The post is a the latest iteration of the Xbox Excellence Awards, which was created last year to celebrate how players engaged with various releases on Xbox. The Store Rating category lists 2025 games with the best ratings on the Microsoft Store, with an added requirement of the title having at least 500 ratings. Player Engagements is about the average number of hours spent on a game by each player within the first six weeks of a game’s release. Daily Active Users celebrates titles, expansions or updates with the highest single-day active users throughout the year. And finally Units Sold is fairly self-explanatory.

Going down the lists, you’ll find many of the biggest releases of the year, from ARC Raiders and Battlefield 6, as well as award-winning RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Indie titles have also been well-represented, with games like Crime Scene Cleaner and Satisfactory making it into the lists. There also doesn’t seem to have been a singular genre to dominate the lists, since everything from sports games like EA Sports Madden NFL 26, to fantasy adventure life sims like Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and even fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics are well represented.

Curiously, none of the games was present in all four of the categories. At most, we got to see titles like Borderlands 4 being able to make it on to three of them: Player Engagement, Daily Active Users and Units Sold. Even ARC Raiders, which has seen quite a bit of success, is only on the Units Sold and Daily Active Users lists.

Microsoft has also emphasized that the lists represent a diverse collection of games developed by studios of varying sizes. All in all, it represents 48 unique developers based out of 13 countries, with 24 publishers having had a hand in their release. 19 of the games were self-published. “Taken as a whole, it’s an encapsulation of development on Xbox – we want gaming to reach you wherever you are, and for the teams making those games to find you from wherever they are,” wrote the company.

Full list of games:

Store Rating:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Crime Scene Cleaner
• Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dreamcore
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Final Fantasy XVI
• Lies of P: Overture
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• Little Nightmares III
• Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics
• Minami Lane
• Mullet MadJack
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 4
• Satisfactory
• Silent Hill 2
• Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Player Engagement:

• Borderlands 4
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Farm Together 2
• Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles
• Helldivers 2
• Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• NHL 26
• Rust
• Satisfactory
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Daily Active Users:

• Arc Raiders
• Avowed
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• DOOM: The Dark Ages
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fortnite
• Forza Horizon 5
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Grounded 2
• Helldivers 2
• Marvel Rivals
• Minecraft
• NBA 2K26
• Rematch
• Roblox
• Rocket League
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Units Sold:

• Arc Raiders
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• EA Sports Madden NFL 26
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Helldivers 2
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• PGA Tour 2K25
• Ready or Not
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• WWE 2K25

“Look, Rockstar Games is the locus of information about, you know, where the titles go content and marketing, and generally, we have a pretty light touch when we talk about the label’s creative activities,” said Zelnick. “At the same time, I have every reason to believe we’ll continue to support GTA Online. There’s a great community that loves it, that stays engaged. And again in this quarter, Rockstar has shown that when you deliver great additional content, despite how long [GTA Online] has been at market, people show up.”

Zelnick had shared similar sentiments about GTA Online back in February 2025, when he spoke about Take-Two Interactive’s commitment to long-running multiplayer games. He had brought up titles like 2012’s NBA 2K Online, which continued to see support even after the release of its sequel five years later.

“I’m going to speak theoretically only because I’m not going to talk about a particular project when an announcement hasn’t been made,” said Zelnick at the time. “But generally speaking, we support our properties when the consumers are involved with those titles. As an example, we launched NBA 2K Online in China, I think originally in 2012 if I’m not mistaken. And then we launched NBA 2K Online 2 in China in 2017. If I’m not mistaken. We did not sunset Online 1. They both are still in the market and they serve consumers and they’re alive and we have this massive audience.”

“So we’ve shown a willingness to support legacy titles when a community wants to be engaged with them.”

While neither Rockstar Games nor Take-Two Interactive have confirmed this yet, Grand Theft Auto 6 will also likely end up getting its own equivalent to GTA Online. While both will likely see continued development and support in the short term, the newer iteration of GTA Online will probably see more and more players jump into it to make use of the latest release’s features. In the long term, once enough players have migrated, GTA Online will most probably get shut down.

