2025 is basically over, and there were a few flops that stand out. Four, in fact, and two of them are Xbox games. One, an Activision release, and the other an Xbox Game Studios release. Nintendo and PlayStation didn’t have the strongest year either, but neither was as disappointing as Xbox, which is a recurring theme at this point. While it’s had decent years here and there, from the start of the Xbox One generation, Xbox has generally been very disappointing. 2025 doesn’t rank as Xbox’s worst year since then, far from it, but it was even farther from a great year for the company.
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What does it mean for something to be a flop? Well, it’s important to first establish that something being a flop is not a synonym for being a bad game. If a game that looks terrible with zero anticipation comes out and is terrible, that isn’t a flop; that is just a terrible game. Similarly, a decent game can actually be a flop if the anticipation was that it was going to be incredible or if the expectation was that it was going to sell gangbusters, but didn’t. When evaluating if something is a flop, the context is king.
South of Midnight
South of Midnight boasts a 77 on Metacritic, a solid score, though not the best for an Xbox Game Studios release. This doesn’t qualify it as a flop, though. What qualifies it as a flop is that nobody cared when it came out. Xbox was quick to promote that it attracted over one million players, but you would expect an Xbox Game Studios release available via Xbox Game Pass from day one of launch to at the bare minimum achieve this. This isn’t impressive and isn’t even very relevant.
What’s more telling is that the game was dead on Steam on arrival, peaking at 1,438 concurrent players. Now, the fact that it is available via Xbox Game Pass is obviously going to hinder its Steam numbers, but 1,438 is absolutely abysmal. To put into context how bad this is, one of the generation’s biggest flops, Redfall, which closed an entire Xbox/Bethesda studio as a consequence, managed a peak of 6,124 players. South of Midnight is not a bad game; it’s just a game nobody cared about. Some played it because it was free with their subscription service, but when it came time to buy it, nobody was in line. For an Xbox Game Studios release with substantial marketing behind it, it simply did not cut it.
Mindseye
Mindseye may be the biggest flop of 2025. Despite there being numerous red flags in the build-up to release, which should have squashed anticipation, there was actually tangible excitement for this release. And this was primarily because it was the debut release from Build a Rocket Boy, the studio founded by Leslie Benzies, the lead producer on the GTA series between GTA 3 to GTA 5.
In addition to this, the game had a substantial budget behind it and a AAA production that was promising if it could be realized. It was not realized, though. It is one of the worst games of the generation, as evidenced by its Metacritic range of 28-37. Despite this, it still managed double the Steam concurrent players as South of Midnight.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
Xbox’s other big flop of 2025 is Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Black Ops 7 is a great example of why context matters. How can one of the best-selling games of 2025 be a flop? Well, for one, sales were substantially down compared to Black Ops 6, let alone the best-selling installments in the series. To this end, Activision has acknowledged that it did not meet sales expectations. Making matters worse, this happened the year EA and DICE finally got their act together and put out a good Battlefield game, Battlefield 6, which has outsold Black Ops 7. This is the first time Battlefield has outsold Call of Duty.
On top of coming up considerably short commerically, it was also not received well by critics or consumers. To this end, if 2023’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III didn’t exist, it would be the lowest-rated mainline COD game to date, with its 65 on Metacritic. Meanwhile, its 1.6 user score is pitiful. The cherry on top is that it has the worst Call of Duty campaign of all time. In a vacuum, it would be difficult to call Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 a flop, but it’s an overwhelming flop when you consider the context.
FBC: Firebreak
FBC: Firebreak is a low-profile flop that flew under the radar of many but should not be forgotten given the pedigree involved; after all, Remedy Entertainment is one of the best in the business, or at least it can be. Some forget, but Remedy has produced some flops over the years in addition to its generational-defining games.
FBC: Firebreak is Remedy’s first multiplayer game, and it shows. While Remedy tried to pump life into the game by making it free with PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass at launch, it had no effect. The first-person shooter came out and was immediately irrelevant. To this end, it only achieved 1,992 peak concurrent players on Steam. This is the nail in the coffin, but it also highlights how big a flop South of Midnight was. No one would deny FBC: Firebreak was a flop, and it was free on Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus, yet attracted more players on Steam, despite also being an inferior game.
All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the conversation over on the ComicBook Forum.
