Once upon a time, December was an incredibly dead month for games—an opportunity to catch up on your backlog, since all of the year’s big games had already come and gone.
Well, that’s no longer the case. There are a bunch of killer games releasing this December.
December brings us strong options across a bunch of genres, from psychological and survival horror to side-scrolling beat-’em-ups, a classic RPG, a long-awaited sequel to a legendary franchise, and even an abstract art game about skateboarding.
Most of these games are indie affairs, with only one game from a big publisher, so we’re expecting most of these to be pretty affordable as well—a nice bonus when the holidays are slamming your wallet. You can afford a little treat for yourself, or make all of your friends play terrifying horror games without spending a ton of money.
Note: All of the games listed below are traditional or “Web2” video games. None have crypto or blockchain elements, as far as we know—but you might enjoy ’em anyway.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion
Release Date: December 1, 2025
Platforms: PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch + Switch 2, PS4/PS5, Xbox One + Series X/S
Kids from the ’80s and ’90s might remember seeing all those great arcade beat-’em-up games hanging around arcades, bowling alleys, and the like—X-Men, The Punisher, Captain America and the Avengers, and so on.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion looks designed to take you back to those days as you select from 15 characters to fight against the deadly Annihilation Wave threatening the galaxy. You’ll choose two characters for each level and swap between them, each with unique abilities and special attacks, and you can also team up for online and local co-op with up to four players.
Horses
Release Date: December 2, 2025
Platforms: Epic Games Store, GOG, itch.io, Humble Store
Horses is a short, intense horror game that lasts for about 4 hours. You play as a college student who goes to work on a farm for 14 days, and things quickly get weird. This game has some violent and grotesque imagery, so look into it before you dive in. Valve declined to host this game due to some of its content, sparking a huge controversy in the process, but you can find it on a variety of other platforms like GOG, Epic Games Store, and more.
Sleep Awake
Release Date: December 2, 2025
Platforms: PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Sleep Awake comes from the game publishing arm of horror giant Blumhouse. The title is helmed by Cory Davis of Spec Ops: The Line fame, and longtime Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck. You live in the last city on Earth, where people are trying to stay awake—because those who fall asleep are taken by the Hush. Finck led the sound design on this game, and the visuals mix in psychedelic imagery and live-action sequences to make for a unique horror experience.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
Release Date: December 4, 2025
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
Dormant for almost 20 years, Nintendo’s Metroid Prime series is back. This entry takes intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran to the planet of Viewros, and there’s a bunch of new stuff to enjoy.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond offers a more open world map, which is big enough that Samus has her own sci-fi motorcycle to get around on. This entry also offers more modernized controls, and you can even use the Switch 2 Joy-Con mouse feature if you want, though it remains to be seen how that works practically.
This is also apparently a fresh start for the series narrative, meaning that you don’t have to go back and play a game released on Wii in 2007 to make sense of the story. The Switch 2 is starting to build a library of great games, and we’re expecting this to join the ranks of the best titles on the platform—though there’s a version for original Switch, too.
Octopath Traveler 0
Release Date: December 4, 2025
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC (Steam)
Octopath Traveler 0 is all about starting from zero. Instead of picking from a selection of existing heroes, you’ll create your hero from scratch. Your town is destroyed early in the game, and you and your allies will have to rebuild it from the ground up. Storywise, this role-playing game tells the story also seen in the mobile game Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent, but with greater depth, including fleshed-out characters, voice acting, and a reworked plot.
Routine
Release Date: December 4, 2025
Platforms: PC (Steam), Xbox Series X/S
Over a decade in the making, Routine is a first-person sci-fi horror title set on an abandoned lunar base. Like Alien Isolation, it leans into the 1980s sci-fi aesthetic. This game eschews waypoint markers, instead leaving it up to you to figure out where to go and why as you explore and hide to survive.
Skate Story
Release Date: December 8, 2025
Platforms: PC (Steam, GOG), PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2
Sure, you can skate just for the sake of it. But what if you could skate with purpose? In Skate Story, you play as a demon skater in the underworld, tasked by the devil to skate to the moon and swallow it. Where games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Skate look to let you live out the fantasy of being a skilled skater (each in their own way), Skate Story is an abstract experience with dazzling wireframe and polygonal imagery.