My favorite new releases of 2025

Hello, everyone! So I've never done one of these lists, but this year people keep asking me, so I thought I'd share with you the games that have piqued my interest the most this year. The list is in no particular order, so here we go!

• Journeyman, Expert, Master - Advanced Fantasy: This was one of my many random purchases off DTRPG. Since I must order proof copies for my own books quite often, and I hate ordering just one book, I end up ordering a lot of games just to check them out. Often they're not great, but in this case I was extremely surprised. This is a very unique D20 ruleset that aims at providing everything you'll need in a single book. What I like the most about it is the super cool character creation and progression system, which works via talent and skills trees. So you pick a talent, and it branches off into other talents, which branch off into other, etc. It allows you to customize your class very nicely, and mix and match different talent trees. Furthermore, even ancestries have their own talent trees! It has a lot of random tables and a very nice bestiary, so it's also super easy to solo.

• Fantasy Express: This is a very neat RPG that uses a 2D10 open ended dice mechanic that is basically Rolemaster redux. And I say this as the highest of compliments, by the way. It is extremely well put together, with lots of detail and options, essentially everything one would expect from a Rolemaster clone, but using 2D10 instead of D100. It has some supplements too, and the game seems to be well supported!

• Hellpiercers: This is my type of game because it's basically a boardgame in a book. It's supposed to be an RPG but nobody's fooling me, this is an awesome tactical game of conquering hell. It has lots of super cool character options and gear, and it's a really unique (very videogamey) take on grid-based, tactical combat. I really hope they keep supporting it. Also, the book is so damn gorgeous!

• Draw Steel: This is one game I never expected to include in any list. When it was first announced, I took a quick look at it and, to me, it looked like just another attempt at creating an OGL-free D&D clone, since that's what everyone was doing post the OGL debacle. It looked to me like the designers didn't have a clear vision of what they wanted; it didn't even have a name! So I ignored it, until recently a friend started showing me bits and talking about it, and also some people on the Blackoath Discord started raving about it. So I took a closer look at it, and what I found was a love letter to D&D 4e (the best edition of D&D, as we all know), focused on really tight combat and character progression, exactly my type of game. Sure, it's very super-heroic, it has zero grit, but sometimes it's fun to just bash 300 goblins with a single attack, you know? Not saying you can do that (I haven't played it yet), but it definitely supports that type of fantasy.

• Cohors Cthulhu: This was always going to be in this year's list. It has a crunchy system (Modiphius' 2D20 ruleset, which they use in all of their games) with lots of character options and detailed combat, a super cool setting (Cthulhu + Ancient Rome is a winner in my book), a really nice settlement building system, hexcrawling rules... It's probably their most complete book out of the box, actually. Well, Fallout comes pretty close, but this one is just cooler, if you ask me! It takes everything that made their Conan RPG cool and refines it, so the result is really, really good.

• Tales of Argosa: This is a D20 ruleset (with both roll under and roll over checks), and you guys know I'm not a fan of anything derived from D&D, but this game is just so damn good. It's a refinement of the already great Low Fantasy Gaming, with everything ramped up to a thousand. It has everything you would expect from a D&D-adjacent game, but with super tight rules, and even solo tools, all done from a very unique design point of view. I definitely plan on getting every new release for this game, and they're already planning a hexcrawling book for next year!

So there you have it! I'm sure I've forgotten some other games, but these are definitely the ones that have made the biggest impact on me this year.

What do you guys think, do you agree? Which are your favorite new RPG releases of the year?