Take a peek at this year’s video game release calendar and you can spot a few 2025 trends starting to form. We’re seeing the return of the kart racer thanks to Mario Kart World, with Sonic Crossworlds and Kirby Air Riders following close behind. Soccer is having a moment thanks to Despelote and Rematch, the year’s best double feature. Small co-op games like Peak are having a major moment (one that’s given rise to the unfortunate genre descriptor “friendslop”). But my favorite theme emerging throughout 2025 is more elegant than any of those: hole.
Yes, it’s a big year for hole. You know, the kind you dig. What did you think I meant?
This year has already brought us three great games about digging: A Game About Digging a Hole, Dig Dig Dino!, and Donkey Kong Bananza. That trio opens the doors for a groundbreaking moment that we haven’t seen since Mr. Driller vanished somewhere below the crust of the Earth. It’s a year for the Dig Dug heads who have long dreamed of dig-em-ups becoming as popular as first-person shooters and deckbuilding roguelikes about trains (okay, there’s only two games like that out this year, but it’s weird that it happened twice).
I started to notice the rise of the hole digging game back in February when the aptly named A Game About Digging a Hole launched on Steam. The $5 game that reveals its entire hand in its title was a smash hit for its scale (and it is poised to get bigger thanks to a newly announced mobile port coming July 31), triggering a wave of copycats who wanted in on the action. It was clear that players were sucked in by the act of putting shovel to dirt in the same way that the mundane chores of Powerwash Simulator captivated audiences. Did that unlock a primal urge in players, or was A Game About Digging a Hole’s success more about its incremental progression?
I’d get an answer to that recently when the Playdate’s second season began and gave me Dig Dig Dino! The bite-sized archelogy game is all about digging through layers of Earth to find hidden dinosaur bones. It has the same appeal as A Game About Digging a Hole, but in the context of a breezy puzzle game that I devoured in one sitting. I just couldn’t stop digging.
It turns out that both of those games were opening acts for 2025’s true headliner: Donkey Kong Bananza. There’s plenty to praise about Nintendo’s latest, from its collect-a-thon structure to Donkey Kong’s enormous buns. But I’ve once again found that what’s really clicking with me is that it’s the highest-budget hole-digging game ever produced. The inherent joy of Bananaza simply comes from pounding any piece of the environment and creating a giant tunnel. It doesn’t matter if it will actually lead to a Banandium Gem or a rare fossil; I just feel compelled to go as deep as I can in each new Sublayer.
In retrospect, it’s a little surprising that it’s taken so long for digging to become a central game mechanic on par with jumping. It’s a formative childhood action. We shovel our way to the bottom of a sandbox. We turn beaches into excavation sites. It was even baked into my education, as I once had to create and then bury a time capsule. I still dream of the day that some alien will joyfully dig that up, long after the human race succumbs to impending heat death. The act of digging is inherently satisfying (psychologists theorize that it can be tied to our desire for a controlled environment), but perhaps Bananza is as instantly beloved as it is because it triggers some warm nostalgia. You get a drip of serotonin with each punch.
I for one hope that this is only the start of a moment for holes. I want to see a wave of copycats flood the market, just as every open-world game tried to follow Breath of the Wild’s playbook for years after its release. I have shot enough guns, jumped on enough turtles, and carried enough packages across the Australian wilderness on a floating cargo carrier while wielding a guitar gun. The shovel is mightier than the sword, I say. Lay down your arms, countrymen, and embrace hole.
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