*Keep up with our ongoing end of the year coverage here*
Even as someone who loves the hobby of tabletop RPGs, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with releases. There are a decent amount of games that get big, mainstream attention, like Daggerheart and Draw Steel, but you really need to be looking to find some of the smaller games. Just like video games, it’s completely possible there’s a masterpiece out there that I haven’t had the chance to read yet, but this is my list of horror-themed games from 2025 that I’ve found that are worth a look.
First up, I wanted to mention a few games that came out in a preview edition or demo this year. They aren’t official 2025 releases, as they are still being worked on, but there’s enough meat on their bones that I’m sure I’ll be talking about them again in 2026.
REALIS – Austin Walker (GM of the actual play podcast Friends at the Table) released an ashcan version of his new game that allows you to explore the thousand moons that orbit the mysterious planet Realis. Instead of using traditional stats and dice rolls, you resolve conflicts by comparing character sentences that get more powerful as they become more specific. The game will be hitting crowdfunding next year via Possible Worlds Games.
THE BETWEEN – From Jason Cordova, the designer behind Brindlewood Bay and Public Access, The Between takes heavy inspiration from the TV show “Penny Dreadful”, casting you as Victorian-era monster hunters in London. There are several classes, all with their own approaches to the hunt, along with a number of terrifying antagonists to investigate. They are hoping to ship their books in May of this year, but you can check out this preview edition in the meantime.
DRAGON REACTOR – Nevyn Holmes, the writer behind You’re in Space and Everything’s Fucked, has been working on a mecha game about conflict on a grand scale. This mythopoetic tragedy has a demo out right now that gives you enough basics to start, and the final book should be coming out sometime in the first quarter of 2026.
HOLLOWS – I have been a huge fan of Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor’s work, Heart: The City Beneath is one of my all-time favorite RPGs, so when they said they were making a new game inspired by Hunt: Showdown and Bloodborne, I knew I would be in. You play as hunters delving into pocket dimensions that have been warped by people who have become so rotten it affects everything around them. Reading through the robust quickstart will give you a sense of the innovative combat system they have come up with, and the full book should be released in June 2026.
DOOMSPIRAL – The world is slowly decaying, and forsaken heroes are looking to restore the Loom of Fate, or finally put this world out of its misery. Doomspiral, from Nick Spence, is heavily inspired by Elden Ring and other souls games, offering dungeons to explore and brutal battles to fight. If you want to see how the combat system is designed to mimic the fights of the games it’s taking inspiration from, check out the quickstart now, otherwise the full game should be coming in 2026.
Most of the RPGs I play tend not to have as rigid of a mechanical layer when it comes to combat, but if you’re looking for a crunchy battle system, Hellpiercers by Sandy Pug Games has you covered. The War in Heaven is over, and now humanity has set out on its next goal, breaking billions of souls out of the prison of Hell. It’s a bombastic game that casts players as divinely powerful beings tearing through demonic forces as they descend deeper into the underworld.
The actual mechanics of Hellpiercers feel a bit like XCOM, split between improving your base of operations to upgrade your squad and grid based tactical battles with overwhelming odds. Not only does it have lots of layers to the fights, like weapon blast pattern and cover, but the flavor of the armaments at your disposal adds so much character to the game, with names like “Ten Thousand Year Reign Shattering Blade” and “She Speaks the Language of Kings” as starter options.
It’s a beast of a book that’s dense with rules and factions, but if your table is looking for a more crunchy combat experience, be sure to check it out.
Vampires in fiction are often portrayed as cool, sexy, and confident creatures of the night. In Paint the Town Red by Zachary Cox, your vampires are sad, pathetic, and surrounded by trouble. It’s a stark difference from the norm that allows you to explore more complex themes like mental health and addiction. In addition to some basic stats, players also keep track of their Pulse and Chaos, showing how full of life and followed by trouble they are as they do jobs for and against various contacts and factions.
Each adventure is meant to be centered around parties in a city at a specific point in history. Prewritten scenarios include 82 A.D. Rome, 801 A.D. Aachen, and 1016 A.D. Ghazni, but your options are endless. These scenarios give you plenty of room to get into trouble, while emphasizing the importance of community when digging yourself out of it.
It’s not built for your traditional RPG adventure, but if you’re looking to play as immortal messy creatures who struggle to feel alive again, check out Paint the Town Red.
Solo RPGs are a bit of an uncharted territory for me, but Soul Cemetery by Snow was so laser-targeted to my interests that I had to check it out. Stylized as the manual for a lost GameCube-era survival horror title, the game is a series of prompts that allow you to tell the story of coming back home for a funeral and reflecting on your past while playing the titular video game in your childhood room. There are no stats or dice rolls to worry about, giving you time to meditate on the interesting narrative you are coauthoring with the game.
Melancholy nostalgia permeates the entire game, asking you to reflect on how the media you grew up with shapes the person you’ve become. Some prompts are brief, asking you to pick from a few options, while others are a bit longer, asking you to write about moments in time. This variation in prompt depth allows for a strong sense of pacing, slowing down or speeding up the story at just the right time. None of your decisions have a “mechanical” benefit, but they let you make your journey through the game unique and personal.
It’s a great gateway into the world of solo RPGs, with beautiful presentation and a strong theme that resonated with me deeply.
It’s a tale as old as time. You and your bandmates have sold your souls to the Devil for the promise of fame and fortune. Now, the four of you are on a train, trying to escape with your lives as payment becomes due. Last Train to Bremen by Caro Asercion is a four player game that uses the game of Liar’s Dice as a mechanic to move you through story prompts that help you reflect on your band’s history that led you to this moment. You each start with three dice, rolling them secretly and taking turns betting on everyone’s results at the table. When someone challenges that bet, either the challenger or the challenged will lose one of their dice, and then tell a memory of the band based on a prompt from their character sheet, until they are taken by the devil when they lose their final one.
It’s a wonderful setup that mimics the tumultuous nature of the band’s relationship, acting both as a competitive game and a collaborative story. When you get down to one die, you reveal a special ability that changes the game, both thematically and mechanically. When only one player remains, the game evolves as the devil shows up to collect the final band member.
It’s a great one shot RPG that allows you to weave a tale together while experiencing a mechanical tension that’s not usually seen in the genre.
Originally part of a double feature crowdfunding campaign with Grand Guignol, Luke Jordan’s Harvest is a game that helps you tell the tale of a small British island in the 18th century whose idyllic lifestyle is maintained through blood sacrifice. Each player takes the role of a different archetype as you play to answer the questions “whose blood will be spilled to feed the land?” and “whose hand will be holding the knife?” It is clearly meant to evoke movies like The Wicker Man and Midsommar, and the flowery writing does a great job putting you in that headspace.
There’s no dice or GM running the game, utilizing the Belonging Outside Belonging framework laid out by Dream Askew and Dream Apart, instead using a token-based system to move the story forward. Each player collects tokens as they put themselves in a more dire position, and spends them to assert narrative control. It’s a great push and pull, while also acting as a way to figure out which of you will be sacrificed based on how those tokens are spent.
Harvest gives you all the tools to tell a chilling folk horror tale in the span of three to four sessions, making it one of the most unique RPGs of the year.
Are there any new TTRPGs that you tried out this year? Sound off in the comments!
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