It is also worth noting that, while some of Take-Two Interactive’s releases have seen long-term support, others haven’t been so lucky. A key example of this is the WWE 2K franchise, with a new release often causing all online components of older entries to get shut down. WWE 2K24 is the latest example of this, with it being taken down from digital stores as of February 2.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is being developed for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and will be coming out on November 19 after having seen several delays. More delays might be unlikely, with marketing plans for the release being on track to kick off this Summer, according to Zelnick.

Taking a closer look at software sales for the month of December, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 took the lead, with Battlefield 6 being ranked third. Other titles in the best-seller charts for the month are a mix of newer games like Donkey Kong Bananza and older titles like Grand Theft Auto 5, Minecraft and Red Dead Redemption 2.

While other console makers might have started struggling with console sales last year, Nintendo has been doing quite well with the release of the Switch 2. Piscatella had confirmed, the Switch 2 ended up being the best-selling console of the year in the US, with the country accounting for 4.4 million units. Along with this, the new console is also noted as selling faster than the original Switch from back in 2017.

As he noted, the Switch 2’s hardware sales single-handedly managed to offset industry-wide downward trends in console hardware sales. Sony’s PS5 ranked second for the period. The Switch 2 has also been described by Piscatella as being the “fastest selling video game console hardware platform” in history so far.

While things might be going well for Nintendo for the time being, research firm Niko Partners has predicted that the company will end up raising the price of the Switch 2 thanks to the worldwide memory shortages affecting manufacturing. The firm noted that, while the Switch 2 is priced competitively when compared to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo might have to bring its latest console in line with its competitors to maintain profitability.

In the meantime, Battlefield Studios has been working hard on creating and testing more content for the upcoming second season of Battlefield 6. While it hasn’t yet revealed too many details aside from its February 17 launch date, the developers provided a few hints about what kind of content we can expect when Season 2 of Battlefield 6 is kicked off.

Among the new content coming to the game is a brand new map, dubbed Contagion, that will also feature its own unique gameplay mechanics. No details have been provided about these mechanics, aside from vague hints about players needing to use equipment to interact with them, a soldier wearing a gas mask in the teaser trailer, and the fact that the map’s name implies some sort of contagious infection will be involved.

Battlefield 6 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review from back when it first came out.

2025 Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from digital data sharing publishers, excludes add-on content)

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-01-22T14:00:07.506Z

December 2025 Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from digital data sharing publishers, excludes add-on content)

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-01-22T14:00:07.505Z

On Xbox? Fortnite, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto 5, Roblox and Minecraft. What’s even crazier is that these are the same as 2024’s most-played titles on both platforms, though Call of Duty on Xbox fell from first to second place year-over-year.

However, despite critics and fans dragging last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 for its horrendous campaign, and Battlefield 6 emerging as the best-selling premium title, the brand still has some pull. Of course, there’s also the free-to-play component, Call of Duty: Warzone, which remains a significant presence. The same goes for Grand Theft Auto Online, although even standalone, it isn’t free.

Then again, Grand Theft Auto 5 has shipped over 220 million units and is available on three different console generations, so its popularity seems a given. Which only makes you wonder just how much more successful Grand Theft Auto 6 will be, even if it doesn’t ship with its own multiplayer mode at launch. It’s slated for launch on November 19th after two big delays.

Houser noted that Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 – the last two titles he worked on at the studio – were already incredibly massive in scale. Eventually, he got fatigued with working on games of this scale, especially when it comes to just how long they take to develop.

“The scale of the last couple [GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2] were beyond any imagining,” Houser explained. “I worked with incredibly talented people so thinking that group, me piggybacking off their vast brains, could do something amazing – that’s why I worked there.”

“The projects were really long and tough and take a long time to make,” he continued. “It can be a tough journey getting things at that scale with that many moving parts finished. You’ve got 450,000 lines of dialogue, and [an] equal number of parts of other things all trying to assemble itself. It’s this huge production experience.” He also went on to note that working on games of this scale ultimately “swallows all of your time for many years at a time. I don’t know if I had another one of those games in me.”

Rockstar Games’ last major release was Red Dead Redemption 2 all the way back in 2018. Since then, the studio has been working on Grand Theft Auto 6, which will also end up being the first game in the franchise since the release of 2013’s GTA 5. Houser’s statement about these titles taking incredibly long amounts of time certainly sound reasonable when taking these titles into account.

