December is upon us, and with it comes the most wonderful season of the year. While I may be indulging in clichés, I genuinely appreciate the warmth and festivities of the holidays. However, today I want to reflect on the strides made in accessibility throughout 2025. This year has introduced enhancements to established franchises, as well as unexpected newcomers in both the triple-A and indie game spaces.

From my viewpoint, there hasn’t been a single moment in 2025 that drastically transformed the industry regarding accessibility. Instead, the year demonstrated a consistent evolution of expectations that players with disabilities have come to rightfully demand from new releases. In my view, no one title stood out significantly in terms of innovation, yet the year still managed to surprise me in various ways. In this edition of Access Designed, let’s delve into some of my favorite accessible games of 2025.

Runner-Up: and Roger

This section contains mild spoilers for and Roger.

The inclusion of TearyHand Studio’s and Roger as a runner-up might take some by surprise. This short visual novel, lasting roughly an hour, features various quick-time events guiding you through the heartfelt memories of Sofia and her husband, Roger, as Sofia copes with dementia. Each minigame places you in Sofia’s shoes as she tackles everyday tasks like brushing her teeth, making soup, or browsing old photographs. While these may seem mundane, Sofia’s dementia transforms every simple task into a daunting challenge. Unfortunately for disabled players, the intensity of the quick-time events is heightened by the game’s considerable lack of accessibility features.

In and Roger, there are no accessibility options to assist in gameplay. No alternatives for completing QTEs, options to skip them, or settings that allow the game to complete them automatically, as seen in this year’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows. You must repeatedly mash or flawlessly drag a button for each QTE, which was significantly taxing for me due to my physical disabilities. Yet after completing a QTE in the first chapter that required Sofia to push Roger’s hand away through rapid button mashing, I realized that the game’s inaccessibility actually heightened its emotional impact.

The absence of accessibility features in and Roger led me to reevaluate my critique of games—a practice I’ve engaged in for six years. Sofia’s struggles with dementia became more pronounced as I grappled with her experiences. In an industry where meaningful representation of disability remains sparse, and Roger uniquely encapsulates the complexities of the disability experience. It evokes genuine emotions of love, grief, pain, joy, and suffering—feelings I have personally experienced or observed in others. I’ve never encountered a game so intent on immersing players in the disabled experience, which is why and Roger ranks among my top games of 2025 and of all time.

Runner-Up: EA Sports FC 26

I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of sports games. The genre never really clicked for me, which is somewhat ironic given that I reside in a sports-loving city. However, EA Sports FC 26 made me appreciate soccer games (or football for everyone outside the U.S.) due to its remarkable attention to accessibility.

Much like other accessible games, FC 26 offers customizable controls, subtitles, and settings for colorblind players. However, I particularly valued the varied gameplay assistance options. Shooting, passing, defending, switching, and dribbling come with their own adjustable settings that ease the strain during extended gameplay. When fatigue made accurate shooting difficult, I could activate Auto Shots, which would trigger as I neared the goal. If passing felt overwhelming, I could simply adjust the sensitivity to enable the game to pass automatically. Even as a goalkeeper, I could rely on assistance to aid in making saves. For those longer sessions, one or two button control schemes can be activated, greatly reducing the input requirements (though these simplified controls cannot be used in competitive play).

However, FC 26’s most significant accessibility advancement doesn’t even pertain to my own disability. For the first time in the series, and within a competitive multiplayer context, players can enable High Contrast Mode. This allows customization of the contrast for everything—from the home team and away team to the referees and even ball color. This feature proves invaluable for blind players, providing essential visual information during fast-paced matches. It’s easy to lose track of players and ball amidst the chaos of intense matches, especially in online PvP, yet FC 26 sets a new bar for what accessibility can be in competitive gaming. Its potential to challenge industry norms is precisely why FC 26 earns a spot among the most accessible games of 2025.

Winner: Doom: The Dark Ages

Doom: The Dark Ages, the latest installment in the iconic FPS series by id Software, stands out as my favorite entry and the most accessible. While this newest title incorporates standard accessibility offerings like customizable controls, adjustable subtitles, and various difficulty levels, The Dark Ages introduces new features that redefine accessibility for this fast-paced game.

In shooters like Doom, speed and precision are crucial for dispatching enemies and navigating levels. You are constantly avoiding enemy attacks, sprinting through settings, jumping over obstacles, and switching weapons within your diverse arsenal. If you lack the strength or stamina to perform these actions, gameplay can become extremely inaccessible, even with lower difficulty settings. Luckily, The Dark Ages presents a solution by introducing modifiers that can adjust game speed, enemy projectile speed, enemy aggression, player damage, and enemy damage. Additionally, it provides options to modify parry windows in melee encounters, allowing players to customize every aspect of combat.

There’s an ongoing misconception in internet discussions that accessibility options and inclusive designs detract from the intended gaming experience. The Dark Ages debunks this notion with its customizable settings—highlighting that the “artistic intent” is whatever experience players choose to create for themselves. Adjusting settings carries no penalty. Whether you have a disability or not, you have full control over your gameplay experience. If you’re someone who relishes in challenging gameplay, you can tweak every setting to enhance the difficulty. Personally, I find myself adjusting parry windows and game speed when fatigued, while simultaneously ramping up enemy aggression for an added challenge. I’ve never encountered a game that allows such fine-tuning of every combat element, making Doom: The Dark Ages my game of the year for 2025.

These three titles are just a glimpse of the incredible accessible games that surfaced throughout 2025. Games like Assassin’s Creed Shadows, South of Midnight, Split Fiction, and even Kirby Air Riders deserve recognition for their accessible tools and designs. While the three titles I’ve highlighted are my personal favorites, 2025 has arguably been my most rewarding year as a critic—not for the groundbreaking innovations, but for the ongoing commitment to inclusivity for disabled players.

Grant Stoner is a journalist with a focus on accessibility and the experiences of disabled individuals in gaming. When not writing, he’s often found passionately discussing Pokémon or sharing updates about his cat, Goomba, on Twitter.