Surely a strange question from someone who doesn't have a favorite food, color, or anything else. (I believe that all things have their place and are too different to rank.)

What were your favorite adventures and games in 2025?

Mine were The Drifter and The Lost Crown, and even though I see The Drifter in the lead.

Best games: The Drifter, Herdling, and Winter Burrow, with Herdling at the top of my list: But as I already wrote: You simply can't compare the games

Is "Best adventures / games, you have played in 2025" oder Best adventures / games, you  played in 2025" right? I am not sure.

Blue Prince - my 2025 GOTY hands down.
The Roottrees Are Dead (2025) - I had no idea filling in a family tree could be this mesmerizing.
The Drifter (2025) - captivating from the start.
The Inner World (2013) - a replay for me. We had a community playthrough at the old AG forums (now gone) of this humorous 3rd-person adventure and everybody agreed that it's an excellent game. Beats me why it's never mentioned. IMO it should be ranked among the classics.

Is "Best adventures / games, you have played in 2025" oder Best adventures / games, you  played in 2025" right? I am not sure.

The present perfect (have played) connects the recent past with the present day, so using it means you might still be thinking about or even playing those games now. However, as you're talking about the end of the year and things are drawing to a close, you could argue that the past tense (played) works better because you're talking about a finished year and want to 'compartmentalize' things into the past, with less connection to the present.

So it depends which way you're thinking, but in practice either one is fine.

Oh - the best games I played this year were Carol Reed: Amos Green, and Foolish Mortals, with Balatro giving them a run for their money!

Is "Best adventures / games, you have played in 2025" oder Best adventures / games, you  played in 2025" right? I am not sure.

The present perfect (have played) connects the recent past with the present day, so using it means you might still be thinking about or even playing those games now. However, as you're talking about the end of the year and things are drawing to a close, you could argue that the past tense (played) works better because you're talking about a finished year and want to 'compartmentalize' things into the past, with less connection to the present.

So it depends which way you're thinking, but in practice either one is fine.

Oh - the best games I played this year were Carol Reed: Amos Green, and Foolish Mortals, with Balatro giving them a run for their money!

Balatro  was very addicting, could not stop playing until I forced myself to uninstall it  

Balatro  was very addicting, could not stop playing until I forced myself to uninstall it  

It is easy to lose a few hours to it! I tend to keep all games on an external harddrive so I can only play them when I have it with me, which removes temptation a lot of the time.

Allright lets see here:
Old skies is probably my number one, just very clever storytelling with a really strong delivery. I may play it again. I finished the drifter very recently and that would be right behind it. Blue prince was also extremely memorable. I love slay the spire/balatro type games, and blue prince finds a way to take that and put it into a game that unfolds into adventure organically.  Im currently playing lorelei and the laser eyes and dispatch, and i think both will compete for me on this list. Oh geez and i almost forgot citizen sleeper 2. Really fantastic visual novel/time sim with lite rpg mechanics.
In the rpg department im finishing the first outerworlds, excellent obsidian game. hundred line last defense academy was also very impressive and sort of a visual novel with tactical combat. It has some pacing issues.