2025 was so stacked with great games I missed the free, ass-kicking Christmas update to its best singleplayer shooter
The boomer shooter renaissance continues to ferment and flourish with great new games each year, and a particular highlight of last year was Cultic. PC Gamer associate editor Ted Litchfield called it "one of the best shooters of 2025" that, even among the Dusks and Turbo Overkills of the world, "distinguishes itself by executing everything at a very high level."
And there's been no better time to try it than right after Christmas—er, "Cultmas"—as the game's holiday update came with a host of changes and a bonus map called "I'll Be Home For Cultmas."
The update is detailed in a Steam community news post, which notes that the bonus map "features its own unique arsenal with some new toys to play with, as well as a new enemy type." A trailer shows off the new map, which looks both suitably snowy and deeply reverent to Blood, what with all the dynamite tossing and pitchfork-skewering of brown-robed cultists.
As for the changes I mentioned, there's been a slew of optimization tweaks and changes to balance—burn damage has been totally reworked, for example, now dealing direct damage rather than requiring a hidden ignite meter to be depleted first. The patch notes state it should be easier to "hose enemies with damage while burning to melt them even faster." How Christmassy!
I fear I may never catch up on all the boomer shooters I've missed at this point, but maybe that's a good thing. Even if we all agreed to stop making videogames tomorrow, I'd probably still degrade into dust from old age before I run out of great games to play.
Cultic and Cultic: Complete Edition (the latter of which includes both chapters and constitutes the full game) are available to buy on Steam. The second chapter, released in 2025 as DLC, is not required to access the Cultmas map from the "new game" menu.
2026 games: All the upcoming games
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Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best RPGs: Grand adventures
Best co-op games: Better together