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)

While the exact reason for the resurgence of popularity for the shooter is difficult to pin down, it might come down to the fact that several fans of the Star Wars universe had been feeling nostalgic for some multiplayer action in the setting. The positive critical reception of TV show Andor also likely had a hand in the game becoming popular again.

Circana analyst Mat Piscatella noted that the game started seeing a rise in player counts around the time that the 20th anniversary for Star Wars: Episode 3 – Revenge of the Sith came around in early May, which also saw a re-release of the movie. While the player count also started reaching new heights, it’s also begun falling back down a bit. However, June saw yet another spike in player counts.

“The player surge for Battlefront 2 started with Revenge of the Sith‘s 20th anniversary re-release back in early May, then really picked up with Andor,” said Piscatella, according to IGN. “Players peaked in the week of May 25 and then started to fall back a bit. There was another bump in mid to late June as the game was put into various sales and things as well, but that’s a story for two weeks from now.”

Overall, the top 20 best-selling games chart for May in the US is led by FromSoftware’s latest outing, Elden Ring: Nightreign, as well as id Software’s DOOM: The Dark Ages coming in at number 1 and 2 respectively. Fellow newcomer game The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is still sitting pretty strongly at number 4. A lot of the rest of the chart is dominated by the usual suspects, however, including NBA 2K25, Grand Theft Auto 5, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and Minecraft.

Other interesting additions to the top 20 list are Codemasters’ latest outing, F1 25, as well as Capcom Fight Collection 2 – both of which came out in the month. Helldivers 2, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Split Fiction are also solidly sitting in the list.

Last time we heard about Star Wars Battlefront 2 was back in May, when the game had started breaking its own concurrent player figure records. At the time, the game garnered a new all-time peak of 18,635 players, beating its previous record from January 2021, which had 10,489 concurrent players. At the time of publishing, the current all-time peak comes from just 17 days ago (courtesy of SteamDB), which had almost 36,000 concurrent players.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 currently has around 17,000 players in-game. The 24-hour peak for the game has also broken the record set in May, with more than 21,000 concurrent players.

Overwatch 2

The original Overwatch was a runaway success that garnered a sizeable player base and many awards, and many fans were understandably excited about the sequel. Overwatch 2’s announcement sparked excitement with promises of expanded PvE and a broader scope, but what we got in reality was a shooter that lost focus of what made it so special in the first place. The magic of Overwatch’s PvE was gone, and the expanded PvP options felt shallow and generic.

The latest all-time peak happened just a day ago, and going by the all-time charts of Star Wars Battlefront 2 on SteamDB, is the highest the game has ever achieved. The second-highest number of concurrent players came from January 2021, where the title saw 10,489 players. Interestingly, the most recent top-selling charts according to Steam itself rank Star Wars Battlefront 2 at the 100th rank, behind other titles like Fallout 76, Euro Truck Simulator 2, and Cuphead.

While the sales charts might not appear to be too encouraging for Star Wars Battlefront 2, being one of the 100 best-selling games for a given week on Steam is still an underrated achievement for a title, since there are thousands of other games that could have taken the spot instead. While the top of the top-sellers list is dominated by more recent releases like DOOM: The Dark Ages and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, free-to-play games like Counter-Strike 2 and PUBG: Battlegrounds, as well as the Steam Deck, the list gets more and more expansive as we go lower down.

Players returning to Star Wars Battlefront 2 is even more impressive considering the fact that support for the game in terms of post-launch content was ended back in 2020’s The Battle of Scarif update.

“Developing characters, worlds, and experiences set in this amazing galaxy that is Star Wars is an honor, and it has continued to be a remarkable, challenging, and ultimately rewarding journey for the entire team,” said the at-the-time creative director Dennis Brännvall when the update came out. “Knowing that we have a passionate community of millions of players and Star Wars fans – just like ourselves – along on the ride, is the greatest inspiration we could ever have.”

More recently, one of the former developers of Star Wars Battlefront 2, Mats Helge Holm, expressed interest in coming back to work on the title. In a Reddit post that was celebrating the recent resurgence of player counts for the game, Helge posted “Me, and having heard about my group of ex-colleagues, we want to get the gang back together,” in response to a question about which developers would want to come back to work on the game.

However, Helge did mention that it would be difficult to get Brännvall to come back, since he has moved away. “Dennis is a hard one to get back, last I checked he moved up north. Not ab easy commute,” posted Helge.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 is available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. It can also be played on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S through backwards compatibility.

In a Reddit post celebrating the recent resurgence of Star Wars Battlefront 2 players, Helge wrote that he would also like to bring back some of the team that worked on the game. “Me, and having heard about my group of ex-colleagues, we want to get the gang back together,” he posted as a response to a question about which developer would want to come back to work on the game.

Helge also commented about wanting to bring former creative director Dennis Brännvall back to work on the game, but that this would be difficult because he has since moved away. “Dennis is a hard one to get back, last I checked he moved up north. Not ab easy commute,” posted Helge.

