Let’s begin with the fact that PlayStation rolled out a year-end retrospective of sorts. There were a lot of fun things to do and stories to tell. And that is how they presented it anyway. Wholesome and nice post to honor the gaming year that was 2025. A simple, yet effective way to highlights the end of year celebrations of video games. However, the internet is always a wild card. the internet is crazy. The replies to that tweet made it a whole chaotic ecosystem of hype, hate, confusion, and people just asking for the dang PS Plus games for January. Well, it turned out to be pretty much like that.
Let’s start with the actual content. It contained a link and some images with a small comment. Of course, that precious time would have to be exact for people to know what games the wonderful screenshots were from. One user, DavyJones™, straight up asked PlayStation to “Plz tell game names.” And then Grok, the AI that helps us, comes in with the list that leaves no doubt. Images according to Grok were from: 1. Ghost of Yōtei, 2. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, 3. Forza Horizon 5, and 4. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. That looks like a pretty good mix of games, having some major players from the year. The agreement ends there and the confusion commences.
Now, starting with the good side, why not? So, there was some positivity! So, TechieCookie.com said “Stories that stay with you long after the credits roll. 2025 was a special year for gaming.” That’s the spirit! Glitchy 🪄 was all about the art, saying “That otherworldly landscape art style is consistently amazing. Can’t wait to see what new worlds 2026 brings.” And lillyrawww was emotionally invested, tweeting “I’m still not over some of these stories.” See? Wholesome. AD Gaming even said the themes sounded like their “kinda Tuesday,” which is a mood. A very specific, time-traveling Tuesday mood.
Now and then the other side of the coin – oh boy! The listing of ‘Ghost of Yōtei’ (likely a sarcastic rename of ‘Ghost of Tsushima’ or its sequel) caused a huge uproar and one user, Beaver Edits, immediately threw shade: “Putting ghost of yotei up there is so offensive to the other games.” Ouch! The talk became… strangely political? One user, WZY420UAP, demanded PlayStation to “remove the ghost of antifa from this picture.” Another user, BaffledCentrist, made a not-so-subtle remark: “One of those games is not like the others….hint: it’s the one with the ugly butch lesbian on a horse.” The discussion developed from that point on with users like shadow.vfs telling others to “keep coping” and referring to the game as “slop” that got “0 wins at the game awards.” It’s a whole thing. Gamers get passionate, you know?
Apart from that, we have the random, hilarious side talk. The classic console war jab was again heard as iamchuckdub commented “Xbox is better imo.” Classic. Never fails. Someone noticed Forza Horizon 5 being mentioned in a PlayStation post and was utterly amazed, wondering if it was a joke because PlayStation has Gran Turismo. Good catch, honestly. Luxie 🔮 was curious if any adventure could equal “a game-winning football hail mary,” which is a wonderful question that I now need answered. And Bitcorn just wanted to know what the “january ps+ premium” is that Sony was “going to eat,” which is the real question on everyone’s mind, let us be honest.
There were some more broad and critical voices. SeethingFutility called the last year “fairly bleak for gaming,” which is a point of view. A point of view that probably got some nods from players feeling the drought between mega-releases. And Athena1Nonly raised a serious economic issue, talking about the hardship of friends who can’t afford subscriptions to access games already owned. That’s real conversation in the community, much greater than just pretty screenshots.
FUTURUM GAMING made a very thoughtful point, though. They noted that “Connection” was mentioned first in PlayStation’s description, saying “The technical leaps matter less than whether the game gave people something to share with someone else.” That’s… actually kinda deep? In an age of chasing graphical fidelity, that core idea of shared experience is what really sticks. It’s what makes a year “special,” like TechieCookie said. So what is the lesson learned from all this racket? PlayStation’s 2025 big highlight reel did the trick. It made people talk, argue, and remember all the games in 2025.