It is worth noting, however, that Rockstar Games of the 2000s had quite a different release cadence, with the Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City and San Andreas trilogy all having come out between 2001 and 2004. Along with this, the studio also worked on several other titles, including a variety of GTA spin-offs like Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories and Chinatown Wars, as well as full-fledged sequels like Grand Theft Auto 4.

Game development, however, has seen quite a few changes since then. Owing to the fact that games have been expected to be much more complex while also offering high-fidelity visuals since then, the process of developing new games has started taking even the biggest studios much longer. One can simply look at Naughty Dog for a similar example, where the studio used to release games at a much quicker cadence, but eventually slowing down around the time it started working on titles for the PS4.

For more details about Houser and his time at Rockstar Games, check out who his favourite characters so far have been. In the meantime, Rockstar Games has confirmed plans to release Grand Theft Auto 6 on November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

It might not completely take the sting away from GTA 6’s delay, but it remains one of the best games ever made. Of course, for those who can’t experience it on PS5, the PS4 version is also available. Other notable titles this month include rogue-like driving title Pacific Drive (which recently got an expansion) and first-person narrative horror Still Wakes the Deep, both playable on PS5.

Multiplayer fans who enjoyed Battlefield 6 might want to check out Insurgency: Sandstorm, which offers another modern setting with realistic gunplay on PS4 and PS5. If you’re keen on something more light-hearted, there’s the British comedy title Thank Goodness You’re Here! Another underrated addition, at least for puzzle gamers, is The Talos Principle 2 (with the original receiving a remaster earlier this year).

Monster Jam Showdown and MotoGP 25 offer solid racing, while Premium subscribers get access to Tomb Raider: Anniversary on PS5 and PS4.

Much like the last few times Grand Theft Auto 5 has been available through PS Plus – like back in December 2023 and November 2024 –it’s only expected to be on the service for around six months. Aside from GTA 5, no other new additions coming to the subscription service’s Extra and Premium tiers are known.

Sony had also previously confirmed the line-up of games making their way to PlayStation Plus Essential’s offerings. The line-up is being headlined by 2022’s Stray, along with EA Sports WRC 24 for PS5, as well as Totally Accurate Battle Simulator for both PS4 and PS5.

While Grand Theft Auto 5 being available as part of PlayStation Plus catalogues is feeling like a yearly event at this point, the decision to bring the game to the subscription service might be at least tangentially related to the fact that Rockstar Games recently announced a delay for the release of Grand Theft Auto 6. Originally slated to come out on May 26, Rockstar announced earlier this week that the title will instead be coming out on November 19, 2026.

In announcing this delay, the studio said that it needed extra time to develop the game “with the polish you have come to expect and deserve.” Rockstar also apologised for the “additional time to what we realize has been a long wait.”

CEO of parent company Take-Two Interactive, Strauss Zelnick, said in a recent interview that the company feels “really good” about the newly-announced release date. He also noted that the extra time was required for making sure that the title is polished “to be the best possible version of itself.”

“When we set a date, we really do believe in it. We said when we set the last date, if a game requires more polish to be the best possible version of itself, then we will give that game more time. And that’s exactly what happened. We feel really good about this release date. It’s in the same fiscal year, it happens to be a great release window, and naturally, we’re really supportive of Rockstar’s approach.”

Zelnick also spoke about announcing the release date this far in advance, since it gives the company plenty of time to ramp up its marketing plans. This also helps the company to “give consumers as much certainty as possible”.

“It’s not that far in advance if you look at when you need to deliver a game to get it out. Also, we have to start marketing activities in a significant amount of time ahead of release. What we want to do is give consumers as much certainty as possible. And again, we feel quite good about this date.”

However, after shooting “some stuff,” it “just disappeared”, and Rockstar never followed up with them on the same. That is, until now. Sort of. Former lead writer and Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser finally opened up on the DLC while speaking to Lex Fridman.

“The internet knows we made a DLC… single-player DLC for GTA 5 that never came out. It was one when you played as Trevor, but he was a secret agent. It was cute.”

However, much like the studio’s forays with cancelled PS3 spy fantasy Agent, “It never quite came together, and it was never finished. It was about half done when it got abandoned. But I think if that had come out, we probably wouldn’t have been able to make Red Dead Redemption 2. So, there are always compromises.”

