Welcome to the 2025 season of The Deer Critics League! I plan on doing these monthly newsletters again like I did last year, so hopefully they weren’t completely devoid of value to you.

To start, I’d like to remind the group what Fantasy Critic thought about our initial draft choices via their “Points (Projected)” category, as well as which games we each drafted in the 1^st round:

Round 1 Draft Choices:

1. Bearded Brethren – Grand Theft Auto VI
2. Iota Strain – Fable
3. PixelPioneer Studios – Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
4. Dougsvest Digital – Unannounced Mainline 3D Mario Platformer
5. Crystal Cross Games – Ghost of Yotei
6. Suladin Software Ltd – Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
7. Ranch Walker – Elden Ring: Nightreign
8. Frozen Headlights Studios – Untitled Next Mario Kart (Switch 2)
9. Agon Analytics – Avowed

We have a long way to go before we can see how accurate Fantasy Critics’ algorithms are, but at least we can remember what the website thought about our initial draft choices. As for the rest of January, we were privy to a lot of action! There were a handful of early releases (7 total), and 1 game has already been cancelled and will no longer be released this year. These are the games that were released in January:

• Donkey Kong Country Returns HD – Ranch Walker (7.3 pts)
• Blade Chimera – Crystal Cross Games (11.9 pts)
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins – Ranch Walker (10.8 pts)
• Eternal Strands – Crystal Cross Games (5.3 pts)
• Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter – PixelPioneer Studios (8.4 pts)
• Sniper Elite: Resistance – Crystal Cross Games (3.7 pts)
• Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector – Iota Strain (16.1 pts)

And after 31 days of competition, these are the League Standings thus far:

The most successful game of the month belongs to Iota Strain (Luke) and Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector (16.1 pts)! Luke took an educated risk on his 2^nd round draft pick and was counting on this sequel to a well-received indie game to deliver a solid score, and not only was it able to do that, but it reviewed even better than the original. Good job, Luke!

This month also saw Crystal Cross Games (Eddie) release 3 games into the wild: Blade Chimera (11.9 pts), Eternal Strands (5.3 pts) and Sniper Elite: Resistance (3.8 pts). Blade Chimera passed the Castellanos test by getting Eddie a solid 11.9 points! Each successive game has had softer review scores than the previous game, but the year is still early, and I know that February will be starting off with a promising release for Crystal Cross Games in Rift of the NecroDancer on February 5^th. Look forward to that!

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Next, I would like to look ahead to next month and the full slate of games that are scheduled to release. There are 7 more games total that will come out (with the recent delay of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows) and a lot of these games are promising to be “heavy hitters”.  Here’s the list:

• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II – PixelPioneer Studios (Feb 4^th)
• Rift of the NecroDancer – Crystal Cross Games (Feb 5^th)
• Sid Meier’s Civilization VII – Agon Analytics (Feb 11^th)
• Lost Records: Bloom & Rage – Saludin Softward Ltd (Feb 18^th)
• Avowed – Agon Analytics (Feb 18^th)
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii – Crystal Cross Games (Feb 21^st)
• Monster Hunter Wilds – Frozen Headlights Studios (Feb 28^th)

I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of Agon Analytics’ (Elizabeth a.k.a. Leiuna) February games, as her 1^st and 2^nd Round picks will be debuting in the month. Both Avowed and Sid Meier’s Civilization VII are games that would be expected by many to score well into the 80s and above.

Frozen Headlight Studios (Nate) also has an important game coming out in February with Monster Hunter Wilds.  The much anticipated, Next-Generation, follow up to “Monster Hunter World”, MH: Wilds is aiming to grow the scope of what a Monster Hunter game can be. I’m eager to see how well this game performs with the reviewers.

A couple of other big titles to be released this month are Kingdom Come: Deliverance II from PixelPioneer Studios (Alex), and Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii from Crystal Cross Games (Eddie). These were both Eddie’s and Alex’s 2^nd Round draft picks and are “expected” to score very well. Just how well they score is what I’m most curious about as I’m sure these will both be well-liked and enjoyed games this year.

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Okay! There is just one more thing that I wanted to mention in this month’s newsletter.  I’m not sure if you’ve noticed the new link on the “The Deer Critics” League page, but there is a new section labelled, “All-Time League Stats”. This is an INCREDIBLE new addition to the https://FantasyCritic.games website. It’s basically a much more appealing version of the Yearly & Quarterly cumulative stats that I would compile for us, but instead of just including the current season, it has cumulative information from every season of ‘The Deer Critics’ League thus far! You all have to check it out when you have time.  Here’s a screenshot of the top of the page, where it can be found:

There are so many good things to look at – Player Stats, Highest Scoring Game, Lowest Scoring Game, Sleeper Factor, etc. The one stat I like to look at the most though has got to be, Individual Year Stats because my points record of “128.73” from the 2021 season still stands strong! (Apparently, Micah wasn’t able to overtake me after all and he sits at #2…)

Alright. Until next month!

Take care & God Bless,

Alex C.