In recent years, some of gaming’s biggest breakout successes have been released during the post-Christmas lull between New Year and Spring. Traditionally, it’s supposed to be a quieter time on the calendar – where we’re all too full of turkey and trimmings and sated by games gifted over the holidays to have an appetite for anything new.

But for the last ten years or so, it’s been publishers’ secret weapon to cut through the noise and score a solid hit with an underappreciated gem that would otherwise get beaten out by bigger-name competition.

One of the first I can remember was Dying Light, a bone-creaking 10 years ago already, which broke records on release in 2015 as a new IP, perfectly pitched at the peak of both zombie and PS4-era open-world hype.

After that, it felt like almost every year a well-funded indie or under-rated series would sneak into success by ditching the Christmas crush in Fall and landing on a clear runway when players were supposedly spent up.

But the trend was further solidified year after year, like when Resident Evil reannounced itself as one of the dominant franchises in gaming with the imperious Resident Evil 2 Remake, an incredible game that grabbed the zeitgeist and popularised a trend we’re still seeing today.

In 2025 though, the cat is most definitely out of the bag. In February alone, we’re now looking at 4 would-be huge releases from some of the world’s biggest publishers and plushest independent studios.

Some stumbled into the slot through delays and development mishaps (like Assassin’s Creed and Avowed), while two games on this list (Monster Hunter and Kingdom Come) have benefitted from the magical launch spot before, and are surely looking to repeat the trick.

However they got there, February 2025 is shaping up to be an RPG royal rumble of epic proportions. Many 100-hour RPGs can make a claim for your limited free time, but only one can reign supreme – let’s meet the contenders.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 – February 4, 2025

First up, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is stepping up to take the crown, literally. In some ways the most grounded of the 4 games, but the most ambitious in others, Kingdom Come: Deliverance works on the “dungeons not dragons” mantra to deliver authentic medieval role-playing that’s one part ren-faire, one part sandbox adventure, and another part chaotic jank-fest.

This is because Kingdom Come is developed in CryEngine, an FPS-focused engine designed to have a dozen characters on-screen at any given time, but stretched to accommodate the bustling towns and permanent world state demanded by an open-world RPG. The result, in the first game, was an incredible and beautifully realised world… that was constantly teetering on the precipice.

I played a huge amount of the first Kingdom Come and the series is full of novel role-play ideas that sound incredible in principle, but have mixed results in practice. For instance, rather than the traditional difficulty curve with skills getting more complex as you level them up, Kingdom Come tries to simulate your advancing knowledge by making things easier the more you do them.

An interesting thought, right? But it made things like lockpicking hilariously impossible at launch, and turned required story fights into a death loop if you prioritized stealth or speech. However, it also did really interesting things like scramble every book, recipe and roadsign until you found a monk and learnt how to read.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a direct sequel to the original, again starring Henry of Skalitz as a supposedly low-born blacksmith elevated by happenstance and ingenuity to become a key player in the fight for the Holy Roman Empire. I’m really interested to see how the new game handles this realistic progression with an existing character (who can’t just be zapped by a “Forget All Your Powers From The Last Game Beam” like Ratchet or Kratos or somebody).

Reportedly twice as big as the already sprawling and incredibly deep base game, with much better performance and some of the major pain-points sanded off, how Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 adapts to this increased scope will be key to its success, which could easily see it surprise some people in a month of heavy hitters.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows – February 14, 2025

Despite its setbacks, I have faith in the studio that came out with my personal favourite Assassin’s Creed game – 2018’s galloping Grecian caper Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. But as one of gaming’s best-known franchises, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has the most to prove out of any game releasing in February, particularly in light of Ubisoft’s recent, expensive, missteps in Skull and Bones and Star Wars: Outlaws.

Japan has been a dream location for the series since Assassin’s Creed started, but with Ghost of Tsushima and Rise of the Ronin beating Ubisoft to the punch on what an open-world feudal Japan can look like, it’s easy to wonder how fresh and engaging Ubisoft can make the landscape – especially without the familiar, but otherworldly touchstones of Ancient Greek and Norse mythology.

