Maximum Utmost’s favourite soundtracks of 2025

Prepare your cochlea, it’s time for the folks at Maximum Utmost to tell you what tremendous tunes you should jam in there. There are a lot of games out there, and a lot of those games have music in them. Which one is the best? Depends on who you ask, so let’s ask everybody. These are the best soundtracks the writers here at Maximum Utmost stuck in their ears in 2025.

Again, note that these games didn’t necessarily come out in 2025, but if we haven’t heard them before, they’re new to us.

Zoey Handley – Keep Driving

It’s tempting for me to plop Stray Children in this spot, especially because I love Hirofumi Taniguchi. The soundtrack is excellent, and I’ve been listening to it outside the game itself, which is pretty high praise. However, it’s hard to match the perfect interplay of game and music that Keep Driving attains.

It’s worth noting that Keep Driving doesn’t really have an original score. Instead, it allows you to mix a playlist from a handful of obscure artists, largely from Scandinavia. The picks are absolutely perfect for the road trip aesthetic, and the hairs still stand up when I think of the car accelerating with Westkust firing up on the stereo. Just beautiful.

Daniel Sanford – Hotline Miami 2

While I believe that a soundtrack can enhance a game (or movie or TV show) to go from an A to an A+, to me, a truly excellent soundtrack can also stand on its own merits independent of the original media in question for which that music was originally made. I didn’t get very far in Hotline Miami 2 this year… in fact, I tapped out after the 1^st level. But I tracked down the soundtrack, and it is an effective collection of haunting electronica that evokes the “Miami in the ’80s” vibe that the game is going for while also wearing the anachronisms of the collective of producers on its sleeves.

Could these songs have been heard playing from a ghetto blaster as a murder squad arrives at an apartment to kill everyone inside, sometime in the mid 80s? No, comparing them to then-contemporary examples from Grand Master Flash or Kraftwerk, these sound too modern. But does it feel like they could fit right in? Absolutely.

Jonathan Holmes – Delta Rune 3+4

I haven’t played Deltarune Chapter 3 & 4. I probably never will, due in large part to my unique relationship with the Undertale/Deltarune series, and it’s creator, Toby Fox. He strikes a chord with me, so much so that I sometimes start rambling about how it feels like he drunkenly wrote a video game that he had nothing to do with.

I both deeply relate with Toby Fox, and see him as sort of a snob who doesn’t care that much about anyone out of his selective in-group. That’s in part because, before he became something of an industry celebrity, I invited him to be on Sup Holmes, a live stream talk show for game developers I used to do. At the last minute, he canceled being on the show, because he would rather watch YouTube videos with his brother. I get that he was probably feeling shy, and maybe had a last minute change of heart about ever showing his face to the public, but that’s not what he said. Instead, what he did led me to feel like he didn’t give a crap about me and the people who liked Sup Holmes, as I had to hustle to either find a new guest or just cancel that episode, because as he put it, he’d rather do something admittedly fun, but assumedly commonplace, as watching YouTube with a sibling. 

After that, I ended up helping arrange an interview with Toby for various print publications, like A Profound Waste of Time and Lock-On. I even made an animated gif of R2-D2 and EarthBound creator Shigisato Itoi saying, “Help me Toby-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope,” for him, which he said made him laugh, So I obviously think the guy is amazing. But after he snubbed me that one time, I can’t play his games without feeling that snubbed-and-butthurt feeling again. As a 49-year-old father of 2, it’s not something I’m proud to admit, but it’s true – when I play Toby Fox’s games, instead of just vibing on the underdog/outside fun, I picture him and his friends gassing each other up about how they’re creating something really cool, something too cool for me and my dang talk show. And that’s my loss. 

But for whatever reason, good news is that doesn’t happen when I listen to his music. The only thing I think about then is how good it sounds, and how he likely sequestered himself alone in a room to make those good sounds, digging into his own brain to try to find something new to share with the world. I deeply relate with him on that process. In fact, I’m engaging with it right (or should I say “write”) now, as I type up this thing that I am typing. 

In short, I really like the Deltarune Chapter 3 & 4 soundtrack, so much so that it helped me power through the butthurt (do people say that anymore?) I have pointed towards its creator. So next time you listen to it, picture my bruised ass aimed at Toby Fox’s face, and my ass saying “Thank You for soothing this savage beast.” Because that’s what’s happening. 

Patrick Hancock – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

A lot of things will stick with me from my time with Expedition 33, but at the forefront is its incredible orchestral soundtrack. Many have heard the story by now, but the idea that Lorien Testard, the composer for the game, was found on an indie game forum after posting a link to his composition on SoundCloud is absurd to me. I think it speaks to just how talented so many people are. Just the other day, as I stood around at an all-day track and field meet, I noticed one of my athletes drawing in their notebook; I walked over, and my jaw hit the floor hard. This was some of the best and seemingly effortless art I had ever seen, just plopped away in a single athlete’s notebook in an arena of thousands. So many people have so much talent, and I hope everyone’s talent brings them joy, happiness, and if they want it, a career.

Anyway, back to Expedition 33. I’ve blasted Monoco’s theme song countless times for my son, who loves to dance to it. I’ve watched reaction after reaction video of people experiencing the absolute banger that plays during a certain boss fight towards the end of Act 2. And what about the track that plays at the White Sands location, even though there isn’t anything else there? Gah, I could gush about the music here forever, but the best recommendation would be to experience it yourself if you haven’t.