For some context on the rise in player numbers for Star Wars Battlefront 2, the last few years have seen concurrent player counts for the game staying between 1,000 and 2,000 on Steam (via SteamDB). May 4, however, saw a big jump in the number of players, peaking at 5,583. Since then, the number of concurrent players has been seeing a steady rise.

At the time of publishing, Star Wars Battlefront 2 has been seeing a steady player base of more than 6,000 players. In the last 24 hours, however, the player count peaked at 9,777 concurrent players, which rivals the all-time peak concurrent player count of 10,489 from over four years ago. Of course, all of these figures still fall quite short of the player count from when the title first came out all the way back in 2017.

EA and DICE had supported Star Wars Battlefront 2 with additional content for quite some time, with the final major content release for the game being 2020’s The Battle of Scarif update. The content drop brought with it the eponymous Scarif as a new location.

“Developing characters, worlds, and experiences set in this amazing galaxy that is Star Wars is an honor, and it has continued to be a remarkable, challenging, and ultimately rewarding journey for the entire team,” said Brännvall when the update came out. “Knowing that we have a passionate community of millions of players and Star Wars fans – just like ourselves – along on the ride, is the greatest inspiration we could ever have.”

Star Wars Battlefront 2 was a hotly-anticipated title back when it came out in 2017, but had quickly become mired in quite a bit of controversy. While the game was praised for its visuals and gameplay at the time, plenty of criticisms were raised about its lootbox-centric monetisation practices. For more details, check out our recent feature on the rise of Star Wars Battlefront 2.

For those of you that might want to hop back in, the title is available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Modern consoles can play it through backwards compatibility.

The comedy element in this pre-release debacle emerged during EA’s robust defence of their choices on a Reddit post; a post which became the most downvoted the website had ever seen and netted the not-yet-released title its first accolade: an unwanted Guinness World Record, for having – you guessed it – the most downvoted post in history.  

The heads in EA’s boardroom didn’t take too kindly to this, but instead of doubling down they opted to listen to player concerns and perform a partial U-turn. First by dramatically reducing the cost of the franchise’s heroes then, the day before the game’s official release, by disabling microtransactions. We describe this as a partial U-turn as these microtransactions were re-enabled several months after release, but the only items for purchase were cosmetics, emotes, victory poses, that sort of thing. Certainly not the pay to win practices EA originally planned.  

Arguably, these changes weren’t solely the result of player discontent. The loot boxes, in particular, harboured the very serious implication that they presented a form of gambling. So strong was the furore surrounding their inclusion that governments throughout Europe and North America began to investigate; not just their presence in Star Wars Battlefront II but in video games as a whole. After all, children play games and given Star Wars’ fanbase there was undoubtably a substantial player base awaiting Battlefront II’s release that were under eighteen. The comedic element in EA’s initial response is an undertone if anything. The loot box controversy clouding Star Wars Battlefront II grew into a seismic event for the industry. Paying for loot boxes which may or may not contain the items you want was officially declared as gambling, and it simply couldn’t continue to exist.   

The industry isn’t cleansed of the practice altogether, of course, but the direction it was heading in 2017 was certainly for the worse. In a way, it’s great that this issue reared its head so prevalently when it did and, arguably, it’s because this was a Star Wars game that the uproar was so strong. After all, this is a beloved franchise with a then forty-year legacy. Its fans are passionate, and they’ll voice their discontent more rabidly than players of EA’s annual sports titles.

Despite EA making wholesale changes to Star Wars Battlefront II’s pay to win progression, it’s release was still cloaked in negativity. However, there was a decent game underneath all the furore, and it was only improved upon by EA DICE in the subsequent years following post-release content which steadily emerged until support was abandoned in 2020.

Changes to progression which came in March 2018 transformed the game into the one that’s playable today. To answer the question heading this feature, Star Wars Battlefront II is fixed, and it was the change to linear progression which did it. Now, troopers earn in-game skill points via playing not by paying. Completing objectives, blasting opponents, traditional levelling up.

Enhancing the capability of the game’s characters are Star Cards, and these became unlockable through experience once they were removed from loot boxes. They govern progression for each of the game’s classes, heroes, AI reinforcements, and vehicles, with skill points being capable of upgrading a Star Card to its next tier or being put towards crafting new ones. This mechanic returned from Battlefront II’s predecessor, of course, but they were adjusted slightly to incorporate abilities and boosts, and they are crucial to gaining an edge during largescale battles. Boost cards enhance your unit’s pre-existing abilities, whereas ability cards unique to each trooper class can be swapped in and out. The latter is a rewarding endeavour for anyone who wishes to pursue a specific class of trooper – stealthier specialists, more destructive heavies, tougher assault troopers, et cetera.

If Star Wars Battlefront II is indeed ‘fixed’ then an extra question we land upon now is this: is Star Wars Battlefront II still worth playing some eight years after release and approaching five years since any form of update? Well, if you’re playing on PC annoyingly the answer might be no, as currently hackers have spoiled the experience with game-ruining cheats and reports of harassment towards honest players. It’s a shame, as on console Star Wars Battlefront II is still a wonderfully cinematic, chaotic multiplayer experience.

