Arcade Heroes Year-In-Review 2025: Business, New Games, Top 10 Posts & More

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Welcome to the Arcade Heroes Year-In-Review of 2025, our annual rundown of arcade happenings across various bases. As well as the usual top 10 posts and content at the end of the post, here you will find our summaries of how things have gone for the site in general, a state of the business side, trade shows, new games and more. It’s been a mixed year overall with some downs, but also ups, so let’s take a look…

Year-In-Review: The Website

Now on its 19th year, 2025 has been a fairly eventful year for the website; a couple new advertisers have joined the fold in the form of Alan-1 and Blue Motion Games (who we thank for their support), and without going too much into detail yet, thanks to a few major stories broken first by us we hit even higher view counts than has been typical for a few years now (there was a drop off with COVID in 2020, and though not quite at the same level, this year has been fine). We also launched a brand new area of the site with the Arcade Hall of Fame, but more on that later in this post under the History heading.

Over on our social media profiles, the YouTube channel also continues to be a steady source of growth; that hit 20k subscribers earlier in the year, and has added another 2k on top of it since then, with a massive spike in views recently. The main stories and videos driving this will be rounded up as usual in our top 10s at the very end of the post, but it’s safe to already say one zombie shooting game was key there

Sadly, the end of the year has been shadowed somewhat by the shock, sudden passing of one of our much-loved former writers, Nick Thorpe (HeavyElectricity), who contributed to the website from 2008-2013. We have had a few contributors go off-grid and disappear from online spaces, however Nick is the first Arcade Hero to leave us for good. We already honored him in a special post on the day the horrible news was announced earlier in December, but we shall dedicate this one to his memory too. RIP.

Business Talk

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a lot of good news on the location operations front this year, following a trend since 2022 of year-on-year declines for myself at Arcade Galactic – and numerous others. To be fair, in the discussions I’ve been seeing about this on places where operators congregate like Facebook groups, some have said that they had a better year than ever. Kudos to them, as I wish I could share the sentiment.

The reasons can be varied depending on the location, but if we are to make some educated guesses as to why some locations have seen a continual decline, the primary culprit is inflation. This is a subject that’s been a major hurdle since 2021, and while the numbers show that it has slowed down this year, it is still present as opposed to deflation. Every consumer feels that, and there are breaking points for everyone, where entertainment takes a back seat first to a tight budget. While some economists might scream about deflation being utter doom, they don’t always have a perfect batting record to treat their assessments and opinions as some some kind of unassailable, holy canon. I’d much rather be paying prices that I was back in 2019 than today, and I’m sure that most consumers would be happy with the same.

But, there’s little that we can do about that, other than adapt. What hasn’t helped this year either has been the emergence of harsher tariffs, which have been an issue for some out there. Fortunately on my end, I don’t have a stream of prize redemption product to maintain, and only my air hockey table came out of China, so I can’t point at them for anything significant as to a positive or negative on my bottom line.

I did at least make a few new game pick-ups this year, unlike 2024 where I grabbed almost nothing. Those additions were Jitsu Squad Feat. Samurai Pizza Cats, Omen of Sorrow: Arising Chaos, & P-47 Aces: Mk. II (all for the exA-Arcadia); a Premium Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye by Stern Pinball, and a Funky Beats air hockey table by Elaut USA. Though most have been fine, I have been annoyed with the last of those, as the settings in the manual are all wrong and after having the table for around three months, I still haven’t gotten an answer on that (there appears to be no setting for “reach # of goals to end game”, it uses a bizarre “difference of # goals” setting instead, which I’ve never seen a table do before).

As well as that, I’ve had a not insignificant number of games experience major breakdowns this year, several of which are still a problem at the time of writing this: Minecraft Dungeons Arcade, Big Buck Hunter Reloaded, Blazing Angels, World Tour Foosball, both Time Crisis II & 3, The Addams Family pinball, Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, and Metal Slug 6 are all currently experiencing game-breaking issues. Big Buck has been particularly egregious – the PC for it died and I found a working replacement on eBay, but then neither gun worked. Both got replaced in October, and yet… they are already non-functional (one only works when it wants to, and for the other, the trigger switch is simply broken altogether).

It really sucks to spend around $1500 on a game only for it to break down this fast, and tech support just figures “ah, guns break”. I’ve owned Big Buck since I opened and I’ve never had it break down like this in my entire time operating. I was having numerous gun issues before, and with a new PC they are the same, which tells me it’s got to be something else (I/O board perhaps). Warranties in this industry are sad jokes (30 days for most parts), so I’m just required to keep spending coin on repairs, then business is slow on top of that, which just makes it more difficult. All of these compound on each other in a spiral – the more broken games you have, the less you’ll make from that alone, then the bad impressions it leaves with visitors.

