2025’s Best‑Reviewed Gaming Publishers Aren’t At All Who You’d Expect

In the world of gaming, legacy publishers have some of the greatest advantages when it comes to launching new games. Thanks to their established histories and deep libraries of well-known IP, companies like Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have been able to deliver some of the biggest releases of any given year. That doesn’t necessarily mean every year is a winner for them, however.

Websites like Metacritic have made a habit of expanding and analyzing the releases of every major publisher each year and taking note of how they compare to one another. For 2025, that meant good news for companies like Square Enix and Capcom, but highlighted some of the challenges faced by the likes of Nintendo and Sony. Especially as those two confront new competitors to the console space, their places in the Metacritic rankings highlight the difficulties that could be lying ahead for both.

Square Enix Dominated 2025’s Publisher Rankings

Metacritic has released its Game Publisher Rankings for 2025, which breaks down the cumulative scores of every non-mobile game released by some of the industry’s biggest companies every year. The rankings are determined by their combined review scores, highlighting which companies had the most releases and which ones had critical responses that could be considered “good or great.” At the top of the list is Square Enix, which had 9 formal releases with an overall 100% rate of critically acclaimed games. The publisher’s remastered or remake versions of SaGa Frontier 2, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Dragon Quest all did well with critics, with Octopath Traveler 0 helping cement a killer year for the publisher. They were followed closely by Gamirror Games, which also earned 100% good or great scores with 5 games.

Other members of the top five include Capcom (which earned 93% good or great scores across their 7 games in 2025), as well as Xbox. Despite the company’s struggles in the console market, its games division (which also includes Activision, Blizzard, and Bethesda) excelled. Two of the biggest stumbles seem to be represented by Nintendo and Sony, however. While Nintendo had the Switch 2 and some pretty big titles to go with that launch, their overall release schedule for 2025 saw 18 releases that accrued a total of 68% good or great review scores. PlayStation suffered even worse, with Sony coming in at 21st out of 28 developers. While the publisher had some well-received titles like Death Stranding 2, the struggles of other games like Lost Soul Aside undercut those successes. In fact, the best-scoring game on Metacritic from Sony was The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered for the PC. Square Enix’s massive success, alongside some great smaller companies like Gamirror Games, highlights how the industry’s

Why Sony And Nintendo’s Struggles Are Worrying For Fans

In the modern game market, cross-platform play and a greater emphasis on PC gaming have led to a lot of changes. For Nintendo and Sony, part of that has been a doubling down on exclusives as a selling point. Nintendo has long been bolstered by their strong in-house library of games. While Sony was releasing PC ports of some of their games, the publisher has changed course and announced that they’ll be moving forward with PlayStation-exclusive titles. That means the pressure is on for those games to perform well with players and critics alike, as they become a major selling point for both over the competition — which could soon include disruptive forces like the Steam Machine from Valve.

With that in mind, the standing of both companies in Metacritic’s Publisher Rankings should be a very big wake-up call. While both companies had solid games in 2025, it’s clear that they have some ground to make up for if they want to catch up with studios like Square Enix and Capcom, who are able to benefit from having cross-platform releases. The fact that neither of them was able to maintain a spot in the top ten is also worrying, as it highlights the difficulty in the current envrioment to turn a new title into a big hit. This comes as the Switch 2’s production numbers have slowed, further highlighting the struggles that some of the industry’s foundational forces have been facing. 2026 could be a good chance for both companies to address these issues — and it may be their best, last chance to underscore why they’ve been dominant forces in the industry for so long.