2025 Has Been the Weirdest Year for Gaming and Were Not Even Done Yet
I keep trying to make sense of 2025 and I cant. Nothing has gone the way anyone expected. The assumptions weve all had about gaming for years are just. Wrong now apparently.
Call of Duty flopped. Actually flopped. 63% behind Battlefield in Europe. Lowest user scores in franchise history. AI art controversy. A campaign you cant pause. The annual sales juggernaut that everyone assumed was untouchable finally stumbled and it wasnt even close.
Meanwhile Battlefield is the best selling game of the year. BATTLEFIELD. The franchise that 2042 nearly killed. Seven million copies in three days. Beating CoD. In sales. What.
Arc Raiders came out of nowhere and sold four million copies in two weeks. An extraction shooter from a studio most people knew as “the Finals devs.” 700k concurrent players. Competing with franchises that have been around for decades. New IP. New studio. Massive success.
AI is everywhere now and nobody agrees on what to do about it. Black Ops 7 has AI art. Arc Raiders has AI voice stuff. Nexons CEO said every game company is using AI. A congressman got involved. Studios are fighting about it publicly. Players are review bombing games over it. The whole industry is trying to figure out where the line is and nobody has answers.
Game Pass hit $30 a month. Switch 2 came out and immediately started dominating. FromSoftware announced a Nintendo exclusive. Europa Universalis 5 finally happened after 12 years. STALKER 2 survived an actual war and launched on PlayStation.
The Game Awards are coming up and I genuinely dont know what wins. Clair Obscur Expedition 33? Silksong finally came out and people loved it. Monster Hunter Wilds had that massive launch. Ghost of Yotei. Metroid Prime 4 in December. Its been an embarrassment of riches for actual good games.
And yet the vibes are weird. Layoffs everywhere. Studios closing. Big publishers struggling while smaller games succeed. The old rules dont seem to apply anymore. Name recognition isnt enough. Quality matters again. New things can win.
I dont know what 2026 brings. GTA6 probably? More AI arguments definitely. More uncertainty about what succeeds and what fails.
But right now in November 2025? I have more games I want to play than time to play them. The industry is chaotic and confusing and maybe a little broken. But the actual games? The things we sit down and experience? Those are pretty good actually.
Weird year. Good games. Ill take it.