I also had a local operator bring in his imported Maimai Finale, as there is an appetite for that game. But it hasn’t worked since he brought it in, which is also frustrating; albeit less so than the Big Buck, since it’s not my machine. Still, the monitor on one side doesn’t work, and even if it did, the machine refuses to take coins (I’ve tried several different coin switches – they drop through, but it doesn’t trigger the switch).

Worse than all the game breakages, as I’m in a mall location and there’s a big FEC down the hall (which moved in at the end of 2019, and supposedly wasn’t going to impact business – but now definitely has), it makes marketing extremely difficult. I do what I can, but I’m mostly at the mercy of who steps foot into the building, as opposed to drawing people in through my efforts. We’ve constantly had issues with people conflating “the arcade at the mall” with the FEC that has a giant sign on the outside, instead of us on the inside. The mall management has long used the metric “cars on the property” to claim things are great, but that’s pointless to me, as it counts a couple dozen businesses outside of the mall (including a very busy Costco) as a part of it. Their vehicle/foot traffic rarely sets foot inside the mall itself where I am.

As such, I have begun efforts in earnest to find a location elsewhere. There are some promising sites, but then the rents are several times higher than what I pay now, and there are big expenses involved with signing a contract on another location (including the hiring of an attorney, location improvements to get up to code, moving expenses, etc). So I have been hesitant to pull the trigger on anything so far. I am considering doing some crowdfunding to help, but I’m not usually one to ask for donations. I need to look a little more into how to do that properly if I was to go for it, but there is also another possibility that has popped up, in which I’ve been chatting with someone who could help regarding the arcade’s future.

If the latter happens, it has the potential to really change and move things forward. If it doesn’t work out, that will be okay, and I’ll finish mulling my options before too long. Regardless, waiting for business to get better isn’t how you right a ship, it can require big risks. It is just a matter of deciding which are worth taking.

Trade Shows

The amusement trade shows of 2025 were at least generally more positive than the business outlook at some locations, seeing strong attendance and plenty of new arcade games at them that brought the action.

Every year starts off with the UK’s EAG Expo, and we had some good coverage of that as usual from Ted and Kevin Williams. That is then always followed up by Amusement Expo International out in Las Vegas, and this year’s was one of the biggest for some time, with numerous big game launches happening there. Maimai DX and Cyberpunk 2077: Turf Wars certainly got a lot of attention, but the busiest AEI booth straight off the bat was Raw Thrills and Betson’s, thanks to the world debut of Top Gun Maverick.

The summer typically represents a little bit of a lull for shows out West, but that didn’t mean they weren’t happening at all, as Bowl Expo and IAAPA Asia had some product. As well as the latter Eastern show, China’s big AAA and GTI Expos bookended the start and end of the seasons. Like last year, we got some fantastic insights into those from our half-Welsh true blue Arcade Hero, as well as lots of official media coverage through from site advertiser Wahlap, who never fail to impress with their booths at them.

Then as well as their European show each September, November means Orlando time for the main IAAPA, and 2025’s edition was a massive undertaking (one that is still ongoing with regular uploads to the AH YouTube channel). There were lots of highlights at that show, but one of the biggest was exA-Arcadia’s extensive lineup of titles, where they saved up a strong showcase after not appearing at a couple of other events this year. Their booth tour has interestingly ended up being the one with the most views too:

Now that they are all up on the site, you can find each and every post covering IAAPA here:

IAAPA 2025 Part 1 (Raw Thrills, Wahlap, Alan-1, TouchMagix, Blue Motion Games)
IAAPA 2025 Part 2 (Bandai Namco, Sega Amusements, LAI Games)
IAAPA 2025 Part 3 (exA-Arcadia, AVS Companies, JET Games)
IAAPA 2025 Part 4 (Andamiro USA, Pinball, UNIS)
IAAPA 2025 Part 5 (Amusement Source International, Coastal Amusements, Ace)
IAAPA 2025 Part 6 (Redemption, Simulators & More)

In case you missed it, Japan’s Amusement Expo also happened right before IAAPA.

New Games Releases of 2025

Overall, 2025 has been a stacked twelve months for new arcade game releases, as our page tracking them globally and upcoming video for North American releases shows (do note that these are all to the best of our knowledge). Some major examples that were supposed to launch earlier on did end up coming along a little later than expected, such as Alpha Ops VR Strike and the Western release of GoldStorm Pirates, but they came to us nonetheless, still making it one of the busiest years of recent times.

