Gaming

If there's a single throughline for the PC gaming year that was 2025, it's finally accepting that the pursuit of fancy graphics just doesn't make sense anymore.

Tech has hit a hard graphics plateau: raw generational updates are now nuanced upgrades measured in single-digit frame gains rather than evolutions anyone with eyes can appreciate, and the subsequent pivot to AI-generated frames and experimental hair follicles aren't really revving anyone's engines when those upgrades cost a month's rent. Even if the latest hardware really was all that, the precarious AI bubble is locking normal humans out of it anyway.

It's good timing, then, that cutting edge graphics are increasingly irrelevant to keeping up with the hobby. A bright spot of 2025 was the continued rise of "friendslop," a cringey internet-spawned label for a broad genre of cooperative games designed for groups of friends.

Though it looks like it's sticking, friendslop is a terrible name for these games, because it (perhaps unintentionally) lumps them in with a growing pile of low-effort games cranked out by anonymous Steam grifters every day, and of course, actual AI slop. The well-intentioned use of "slop" probably refers to the subgenre's deliberate use of janky physics and ragdolls to conjure comedy. In REPO, navigating a valuable and fragile vase down narrow hallways is uncomfortable, awkward, and intense—much like actually moving a cherished piece of furniture from one house to another.

But there's nothing sloppy about games with a simple premise, instantly learnable controls, and crucially, with an art direction that accommodates whatever hardware you have to play them on. To have all of that at once and still end up with a fun game is anything but low-effort.