This year’s Metacritic Game Publisher Rankings are out, and they hold a few surprises. For example, I didn’t expect Square Enix to be at the top. I also didn’t expect Nintendo to be outside the top 10, or that both Ubisoft and Xbox would beat out the Switch 2 maker, as well as PlayStation.
Review aggregation website Metacritic has released its annual ranking of video game publishers. As before, this list looks at how many good, great, and bad games every non-mobile game publisher launched in 2025, and using some math, creates a ranked list from worst to best, with the top publishers being those that released a lot of critically praised video games. This year’s list contains 28 publishers. The full list contains some publishers you might not even be aware of, so here’s the more interesting top 12:
- Square Enix – 9 releases, 100% good or great
- Gamirror Games – 5 releases, 100% good or great
- Capcom – 7 releases, 93% good or great
- Thunderful – 6 releases, 90% good or great
- Xbox – 21 releases, 81% good or great
- Take-Two Interactive – 7 releases, 80% good or great
- Sega – 17 releases, 84% good or great
- EA – 12 releases, 79% good or great
- Dotemu – 8 releases, 76% good or great
- Raw Fury – 9 releases, 77% good or great
- Ubisoft – 8 releases, 81% good or great
- Nintendo – 18 releases, 68% good or great
This list is a wild ride from the top to the bottom. Resident Evil Requiem publisher Capcom being in the top three doesn’t shock me, as it feels like the publisher has been on a fantastic run for a few years now and shows no sign of slowing down. Xbox also doesn’t surprise me because Metacritic is rolling Activision, Blizzard, and Bethesda titles into the math. Plus, Forza Horizon 5 launching on PS5 helped.
Square Enix at the top is surprising to me, though. It may seem obvious looking back at 2025, but I think a lot of people missed how it was quietly and consistently pushing out games and ports that critics loved last year. At least I wasn’t really paying close attention to just how consistent it was in 2025. In the 16 years that Metacritic has been doing publisher rankings, this is the first time Square Enix has topped the list.
Perhaps the most interesting bits of data are about Sony and Nintendo. The Mario maker missed the top 10 despite pumping out games and launching the Switch 2. Meanwhile, PlayStation was even further behind at 21 out of 28. Damn. Even worse for Sony, its highest-ranked game in 2025 based on Metacritic’s aggregation was The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered…on PC. Ouch. Death Stranding 2 and Yotei did well on MC, but weren’t able to raise the publisher’s ranking due to duds like Lost Soul Aside and a general lack of big, highly-rated new games. Perhaps betting it all on live-service games wasn’t a great strategy after all?
Oh, and if you are curious about past winners, here’s that list:
2025: Sega
2024: Capcom
2023: Sony
2022: Microsoft
2021: Sega
2020: 505 Games
2019: Capcom
2018: Bethesda Softworks
2017: Electronic Arts
2016: Sega
2015: Nintendo
2014: Take-Two Interactive
2013: Electronic Arts
2012: Microsoft
2011: Take-Two Interactive