I will have the video for this up soon, but unfortunately it won’t be ready in time for this post; check back later for that. In the meantime, for the 2024 releases video, check this out:

Coming Soon in 2026

2026 already looks good for even more new arcade games, with numerous titles previewed at IAAPA recently and seen in testing over the course of the past year. Two significant examples of the latter should be coming up from Bandai Namco, whose Wangan Midnight racing game series is receiving its biggest overhaul to date in Speed Ignition, and their collaboration with Capcom on the Resident Evil 2: Dead Shot light-gun shooter has also had a ton of eyeballs on it, even before appearing at any trade show. With a little bit of luck, we could see both of these grace their booth at the next IAAPA show in November.

exA-Arcadia have also got a considerable amount of games lined up for their own platform, from recently announced titles such as Toxic Crusaders and Baki Hanma to some long-awaited holy grails like The Fallen Angels Revenge. Many more are still to come this year too, so expect further reveals of fighters and shooters from them at 2026’s EVO Japan and ShooterFes, as well as their return to Amusement Expo. From the sounds of things they are looking to unveil a new, as-yet-unannounced game based upon another major anime IP following the recent Hunter X Hunter Nen X Impact, which should grab some attention.

Plenty of other surprises should be be in store from the other big companies on the scene too, including an as yet unannounced major new game from Raw Thrills and Play Mechanix. There was some low-key talk about this surrounding IAAPA, as it will apparently have some sort of revolutionary new inhouse graphics engine from PM, but little else is known besides that. Hopefully we’ll get to learn more about it and further upcoming titles from other companies at the next Amusement Expo in Las Vegas…

Location Watch

It’s been a decent year for one of our mainstay series of posts, Location Watch, which look at all the new arcades opening out there. 2025 kicked off with a special guest post looking at the locations found at Aeon Malls in Japan, and since then we have had most regular LWs go out bi-monthly (it would be great if we could still do them monthly, but it’s less often that enough can be found to justify it now). Nonetheless, this set of posts is proof beyond doubt there are plenty of new arcade locations to go around.

For all the Location Watch posts we made this year:

Arcade History

In terms of arcade history happenings during 2025, there’s been several to take note of. Just this month, we had the uncovering of the prototype for Atari’s Jammin’, marking one of the first unreleased games we’ve had turn up in some time, and the year started off with us commemorating the arcade anniversaries for 1975, 1985, and 2000. Some of the most significant names in the industry had big birthdays too this year, from Sega and Namco turning 65 and 70, respectively, to Pac-Man celebrating his 45th.

Then just recently on the site, the biggest thing to happen in this space was the launch of the Arcade Hall of Fame. For those who may have missed it, this is a special area of the site dedicated to recognizing the most influential aspects of arcade culture, starting with the people and games from the 70s to 1985 (e.g. Yu Suzuki’s slide below here). More additions are still to come for this, including more recent titles and the most noteworthy locations from across the world; keep an eye out for those during 2026.

Also, we would like to pay our respects to the great, influential people in the world of arcades that passed away this year, as there have been some terrible losses lately. As well as losing someone who was once one of our own in Nick, recent months have similarly seen the sad passing of Sega Amusements’ Paul Williams and others. Though no longer with us, they will go down in arcade history for years to come.

3- Taking A Close Look At Resident Evil 2: Dead Shot On Test

One of the biggest stories we got to break in some time was of course the first location test for Resident Evil 2: Dead Shot, which happened out in the UK this summer. Ted ended up finding this one first, thanks to the location’s entertainment complex quietly posting about it, and then via friend of the site Toby Na Nakhorn we were also the first to bring detailed footage of the game – though it quickly blew up afterward and got covered by the mainstream gaming press, with the cabinet disappearing soon after. Still, we received plenty of views for our coverage (and continue to over on YouTube from the recent US test)…

2- Sega Details More On Maimai DX USA Release

The official US rollout of Maimai DX has constantly garnered attention this year, ever since the confirmation of its big Stateside debut at Amusement Expo (which also appears in this top 10). Not too long ago it still seemed like a pipedream that this would ever happen, but Sega persevered and finally brought the game to the likes of Round1USA. Hopefully this is just the beginning too, as there are numerous fans who would love to also see other games like Chunithm or Initial D The Arcade officially off the back of this, as well as a European release for Maimai sooner than later… but we shall see on both.

1- Bandai Namco Reveals Wangan Midnight Speed Ignition

A series that has always been among those with the most interest from core arcade players is Bandai Namco’s Wangan Midnight racers, so it is no surprise that the announcement of its latest iteration is on top here. So far, Speed Ignition has still only been seen in Japan (where it remains yet to release), but next year will bring forth its first overseas appearance in China via Wahlap, and though a full release is not likely so soon for us, it was stated long ago that Maximum Tune 7 (which this game has evolved from) would be appearing worldwide, so watch this space on it coming to the West. Patience, young Wangan fans…

Thanks for supporting the site and channel over the past year – here’s to 2026!

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Arcade Heroes Year-In-Review 2025: Business, New Games, Top 10 Posts & More