Upcoming games of 2025 are poised to be best-sellers

As we head into an eventful 2024, we’re looking forward to a gaming release calendar that’s already packed with excellent titles. Many games launching in 2025 have already gained large fanbases and media attention, building anticipation ahead of their launch. Follow from List of Dean’s most anticipated gamesThe games on this list are likely to top the sales charts next year.

2025 titles enter an unusual market. Many publishers would have said at the beginning of 2024 that direct-to-service titles were the way of the market, but the market has strongly opposed many (not all, but many) of the newly introduced titles. Many have closed or their publishers have announced the end of new content only shortly after hitting the market, including… ConcordFoamstars, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and… XDefiant.

Next year’s titles, on the other hand, feature co-op titles and single-player narrative games from some of the biggest and most well-known studios in the industry. Here are the games that seem likely to top next year’s sales, not to mention critical acclaim.

Grand Theft Auto VI

Rockstar’s next game had a lot of excitement on its launch journey. Multiple details have leaked about the game at various stages of development, culminating in it Hacker releases screenshots From the middle of the game’s development in 2022. The trailer launch was similarly spoofed by another leaker who dropped it early, though that doesn’t seem to have dampened anyone’s enthusiasm for the game.

GTA V still stands as one of the best-selling games of all time, and all indications are that GTA VI will be a worthy successor and will likely achieve good sales numbers. At present, GTA VI is still scheduled to be released in Release window is fall 2025and Take-Two and Rockstar appear to be firmly committed to this timeline. Other games are allegedly holding back on confirming fall release dates so as not to conflict with GTA VI.

Elden Ring: Nightreign

Elden Ring remains one of the best-selling games in the industry a year after launch, fueled by a combination of the long-awaited expansion launch, developer FromSoftware fans and strong gameplay that calls for a reboot. Now FromSoft is keeping the IP alive with a new spin-off, Night reign. The game will undergo online testing in early 2025, with the full title launching later in the year.

This new title is a cooperative ARPG with procedurally generated areas, and its gameplay is faster than the original Elden Ring. It features characters that players can choose and customize, rather than building one of their own from scratch. Although it may not have as big of an impact on the market as Elden Ring did when it was released (although the latter did have a significant impact). Years From uncertain marketing to building anticipation), it could see strong early sales that build on name recognition and players’ trust in FromSoft to deliver a quality product.

Marvel 1943: The Rise of Hydra

With the recent success of titles like Marvel Snap, Marvel Rivals, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, video games based on Marvel franchises seem to be doing well with gamers. The combination of distinctive characters and solid yet accessible gameplay has given rise to some of the most popular titles of the past few years. In 2025, Skydance Media brings its own take on this winning formula Marvel 1943: The Rise of Hydra.

Marvel 1943 is a story-driven action-adventure game that follows Captain America and Black Panther, along with Howling Commando Gabe Jones and Wakandan spy Nanali, on a mission during World War II. One of the game’s writers is industry veteran Amy Hennig, of fame. For her work in the Uncharted series. At present, the game has a 2025 release window.

Monster Hunter Wilds

The Monster Hunter series has been around for 20 years, and has always sold reasonably well. However, with the launch of Monster Hunter World in 2018, the series has really taken off, with the game having sold over 25 million units as of March 2024 (including the addition of Iceborne). Follow-up title Monster Hunter Rise has sold 15 million units as of the same time, with the franchise as a whole selling over 100 million units.

Monster Hunter Wilds looks set to continue this trend, offering a beautiful, feature-rich follow-up to World. The new game takes place in the Forbidden Lands, where the player must deal with a new group of monsters, using a new bird-like mount to traverse the massive open world. The game will be released for PC and consoles on February 28.

Intergalactic: Heretic Prophet

Naughty Dog is a developer that has consistently released popular and well-received titles for years. The Uncharted series is one of the most beloved games in the industry, and The Last of Us is considered one of the best games ever made and was adapted into an Emmy Award-winning television show. So a new game – actually a new IP – from Naughty Dog is enough to turn heads, especially since The Last of Us’ Neil Druckmann is returning as creative director.

