In 2025, so many video games helped us laugh, helped us escape, and helped us connect. Join us for our annual discussion and celebration of the games that made our year.

00:00:46 - Some bittersweet news

00:09:56 - 2025 year of gaming overviews

00:26:47 - Spencer and Jamie's Top 5 Games of the Year

01:31:30 - Honorable Mentions

01:43:52 - Favorite characters of the year

01:47:36 - Favorite games journalists/content creators of the year

01:52:15 - Most hype for in 2026

Watch the live stream recording of this episode on YouTube here: https://youtube.com/live/SE2sNC_uE3Q

Side Quest

https://transasylumsupport.github.io/

The Trans Asylum Seekers Support Network is an interdependent, solidarity-based network of queer and trans asylum seekers, loved ones, collective members, and volunteers dedicated to the abolition of all cages and borders, revolutionary compassion and trans liberation. Our goal is to free transgender asylum seekers languishing in detention centers and help them relocate to and create thriving lives in Western Massachusetts. Learn more by visiting their website or @transasylumsupport on Instagram!

About Pixel Therapy

We're a podcast queering and transcending video games for all kinds of gamers and those who love them--get cozy with us! If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Join for free at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

As the temperatures drop, the coziness factor turns up, and the impending arrival of a new year looms ominously on the horizon inviting us to dissociate from reality for just a little bit (just us?), it's just the perfect time to escape the stress and excitement of the holidays with a lengthy RPG you can sink your teeth into. At least, that's our tradition. Enter Demonschool (Necrosoft Games, published by Ysbryd Games), a campy, queer, isometric tactics RPG set at the cusp of Y2K with a delightful cast of college students banding together to save the world from monsters and gangsters while finding time for karaoke dates, fishing, petting dogs, and maybe kissing. WHAT ELSE COULD YOU WANT?

00:07:34 - Plate Up!

00:16:00 - s.p.l.i.t

00:20:28 - Demonschool

Watch the live stream recording of this episode on YouTube here: https://youtube.com/live/vdzIo5MlaYU

Side Quest

https://transasylumsupport.github.io/

The Trans Asylum Seekers Support Network is an interdependent, solidarity-based network of queer and trans asylum seekers, loved ones, collective members, and volunteers dedicated to the abolition of all cages and borders, revolutionary compassion and trans liberation. Our goal is to free transgender asylum seekers languishing in detention centers and help them relocate to and create thriving lives in Western Massachusetts. Learn more by visiting their website or @transasylumsupport on Instagram!

About Pixel Therapy

We're a podcast queering and transcending video games for all kinds of gamers and those who love them--get cozy with us! If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Join for free at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

This week we're chatting about Hades II, the long-in-early-access follow up to 2020's Hades from Supergiant Games. Like its predecessor, Hades II is an action RPG roguelike chock full of eye-popping art, callous-forming combat, and a steady supply of sexual tension set in the deep lore of Greek myth while telling the all-too-relatable story of confronting toxic family dynamics and breaking intergenerational cycles of trauma. So grab a bottle of ambrosia and activate God Mode with us as we unpack all our thoughts and feelings about this game of the year contender.

1:57 - Dispatch final thoughts

11:29 - Hades II

53:30 - **SPOILERS for Hades II**

1:32:32 - Outro

Watch the live stream recording of this episode on YouTube here: https://youtube.com/live/XZ-HrL-XNNQ

Side Quest

https://transasylumsupport.github.io/

The Trans Asylum Seekers Support Network is an interdependent, solidarity-based network of queer and trans asylum seekers, loved ones, collective members, and volunteers dedicated to the abolition of all cages and borders, revolutionary compassion and trans liberation. Our goal is to free transgender asylum seekers languishing in detention centers and help them relocate to and create thriving lives in Western Massachusetts. Learn more by visiting their website or @transasylumsupport on Instagram!

About Pixel Therapy

We're a podcast queering and transcending video games for all kinds of gamers and those who love them--get cozy with us! If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Join for free at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod