Metacritic has today released its annual Game Publisher Rankings, which covers the biggest video game publishers of 2025 and ranks them based on the overall quality of their release slate, according to critic reviews.
Out of 28 publishers eligible (they needed to have at least five games released in 2025), Nintendo sits pretty in 12th place — a vast improvement over its 2024 placement, where it achieved its lowest-ever ranking, placing 22nd.
Taking the top spot for the very first time is Square Enix, who had a pretty excellent 2025. Its best-reviewed game was the PC port of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (which is coming to Switch 2 later this year), but it's the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, and Octopath Traveler 0 that spring to mind for us. None of their releases got below a Green score, which is impressive.
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Last year's number one, Sega, slipped down to seventh, while Capcom once again made the top three, and Microsoft, Take-Two, and Dotemu also all made the top ten.
Putting the spotlight back on Nintendo, its average score is only a point higher than last year's at 77, but it released more games in 2025 (18 as opposed to 13) including Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Mario Kart World, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition and a brand-spanking-new console. It's also the only publisher to have more than one game that scored 90 or above. Thanks to Donkey Kong Bananza and two Nintendo Switch 2 Editions in Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom for being excellent.
Unfortunately, its overall average was dragged down a fair bit by two Nintendo Switch 2 exclusives: Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour and Drag x Drive. Mobile games aren't included, meaning Nintendo avoided being dragged down more by Fire Emblem Shadows, one of 2025's worst-reviewed games.
Anyway, enough about the Big N; here's the full ranking of Metacritic's 16th Game Publisher Rankings. For a breakdown on scores, games, and facts, check out Metacritic for all the juicy details:
| Ranking | Publisher |
|---|---|
| 28 | Idea Factory |
| 27 | Arc System Works |
| 26 |
Nacon/Daedalic |
| 25 |
Microids |
| 24 |
Bandai Namco |
| 23 |
Annapurna Interactive |
| 22 |
Plaion |
| 21 |
Sony |
| 20 |
Atari |
| 19 |
PQube |
| 18 |
Clear River Games |
| 17 |
Marvelous/XSEED |
| 16 |
DONTNOD Entertainment |
| 15 |
Konami |
| 14 |
Devolver Digital |
| 13 |
Koei Tecmo |
| 12 |
Nintendo |
| 11 |
Ubisoft |
| 10 |
Raw Fury |
| 9 |
Dotemu |
| 8 |
Electronic Arts |
|
7 |
Sega |
| 6 |
Take-Two Interactive |
| 5 |
Microsoft |
| 4 |
Thunderful |
| 3 |
Capcom |
| 2 |
Gamirror Games |
| 1 |
Square Enix |
What do you think of 2025's rankings? Let us know in the comments.
[source metacritic.com]
Comments 20
Beaten by Ubisoft. Daaaaamn
If you don’t release new games , there will be issues. Nintendo are resting on their laurels a little too much right now.
I was wondering how Nintendo didnt crack the top 10, with MKW, DK and the Zeldas. But of course I had completely forgotten about Drag x Drive and Welcome Tour. Silly me.
Bandai Namco and Arc System Works so low? That's very surprising. At least Koei Tecmo is quite high. Capcom deserved the 3rd place
BTW Gamirror Games on 2nd is some joke
I've genuinely never heard of Gamirror Games. Or Thunderful. Or Raw Fury.
As others have already mentioned when Nintendo Life made an article about the previous Metacritic's annual rankings, Nintendo (and also the likes of Bandai Namco etc.) tend to be lower than other publishers in these because they release more games than most of those - speaking of, Nintendo are actually quite higher this year, last time they were in 22nd!
Looks like a lot of Nintendo’s recent titles didn’t even manage to surpass the 80s mark on Metacritic, including big ones like Metroid Prime, Pokémon Legends Z-A and Kirby Air Riders.
Not a good look. Hopefully they will step up their game.
@BaldB3lper78 lol what? Nintendo has been dropping new games fairly often. Resting on laurels? You sure you don’t mean Sony? I hear more news about studios closing down from them then new games dropping.
Also this kind of ranking structure is actually more AGAINST publishers that releases a lot of games like Nintendo because all it takes is 1-2 mediocre games to tank the average and Nintendo usually does have a handful of mediocre games in their pile of good ones every year.
This rank structure benefits and caters to AAAs that release a small handful of blockbuster or an indie that drops an industry shattering game. I wouldn’t use this at all for “Nintendo needs to do better!” argument justifications lol.
Seeing Gamirror told me all I need to know about this ranking system, basically to ignore it.
@Arawn93 Yeah they should also publish a ranking system with just each publishers top 3 scoring games.
I’m happy to see Square get a win, but do they really deserve it for basically re-releasing a bunch of already excellent games? Square’s been beat up so many times that I like to see them have success, but it’s a shame they didn’t get more celebration when they made more new games. Sort of encourages the “living in the past, nostalgia gazing” we’re getting out of the industry these days. Remasters for the win forever, I guess.
Personally, I felt Nintendo had the best line-up last year of any publisher. Four Nintendo games were in my personal top 10 last year. The ire against Welcome Tour was certainly overdone, though Drag x Drive was certainly among Nintendo’s weakest first party games. Imagine if those two games were built into the Switch 2! The narrative around them both would probably be unilateral praise instead. But seriously, Bananza’s a 10, and MKW, Metroid, Z-A are all underrated 8s to me.
Honestly too, outside the Nintendo slate, last year was sort of weak across the board. Death Stranding 2 is probably the only truly essential AAA game last year that wasn’t Nintendo. For me, at least. I know others may disagree. Microsoft’s line-up was better than most too, even if I’m not sure I’d rate any of the games they released last year above 7/10.
Well, to everyone that actually cares about gaming, Nintendo is the real number one. These kind of listings are pointless.
So let me get this straight.
Let's say for a second it was movies instead of video games.
If Universal only released Jurassic World 79 and Paramount only released Scream 109 and they scored fine, just above average but Disney and Warner Bros released 10 movies each of varying scores, Universal and Paramount would be crowned far better.
How ridiculous.
Love to see Raw Fury at #10. They often publish really solid games and gaming experiences. One of my favourites outside of the bigger major publishers.
More rankings to rank ranks. I can't wait for the Top XX ranks that rank best ranks of 20XX...RANKED!
A list that doesn't herald DK: Bananza as the masterpiece it is is a trash list. Utter garbage.
This is blasphemous.
I don’t know that either of those two non-retail releases should count against their score, but I guess Nintendo should learn a lesson about their middling, digital-only games.
@Dee123
I think its not "ridiculous", per se. The data is real. The problem is people treating "average quality of output" as a more meaningful metric than it actually is, IMO. It can have some meaning, but only really when comparing publishers with similar total output per year. Otherwise you end up comparing one publisher, with enough data points to generate an actual meaningful average, versus another one who has only 1-2 data points which effectively turn things into a coin flip. When you either top the chart or don't appear at all purely on a single game, that means your actual average doesn't display from one year.
More broadly, "average" is a bad measure for consumers anyway. Why should it matter what the 'average' quality of a set of games is? You don't have to buy and play them all, or a random choice of them. You only need to buy and play the ones you actually think are good. Peak quality is far more relevant to actual consumers.
Is metacritic still even worth reading and trustworthy especially after dramas like Crimson Desert? Feels like they are going IGN route lol, its been a decade i last trusted a professional critic like these 2 and famitsu, nowadays i use either smaller journalism like this website or just following my taste despite the ratings.
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