Chris Lowles

In The Cinema EOTY

2025 Box Office

• A Minecraft Movie demolishes theatres, literally.
• Superman is a pretty damn good re-introduction to DC comic book movies.
• Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
• Avatar: Fire and Ash
• 28 Years Later sees an iconic 2000s zombie franchise return.
• Final Destination: Bloodlines sees another iconic 2000s horror franchise return, with a sequel already in the works (RIP Tony Todd).
• Sinners sees new negotiation expectations for movie directors, Ryan Coogler and co. nail it again.
• One Battle After Another is exhilirating.
• Weapons
• Zootopia 2
• Lilo & Stitch (live-action) sweeps.
• Ne Zha 2
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle is HUGE.
• F1 The Movie bags sweet $630m USD box office.
• The Fantastic Four: First Steps
• The Conjuring: Last Rites
• Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc
• Freakier Friday
• Dog Man (from the creator of Captain Underpants)
• Ballerina (John Wick spin-off)
• Mickey 17
• Black Phone 2
• Karate Kid: Legends
• The Naked Gun
• The Amateur
• The Monkey
• The Running Man
• Paramount merges with David Ellison’s Skydance for $8.4b USD
• Warner Bros. to be acquired next year by Netflix for $82.7b USD despite competition from Paramount Skydance

The Pin Drop EOTY

• Drake’s legal proceedings with Kendrick Lamar come to a head and thankfully end with dimissal by a federal judge, this not being the first time.
• Beyonce finally, FINALLY wins Album of The Year at the Grammys for Cowboy Carter.
• Kendrick Lamar performs at the Super Bowl halftime show, you can literally hear the crowd shout “A MINORRRRRRRRRR”, that was THIS YEAR guys.
• Kennedy Center is set to be renamed and affected by staffing cuts.
• OASIS IS BACK (KINDA, THEY’RE ON TOUR).
• Clipse makes a comeback with a banger of an album “Let God Sort Em Out”.
• Brian Wilson (major member and brain of The Beach Boys) passes on.
• Pioneer of neo-soul D’Angelo passes on following a battle with cancer.
• Kneecap take Coachella by storm, marking a highly reported on festival season for the group, legal proceedings end up being won out by them (get fucked Zionists).
• Taylor Swift ends up getting her original masters from Scooter Braun.
• K-Pop Demon Hunters dominates the pop charts, becoming the first movie sountrack in 30 years to do so.
• The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, alleging that the company willingly misleads consumers about ticket prices and cooperates with scalpers to markup resale prices — all at the expense of artists and music fans.
• Morgan Wallen takes over the radio, thank god for Spotify so I don’t have to have that rammed down my ears…
• Spotify’s Daniel Ek faced significant backlash and calls for boycotts after his venture capital firm, Prima Materia, invested 600m in helsing, a German AI defence tech company, leading to a swath of artists including Godspeed You! Black Emperor, King Gizzard, Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, Massive Attack and dozens more to remove their music and transition to alternative streaming platforms and previously traditional music platforms like Bandcamp.

Walking On Thin Ice EOTY

• Australia’s federal election marks Labor’s biggest win ever, winning 94 seats in the House of Reps, the biggest number won by a single party in Australia.
• Canada sees outcomes similarly defeating equivalent conservative platforms following tousles with the new US admin, newly shaken up Canada Liberals Mark Carney wins a minority govt and is presumed to attain majority following the trend of disaffections in opposing parties.
• South Korea faced a major internal crisis. President Yoon Suk Yeol was arrested and removed from office (impeached) early in the year due to his role in a “martial law” crisis (where the military takes temporary control).
• LA Altadena/Pacific Palisades wildfires: Many people displaced.
• Zohran Mamdani wins mayoral race for New York City, marking many firsts (first Muslim NYC mayor, first Asian-American NYC mayor, youngest since 1892 at 34 years, first to reach 1m votes since 1969) simply on a platform on 3 things (A rent freeze on rent stablised units, fare-free city buses, universal pre-k childcare).