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is a sci-fi adventure game that follows the adventures of a bounty hunter as he attempts to track down a target on a distant planet from which no one has ever returned. The footage shown so far shows the bounty hunter, Jordan, fighting the robots. This is the only game on this list that doesn’t have a confirmed 2025 release window says the naughty dog They have been working on the game since 2020.

I confess

Avowed was originally supposed to launch in 2024, but developer Obsidian and publisher Xbox Game Studios delayed it by three months to “give the player backlog some room to breathe” (with the logos of all games released in late 2024 being displayed at the same time from During which the original Avowed release date may conflict). Since the title is a very large ARPG, it’s understandable that the publishers wanted to give it the best chance of success – although its new February 18 date puts it closer to Monster Hunter Wilds.

Previous Obsidian titles include the Peabody Award-winning Pentiment (My favorite game of 2022), the Pillars of Eternity series, and the cult classics Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and The Outer Worlds. All of these titles enjoyed critical acclaim and sales success, with The Outer Worlds in particular selling 4 million units by its second anniversary. Given the good intentions of its developer, it seems that Avowed can do well in the market despite the competition.

Kingdom Come: Redemption 2

Warhorse Studio’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance was a huge hit in 2018, offering an RPG set in the (fairly) historically accurate setting of 15th century Bohemia. The second part, Redemption 2, follows the continuing story of Henry, a blacksmith’s son turned major political player, as players make choices that will affect the direction of his life. The new game, as with the original, features a survival system that requires Henry to eat and sleep regularly.

Kingdom Come: Redemption was originally financed by Kickstarter campaign in 2014, with Warhorse signing a publishing deal with Deep Silver in 2016. War Horse confirmed At the beginning of November this year, the original game had sold more than 8 million copies. Creative Director Daniel Vavra said the reveal was that Deliverance 2 was the game Warhorse had wanted to make, but was unable to due to lack of resources. It starts on February 4th.

Split imagination

Joseph Fares officially revealed his latest game at The Game Awards: Split Fiction, an action-adventure game that, like Hazelight’s previous title, It Takes Two, was designed with split-screen co-op play in mind. Players control Zoe and Mio, two authors trapped in their own and each other’s stories, navigating platforming challenges and differences in genre at the same time. The game will be released on March 6.

Although Hazelight had only released two previous games, A Way Out and the aforementioned It Takes Two, both games did well in sales. It Takes Two, in particular, has sold over 20 million units and won Game of the Year at the 2021 Game Awards and 25th DICE Awards. Like its predecessors, Split Fiction launches with a “Friend Pass,” meaning that only one of the co-op partners needs to own the game in order to play it.

Sid Meier’s Civilization 7

The Civilization series is one of the stalwarts in gaming, having been around since the early 1990s and selling over 70 million units to date. The 2016 game Civilization VI sold 1 million units within its first two weeks of release. Now Firaxis Games and 2K are continuing the series with the next, aptly named installment Seventh Civilizationwhich starts on February 11.

According to Firaxis, Civilization VII will be the largest game in the series to date, and also innovates the leader system by expanding the roster (to include scientific and philosophical leaders alongside military leaders) while also allowing players to choose leaders for each era. Their civilization. The eras are simplified into ancient, exploratory, and modern eras. Civilization VII will also feature Gwendoline Christie as the narrator.

Pokemon Legends: ZA

Nintendo’s 2025 titles are in a somewhat unusual position – although the company hasn’t confirmed it itself, the smart money is that a Switch successor will be revealed early in the year. This means that all Nintendo games announced so far could be released on the Switch 2 as well as the Switch. Pokémon Legends: ZA will launch on Nintendo Switch systems in 2025, according to Game Freak.

The series is a consistently good seller for Nintendo, and its predecessor, Legends: Arceus, sold nearly 15 million units over the course of a single year. At present, we don’t know much about ZA except that it is located in Lumiose City, the location of Pokémon X & Y.

Other titles expected

2025 already has a busy release calendar, so the above titles aren’t the only ones that could take the top spot on the bestseller list. Here is a list of all other major releases currently scheduled for the 2025 release window: