Last year was a triumphant one for video games, not only in terms of sales but also content, between revamps of older favorites like Grand Theft Auto V and The Last of Us; long-awaited sequels to Bayonetta and Super Smash Bros.; and emerging new favorites like Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

That said, 2015’s gaming year looks to be even bigger, with the arrival of several highly anticipated projects, as well as new ones like The Order: 1886 and Bloodborne that could turn a profit, along with a few heads.

Here now are some studios to keep an eye on for this year, as they’re likely to end up the real winners of the game industry once 2015 is finished:

Naughty Dog Studios

Naughty Dog has been around for over 30 years now, although this year could be its biggest yet with the arrival of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End on PlayStation 4. First featured last year at the PlayStation Experience, the game truly impressed with over 15 minutes of gameplay footage. No doubt this game will be a real star as the year goes on, and yet another notch in Naughty Dog’s impressive library of titles.

Yacht Club Games

This studio made an impressive debut last year with its KickStarter-funded old-school platformer Shovel Knight, a game that has racked up its fair share of Game of the Year awards. However, 2015 should give the studio even more exposure, as the game will be headed to PlayStation platforms very soon – complete with an appearance by Kratos from the God of War series. This will help push the game’s sales even further, and perhaps even inspire the team to work on a sequel. We can, ahem, dig it.

Black Tusk Studios

Even though we’re not likely to see the release of a new Gears of War title this year, Microsoft will probably make some sort of announcement revolving the latest title in the third-person action series, which has been quite popular on the Xbox 360 platform. This will give a new studio, Black Tusk Studios, the chance to show what it can do with the franchise, backed by the power of Microsoft’s Xbox One console. Who knows – we may even see something along the lines of Halo, with an HD collection of the previous games first, followed by an entirely new release.

Rocksteady Studios

Rocksteady has already made a name for itself by producing two of the best comic book-licensed games ever made, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. This year, it’ll wrap up the Dark Knight saga in style with the release of Batman: Arkham Knight, which arrives for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC this June. The title will no doubt impress fans of the Bat, with the ability to cruise around town in the Batmobile or lay waste to enemies with good old-fashioned survival tactics and combat. Plus, there’s the foreboding Arkham Knight, a foe that Batman himself may have trouble defeating. This will no doubt be a huge release this year…

Techland

The creators of the Dead Island series are no strangers to fast-paced zombie action, but this month’s release of Dying Light looks to take that up a few notches, with fast-paced action mixed with parkour antics to make the genre even more stylish. Light also includes some innovative create-your-own weaponry tactics, so players can experiment with different tools to take out their adversaries, alive or dead. This could be one of the year’s bigger gaming surprises – and a huge push forward for this development team.

CD Projekt Red

A small studio located in Warsaw, CD Projekt Red has been making slow but steady progress in the game industry with its adventurous Witcher games, including The Witcher 2, which made an impressive impact on both PC and Xbox 360. However, with the forthcoming The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, the team looks to take things to a new level, with an even bigger world to explore, a wide assortment of weaponry, and plenty of role-playing tactics and combat that audiences will thoroughly enjoy. It’ll certainly be time to Hunt when The Witcher III arrives this May for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

NetherRealm Studios

Finally, the team that brought the Mortal Kombat series to life (only to have its combatants slaughter each other in bloody fights) has returned, taking the series into the near future with a number of new and returning combatants. The visual style in Mortal Kombat X looks superb, even deeper than the previous release in the series, and the gameplay features more variety, with a number of styles to choose from for each combatant. Even if the new fatalities may be tough to stomach (they’re not for the squeamish), Mortal Kombat X will no doubt push NetherRealm to new heights when it arrives this April. Fight!