However, mechanically at least, Assassin’s Creed Shadows looks to address some of the key issues that the series has been crying out for. First, the dual-protagonists, the shinobi Naoe and samurai Yasuke, seem to have a much more involved, diverse and interactive range of combat styles, making use of katana, tanto short swords, kanabo clubs and naginata bladed spears and many more.

Next, something I truly cannot fathom why it’s taken so long, is a reworked stealth system. Will this finally be the Assassin’s Creed where the stealth game actually has stealth mechanics – huge, if true.

But on that front, there also looks to be an interesting dynamic between the two main characters. Yasuke, tall and imposing, is not stealthy in the slightest – in gameplay videos people literally stop what they’re doing, turn and look at him wherever he goes. Naoe, conversely, embodies the stoic, scarfed stereotype of the silent assassin.

I felt that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s runtime was incredibly padded, not just in the side-activities, but the main story as well, where you did not much but spam combat abilities and press triangle to interact. From what we’ve seen, at least some of Shadows’ missions expand on the less guided approach we’ve seen in the last couple of Assassin’s Creed games, so, with a greater variety of more engaging and meaningful play mechanics across two characters thrown in, maybe this can be the Assassin’s Creed that turns the series around yet again?

Avowed – February 18, 2025

The cruel irony of a delay in a fluid and competitive release calendar means that even if you run away from other games, there’s no guarantee they won’t chase you. So after slipping into 2025 to avoid internal Game Pass competition from the likes of Stalker 2 and Indiana Jones, Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed now finds itself slap-bang between two of the biggest releases of the year – but is the low barrier of entry just what it needs to succeed?

If The Outer Worlds was Obsidian’s slimmed-down and sci-fi Fallout, then Avowed is Skyrim by way of Dragon Age, as you explore smaller, self-contained maps filled with loot, baddies and the twisty quests full of surprise, tough decisions and intrigue that the studio is known for.

As a massive fan of pretty much every game Obsidian has ever released – obviously Fallout: New Vegas, but Alpha Protocol, Grounded and even South Park: The Stick of Truth as well – Avowed is the game I’m personally most excited about in February, but also the one I think might get glossed over.

Set in the Pillars of Eternity universe, with a dreamy, sparkling and swashbuckling fantasy art-style, Avowed’s strengths will lie in the quality of its storytelling and good old-fashioned questing; but if it can provide the gameplay hooks to go with that narrative complexity, then it can definitely punch above its weight as likely the lowest budget game here by far.

Monster Hunter Wilds – February 28, 2025

The Monster Hunter franchise is in such a different place to when Monster Hunter World made full use of a free week back in February 2018. After threatening to break out in the West for a decade, with a clear schedule and the world’s attention, this revamped and expanded Monster Hunter finally clicked in a huge way.

With numerous imitators now also looking for a slice of the monster hunting genre, from the free-to-play Dauntless (a recent major update to which went extremely badly), to the indie Fera: The Sundered Tribes and bigger budget EA Original Wild Hearts, Monster Hunter Wilds has returned to mark its territory as the best in the business.

While the Switch-first – and brilliant – Monster Hunter Rise was a big success, it was still a smaller scale game built for a smaller scale console. Wilds on the other hand, looks truly massive, with more interactive environments, difficult to traverse terrain, and greater variety and verticality across the different biomes.

Monsters burst in-and-out of sand, slither along branches to reach high places in battle, and travel in packs to overwhelm impudent hunters, adding yet more personality to the dangerous and expressive roster of beasts that’re the true stars of every Monster Hunter game.

Make no mistake, Monster Hunter is no longer niche and this is sure to be a big hit – we’ll just have to see how many explorers hold back their supplies in preparation before the expedition kicks off at the end of the month.

So, which are you going to pick up? Which are you going to play in four years when you finally get around to it? The choices are seemingly endless this month alone, and that’s before you even get to new releases like Elden Ring: Nightreign, Borderlands 4, Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yotei, Pokemon Legends Z-A, and, of course, the almighty GTA 6…