Given that we, fairly recently, got Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, we, frankly, actually have quite a few interesting giants to choose from now. But in terms of the standard "True Giants," we're looking at the Monster Manual's versions.
I will say, if you were hoping for these to get the same treatment as creatures like Centaurs, Satyrs, Merfolk, Aarakocra, and the like, which went from a single stat block to two, the only real example I think you get is for the Cyclops, which of course is not in that "true giant" category.
So, we're still looking at just a single Hill Giant, Stone Giant, Frost Giant, Fire Giant, Cloud Giant, and Storm Giant.
But how do they look?
The big problem with the 2014 versions is that basically all of them, except perhaps once you got to Cloud and Storm Giants, more or less were just big sacks of hit points and damage, without much going on (except perhaps some damage immunities). The hope for 2025 is that these giants start to feel more distinct from one another with unique abilities. So let's go up the Ordning.
Hill Giants:
There was always a bit of a problem here in that Hill Giants, Trolls, and Cyclopes were all pretty similar. Hill Giants also, I believe, were the only Large sized "true" giant in 2014.
The new version is Huge, like the others. It's still pretty simple, but both of its attacks, whether it's "Tree Club" or "Trash Lob" cause conditions, knocking foes prone with the Tree Club or Poisoning the target until the end of its next turn with the Trash Lob.
That's about it, though I think it's maybe just enough to work. Of all Giants, Hill Giants are really the "generic giant." Frankly, the change I like the best is their size - a this really helps distinguish them from an Ogre or something like that. These are truly big dudes.
Stone Giant:
Stone Giants do have a unique ability, but I'm actually a bit bummed at its limitations. It has a Deflect Missiles reaction, with a Recharge of 5-6. I have two issues with this: the first is that I don't really feel like it's totally flavorful to have Stone Giants be quasi-Monks. The second issue I have with it is that this is worse than what the Monks got in the new PHB, which upgraded Deflect Missiles to Deflect Attacks, working on melee hits.
I honestly might just homebrew change this to Deflect Attacks, and thus reflect rather than some kind of martial arts ability instead a kind of stone-like hardening of their bodies (actually not entirely unlike the Stone Goliaths' ability, Stone's Endurance.)
I might have liked instead some kind of magic that reflects the different way the Stone Giants see the world. No longer the "Underdark Giants," the notion that they all think of the surface world as a waking dream is downplayed (though still mentioned for Stone Giants who live underground,) but I think the Stone Giant role as mystical artisans could be better reflected here.
Frost Giant:
Frost Giants are the massive vikings of Giantkind, and the new version reflects this fairly well. Their attacks deal additional Cold damage, which is welcome - their Great Bows also slow targets. But the main unique ability is War Cry, a 5-6 Recharge bonus action, which grants either the giant or one of its allies (anywhere within vision or earshot, and I bet a Frost Giant can yell over a very long distance) 16 average temp HP plus advantage on attack rolls.
This ability feels deeply in-tune with the Frost Giant's general characterization as a raider and warrior, and in high-level fights, could be a cool way for them to support a powerful boss monster as an elite minion.
So yeah, this is the first one I really unequivocally like.
Fire Giant:
Sadly, the Fire Giant is a little less inspired. They add some fire damage to their attacks, which is fine. Mainly, they have a new ranged attack called Hammer Throw, which will also knock a target 15 feet back and grant them disadvantage on their next attack roll.
That's fine, and could be quite dangerous in a fire giant forge with a bunch of molten metal flowing around. But I feel like there's something they could do more with the Fire Giants' capacity for blacksmithing.
Cloud Giant:
This was already a bit more complex in 2014, but the obvious fun thing here that is very thematic (and links with their Goliath cousins) is that they can cast Misty Step as a bonus action at will. They also have a ranged attack that can Incapacitate a target on a hit, as well as a melee attack that jus thits hard with bludgeoning and thunder damage. Their spells are mainly utility-based, though they can swap out an attack for Fog Cloud, which could be a way to screw with ranged characters. They do have Telekinesis once a day, which could be truly deadly in the flying castles they tend to live in, though they only have a +3 to their spellcasting ability, Charisma.
They can fly, though they only fly at half speed compared to their walking speed.
Storm Giant:
This was already the most complex stat block among the 2014 Giants, with spellcasting abilities. Their melee ability hits quite hard and has a huge to-hit bonus for their CR with +14. Their ranged attack does less damage but also blinds and deafens. However, their big move is Lightning Storm, which is a 5-6 recharge ability that creates a cylinder (only 10-foot radius) that deals 55 average lightning damage on a failed DC 18 Dex save, or half on a success. That's serious damage and a pretty high DC, though I think it might be tricky to land it on many targets.
So, overall, these are improvements over the 2014 Giants generally speaking, but I kind of wish we got more. I'd highly recommend looking at the additional Giants in MPMM and especially Bigby's if you want a real giant adventure, but these can very easily make up your rank-and-file of each giant type.
One of the persistent themes for Giants is their place in the world. I've typically imagined them as the first quasi-humanoids to arrive in the material plane. This partially explains their historical animosity with dragons, given dragons' role as the original masters of the prime material plane.
Many real-world mythologies imagine humanity's ancestors as being giants, or at least of massive stature. I wonder if this is some kind of subconscious consequence of the fact that we tend to remember our parents or the people who raised us when they were so much larger than us. I have a 5-month-old nephew who is, of course, tiny compared to me, and I'm sure that for the next several years when he sees me, he'll think I'm enormous, but if he matches his dad's height, one day he'll be looking down at me (I'm still on the tall size, just shy of 6 feet, and not at all bitter about that, but his dad is a couple inches taller).
Thus, 15-20-foot tall giants who nonetheless look more or less like humans feel like they might have some ties to humanity. In these myths, the diminished size of modern humans is often some kind of sign of being more distant from the original intents of the gods, but you could also imagine giants as representing a kind of "flawed first draft." D&D worlds often have several archaeological strata of fallen civilizations, and I think Giant civilizations are often good choices for the very oldest of them (depending on the degree to which dragons built things up). (Actually, if you want to play up the cosmic horror stuff, there might be older structures built by the likes of Aboleths and Mind Flayers.)
That, though, then raises the question of what the still-living giants represent. Are they a people who have been slowly dying out for thousands of years? Does this tinge everything around Giants with a hint of tragedy? Or is there an implicit threat that the Giants are just waiting to take back what they consider their world?
As an alternative, I can also see a society that just incorporates Giants into it. Maybe there's a district in your major cities where things are built three times bigger so that the Giants can live there?
I'm inclined to have Giants show up less often to make a bigger impact, their palaces and citadels in places the smallfolk have either forgotten or never knew about.
None of the Giants presented here are going to make a great campaign boss - none of them are even legendary. Again, I'd go outside of the Monster Manual for such things. Scions of the various giant gods are built to be truly epic encounters, counting as Titans (love me some titans) and even functioning as two-part encounters, with an elemental cradle holding the nascent scion and defending it, birthing the scion for the even-tougher phase two when the elemental is destroyed.
Still, any of these could make for a random encounter while traveling the wilderness, and each could make for an interesting NPC.
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