Sunday Special: The Year in Gaming

About this episode

<p>This year has been a banner year for video games, with an abundance of surprise releases and unexpected hits.</p><p>On this week’s Sunday Special, Gilbert Cruz talks with two fellow gamers — Zachary Small, a culture reporter, and Jason Bailey, an editor on The Times’s culture desk — about the state of the industry, the biggest releases and the games they loved playing in 2025. They also share their predictions for Game of the Year.</p><p><strong>On Today’s Episode</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/zachary-small" target="_blank">Zachary Small</a> is a culture reporter for The Times.</p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/jason-m-bailey" target="_blank">Jason M. Bailey</a> is an editor on the culture desk, and oversees The Times’s video game coverage.</p> <p><p>Subscribe today at <a href="http://nytimes.com/podcasts">nytimes.com/podcasts</a> or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher">https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher</a>. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.</p></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>