While it never revisited the idea of releasing single-player DLC for the open-world hit, Houser still enjoys the model. “I like making the stories. For me, I love the model of Grand Theft Auto 4, where you had the extra stories coming afterwards, or Red Dead 1, when you had the zombie pack afterwards. I like just doing these extra things.

“So, I would personally like to have done more of that in that company. And with stuff we’re doing in the future, we’re going to try to come up with worlds where we can add more stories. I like single-player DLC. I just think the audience loves it, and it’s really fun to make.”

With Grand Theft Auto 6 next on Rockstar’s release schedule, launching on May 26th, 2026, for Xbox Series X/S and PS5, one has to wonder if it will have DLC. Rumors have claimed that the company wants to expand on the title with “regular” post-launch updates, but it’s unclear whether those are free or paid.

There’s also the matter of Grand Theft Auto Online and how it will work in the sequel. As always, stay tuned for more updates.

Ghost of Yōtei

Everything about Sucker Punch’s sequel is a step up from Ghost of Tsushima. The exploration feels more organic as Ezo is brimming with interesting stories, Mythic Tales, and activities (with far fewer restrictions on where to go). Combat is more visceral than ever, with the different weapons mixing up the formula in fun ways. All in all, a fantastic sequel and a stellar open-world game in its own right, which brings us to…

]]> 629864 https://gamingbolt.com/assassins-creed-shadows-tops-best-selling-games-charts-in-europe-for-2025-releases Mon, 18 Aug 2025 16:18:50 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=626164 While 2025 has been a great year for video games thanks to numerous releases and even a new console so far, it looks like Assassin’s Creed Shadows is leading the charts in Europe when it comes to sales for games released this year. According to a report by The Game Business, Ubisoft’s open-world title has beaten out games like Split Fiction, Monster Hunter Wilds, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and Mario Kart World to lead the charts for 2025 releases.

According to the report, there have been a total of 71 million games sold in 2025 across PC and consoles in Europe, which marks a 6 percent drop over the same period from 2024. This data accounts for sales having taken place up to July 28. Of the 71 million game sales, 52 million were digital copies, while 19.7 million were physical copies. These are 3 percent and 9 percent reductions over the previous year, and around 74 percent of games sold this year in Europe have been digital, which, when it comes to percentages, is a 2 percent rise from 2024.

The best-selling game in Europe in 2025 has been EA Sports FC 25. The title was released back in 2024, and taking it into account, Assassin’s Creed Shadows currently sits in the number 2 spot for game sales overall in Europe across PC and consoles. The top 20 sales chart, which you can check out below, also include other games released this year, including The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, Elden Ring: Nightreign, and Nintendo Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World. It is worth noting that digital sales data for Nintendo games hasn’t been revealed.

The data, coming from official European charts company GSD, also interestingly omits Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It was noted as being missing because publisher Kepler Interactive hasn’t shared sales data for the game with GSD. An analyst from GSD, Sam Naji, also revealed some details about how game spending has changed for PC and consoles over the year.

In his analysis, Naji said that the first 19 weeks of 2025 saw spending drop by 2 percent compared to 2024, down to €1.33 billion, while the number of copies sold dropped by 9 percent. He attributed this to the average price of games having gone up by around 8 percent, with gamers spending an average of €29 per game, when compared to 2024’s average of €27 per game. He also noted that digital spending had gone up by 8 percent compared to a 6 percent drop in number of units sold, attributing it to a 15 percent rise in average price for digital games – €22 to €25 per game.

Best Selling Games in Europe for 2025 Across PC and Consoles:

1. EA Sports FC 25 (EA)
2. Assassin’s Creed Shadows (Ubisoft)
3. Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
4. Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
5. Hogwarts Legacy (Warner Bros)
6. Split Fiction (EA)
7. Monster Hunter Wilds (Capcom)
8. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Activision Blizzard)
9. Mario Kart World (Nintendo)
10. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (Plaion)
11. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Bethesda)
12. Star Wars Battlefront 2 (EA)
13. Elden Ring: Nightreign (Bandai Namco)
14. It Takes Two (EA)
15. Grand Theft Auto Online (Rockstar)
16. NBA 2K25 (2K Games)
17. F1 25 (EA)
18. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft)
19. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)
20. Battlefield 1 (EA)