in Marvel Cosmic Invasion: the latest 2D side-scrolling beat-’em up from the creators of TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge. However, instead of being another smash hit for the studio, Cosmic Invasion falls short and, instead, delivers a very mediocre and by the numbers game that fails to live up to their predecessor.

Ever wondered how it’d feel to work on a farm run by a feline deity that, shockingly, doesn’t want world domination? Well, Cat God Ranch is here to answer that question. From CrazyPotato Studios and originally released on PC, this is a charming little game with some cute ideas but is bogged down by a glaring difficulty problem that hurts an otherwise enjoyable title.

Welcome to The Furry Game Awards 2025, presented by Gaming Furever! Every year, we come together as a staff and decide on our most beloved, most played, and most exceptional games from the past year of new gaming experiences that include anthropomorphic animals or animals as a focus of the game overall. The number of high-quality games that have animal influences shine seems to grow every year, and 2025 was no exception. Here are our Furry Game Award Winners for the year 2025!

NOTE: Nominations were voted on by GF Staff, and criteria for inclusion included having animal and/or anthro animal focus or character(s) for the majority of the game, along with the games having to have been played by the staff member who nominated it. Because of this, some games you may expect to see aren't listed. Other fantastic furry games released this year are listed below the awards!

UMAMI is a simple game idea executed perfectly. You put back together deliciously crafted wooden food puzzles that have been scattered across colorful culinary canvases, complete with adorably fluffy furry animal characters throughout. Each level provides its own theme and foodstuff, like a bee-topped honey waffles stack, or a lovey-dovey bear cake, or a garden vibes bunny baked beauty, just to name a few of the 15 puzzle environments. I was easily whisked away into the cozy cooked comforts with a calming soundtrack, fun little tactile interactions throughout the artfully crafted dishes, and lack of stressful goals like timers or mistake counters. UMAMI is truly about sitting down for a sense-satisfying session of blissful no-stress puzzle solving.

If you’re like me, you probably grew up with a Game Boy Color back in the day and poured hours into 8-bit adventures. I fondly remember my time with games like Dragon Quest IV, Oracle of Ages and a few others. Back in those days, the technology wasn’t very sophisticated, so game design was much simpler and exploration wasn’t guided by nav points. It’s that kind of nostalgia that Doki Monsters Quest chooses to invoke. Memories of bygone days where game mechanics were explained in booklets rather than in the game itself. This philosophy of old meets new works to both Doki Monsters benefit and its deficit.