Make no mistake, concurrent players are nowhere near the level they’ve been in the past but in 2025 playing Star Wars Battlefront II online is alive and well. Matchmaking can take a few minutes, more so if you opt to select your chosen multiplayer mode instead of choosing quick match, but performance – on PlayStation, at least – is smooth and responsive.

Graphically too, for a game that’s eight years old Star Wars Battlefront II still looks sublime, presenting a foray of scenery. It’d be nice to see the game remastered for current-gen hardware but given EA DICE’s decision to stop supporting the title and move onto other things – and to sadly drop production of a third Battlefront title – the past-gen version will have to do. Still looks and plays great, the latter of which is most important.

Multiplayer is still the way to go though, as it always was. The game’s single player campaign, following Iden Versio as she commands the elite Imperial special forces unit Inferno Squad, pledges an inverse perspective on the Empire but never truly achieves it during the run-of-the-mill missions. There’re hints that Versio is empathetic – a perspective we’ve never really seen in any Star Wars game – but the interest here is never truly explored. No, EA DICE clearly concentrated much of their effort into online play, it’s numerous modes of which all have something good to offer, and the game’s offline arcade modes.

Worth pointing out too is that the game’s cast of heroes are still overpowered. Once you earn enough battle points to take to the field as a lightsabre wielding Jedi or Sith, it’s ultra-satisfying scything through troopers. For anyone else caught in a lightsabre’s proximity, however, it can be devastating. Still, those panicky moments you round a corner and spot Darth Vader stomping towards you are quite amusing. The best moments during Star Wars Battlefront II, too, are when heroes face off against each other. Seeing Luke and Maul going at it through a shower of blaster fire and thermal detonator explosions is ultimate fan fiction material – there’s perhaps no other Star Wars game that can replicate those unique moments.      

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

According to a community manager at EA, the decision to end support for the titles on those specific operating systems was due to Microsoft itself having ended support for older versions of Windows earlier this year. For context, Microsoft ended security updates and technical support for Windows 7 back in January 2020, while Windows 8.1 had its support ended back in January 2023.

It’s worth noting that Battlefield 1, Battlefield 5, and Star Wars Battlefront 2 can still be played on more modern Windows operating systems—namely Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Earlier in October, developer DICE and EA had released a trailer for the current Battlefield title—Battlefield 2042, showcasing the game’s sixth season of post-launch content.

Quick Time Events

There was a time when Quick Time Events or QTES were in nearly everything. What was it about hitting the right button at the right time that felt so exhilarating? Maybe it was the minimal effort to do cool things, but entire franchises leaned on them, from shooters and cinematic adventures to hack-and-slash titles.

Nowadays, however, they’re rare, most likely due to oversaturation. Despite being present in the original, Resident Evil 4 Remake removed them and added new mechanics like knife parries. Like a Dragon: Ishin! has them for certain attacks and climatic battles, but it is a remake of a 2014 title. While they won’t go away entirely – who knows with the next Dark Pictures Anthology title – QTEs aren’t as favored as direct control over gameplay scenarios.

Dishonored 2 – The Clockwork Mansion

Arkane Studios did a fantastic job with Dishonored 2, a sequel that builds upon the foundations of the original with better level designs and varied powers. Dishonored 2 gives players the ultimate playground of possibilities with huge levels filled to the brim with secret zones and plenty of verticality, and the Clockwork Mansion is easily the best of the bunch. Even talking about this level in purely visual terms, this level impresses with its rendition of a mechanical palace. The palace is also home to an underground prison and rusty servant quarters which offer a stark contrast to the large rooms filled with all sorts of luxurious furniture and paintings on the upper floors. And of course, pulling the levers will drastically change the level layout which looks really awesome.

Star Wars Battlefront 2

DICE’s first Star Wars Battlefront wasn’t awful but it was a far cry from what made the original games so endearing. Even on its own, the amount of content and features just felt lackluster. So when Star Wars Battlefront 2 was announced, it seemed like Electronic Arts was ticking all of the boxes. More extensive maps and modes. A single-player campaign. Free post-launch updates. It all seemed like a dream come true for Star Wars fans.

Then Star Cards happened.

Star Cards were equipable items that provided significant boosts to one’s combat abilities. And of course, the best way to get them was through RNG loot boxes. It was like the pay-to-win pot had finally boiled over, that too in a franchise that was popular among kids. The fact that it cost so much to unlock Star Wars heroes and villains for use in multiplayer – leading to the infamous “pride and accomplishment” comment from EA on Reddit – didn’t help things either.

To say the backlash was immense would be an understatement. Star Cards were pulled from purchase and moved to Class Level unlocks; microtransactions were now limited to cosmetics; more multiplayer content, both online and offline was introduced; and numerous fixes were deployed. It was quite the turnaround for the maligned title. By the time support began winding down in 2020, fans began a petition for more DLC, even willing to pay for the same. That didn’t happen but at least Battlefront 2’s life cycle ended on a happy note.