One Up EOTY P1

• PlayStation celebrates 30 years in Australia with a big Memory Card in Sydney.
• Gran Turismo becomes first PlayStation franchise to sell 100 million copies worldwide, milestone commemorated with mammoth Spec III update & Power Pack DLC
• EA bought out by Saudi PIF
• Hollow Knight: Silksong finally released, crashes every digital storefront except Xbox.
• Speaking of Xbox, the ROG Ally Xbox X releases to a form of fanfare.
• Valve reintroduces the Steam Machine as a first-party system in a now 4-piece ecosystem (Deck, Machine, Frame, Controller).
• Game console prices going up, not down 5 years into this generation.
• First industry-wide VG union formed in America (United VG Workers-Comms Workers of America)
• Cancelled Ridge Racer prototype for Switch gets leaked online (I went viral a bit for posting gameplay I found).
• Doug Bowser retires as Nintendo of America CEO, succeeded by Decon Pritchard as President and Satoru Shibata as CEO.
• Nintendo Switch 2 releases
• Among many things surrounding Switch 2 such as price, performance, ownership mechanisms and launch titles, Paul Rudd remakes SNES ad for Switch 2.
• PlayStation exclusive Death Stranding 2: On The Beach almost fully takes place in Australia :)
• We attended a conversation between Mad Max creator George Miller and Death Stranding creator/studio namesake Hideo Kojima (we also got photos with Michael and Danny Philippou also known as RackaRacka, currently known for their work on YouTube and film (Talk to Me, Bring Her Back).
• Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki passes away.
• Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada leaving Bandai Namco at the end of this year.
• Season 2 of The Last of Us HBO adaptation premieres.
• Silent Hill 1 remake in full production following surprising success of SH2 remake.
• Yakuza (Like a Dragon) Kiwami 3 + Dark Ties announced, featuring a controversial cast member addition.
• Forza Horizon 5, Gears of War and Halo come to PlayStation for the first time – Halo 1 remake coming next year.
• Patapon and Everybody’s Golf make their Nintendo/Steam debut
• Video Games Deluxe acquired and reformed as Rockstar Australia by Rockstar Games
• CoD undersells Battlefield for the first time ever, even gets beat by various indie titles.
• Discord was in talks to go public but those seem to have died out.
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster
• Randy Pitchford chimes on game pricing debate as Borderlands 4 becomes latest subject to topic, foot proceeds to be turned to pulp.
• Split Fiction is a success, film adaptation said to be in pre-production.
• EB Games selling retro consoles/games online
• Game Informer resurrected
• Rooster Teeth resurrected
• Metroid Prime 4: Beyond FINALLY releases after years of development hell to split opinion.
• MindsEye disaster release, union clashes with lead Leslie Benzies.

One Up EOTY P2

• Stop Killing Games initiative makes headway in EU petition despite pushback from corporate lobby groups.
• Billy Mitchell wins defamation case against Karl Jobst
• Nightdive wants to tackle PS3/360 remasters
• Marathon gameplay reveal/controversy
• Toys for Bob expressed interest in new Banjo-Kazooie
• Skate reboot comes out, basically expanded upon Skate 3 experience (Chris comments: it’s aight).
• Flappy Bird returns under weird circumstances, original creator says it’s not him coming back.
• Grand Theft Auto VI officially gets pushed back to November 2026 instead of May 2026 – bad timing as around then, 30 workers were let off presumably for trying to unionise (which you can do, jury’s still out on that… literally)
• Grand Theft Auto VI trailer 2 released, screenshots and details revealed.
• The Super Mario Galaxy Movie announced
• Kojima Productions commemorates 10 years since independent formation
• SO MANY DEATH STRANDING MEDIA ANNOUNCEMENTS (ANIME, MOVIE, HARDWARE COLLABS, ETC)
• OD – Knock in-engine footage featuring Sophia Lillis
• PHYSINT casting news – Charlee Fraser, Don Lee (Ma Dong-seok) and Minami Hamabe join Kojima’s next IP with PlayStation/Columbia Pictures
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 proceeds to win every award ever, wild for a debut from a indie studio.
• Princess Peach’s voice actress for 18 years she’s been replaced to her shock.
• IO Interactive announce and preview 007 First Light
• Insomniac finally reveals Marvel’s Wolverine, Liam McIntyre set to play the titular character (second Aussie Wolverine!).
• Splitgate 2 shenanigans
• Fallout: Bakersfield
• Steam/itch.io NSFW content censorship
• Digital Foundry goes fully independent
• Giant Bomb goes fully independent
• Video Game History Foundation releases full archive of historical Computer Entertainer Magazine
• Skate comeback has early access publicly released
• Forza Horizon 6 is going to Japan next
• A dockable PS6 is rumoured
• Acclaim comes back
• MachineGames affirms Wolfenstein isn’t over yet
• Legendary FPS game creator Vince Zampella passes away in a tragic accident just before Christmas.