2025's Biggest Gaming News: Banned Games, GTA 6 Delayed, Price HikesSee ya later, 2025 It's the end of another year, and it was another big one for the video game industry with countless major events, controversies, and trends to take in. But what were the biggest news events for 2025? This recap doesn't aim to offer an exhaustive list of the biggest stories of the year, but we're taking the time to look back at the year that was and highlight some of the big stories. Some of the big news and events from 2025 included Rockstar's GTA 6 being delayed yet again (its second delay during the year), along with the cancellation of a Wonder Woman game and closure of its studio, Monolith. The past year also saw the announcement of Valve's newest Steam Machine, the industry's first $80 game in decades from an unexpected source, EA announcing a take-private deal with Saudi Arabia, the retirement of a longtime Nintendo executive, Microsoft putting its games on rival platforms, the return of Game Informer magazine, and a voice-actor strike. Beyond big news and announcements, 2025 saw a continuation of trends from previous years, including ongoing mass layoffs, along with consumer behavior continuing to shift away from buying new games. Read on to see all the biggest gaming news of 2025. In case there are any last-minute major announcements to come in the final weeks of the year, we'll update this post. People are buying fewer games A trend that's been growing in recent years has been people buying fewer new games and instead sticking with the games they enjoy the most, even if they're older. A recent study found the majority of playtime was spent on live-service games that are more than six years old. Other studies have shown similar trendlines, including how the majority of US gamers are now buying a maximum of two games per year and how young Americans are spending a lot less on games these days. Ubisoft's own data from the UK found that people are playing fewer new games , with Ubisoft specifically citing subscription-based games, free games, cloud gaming, and games-as-a-service titles eating into the market for full-game sales. Market dynamics are indeed evolving, with Circana's Mat Piscatella saying only 4% of US game players buy a new game more often than once per month, and a third of players buy zero games at all. It is the "hyper-enthusiast, price-insensitive players" who are keeping the business alive, he said. At the same time, video game sales for some top titles are flourishing. One of 2025's best examples was Battlefield 6, which sold 7 million copies out of the gate, growing to a reported 10 million not long after launch. The game needed just 22 days to become 2025's best-selling game in the US. Not only that, but Battlefield 6 also surpassed Battlefield 1's lifetime sales in the US after less than one month on the market. Looking ahead to 2026, Rockstar's GTA 6 is predicted to be an enormous success, but one expert believes it is "naive" to think one big release will help the video game industry get back on track as it continues its slide through layoffs, game cancellations, and further consolidation. There is no reason to believe 2026 will be a better year for the gaming industry at large, or the people who make games. Unprecedented price hikes US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping set of controversial international tariffs in April, which sent global markets into turmoil and, in time, led gaming companies to pass on the cost to consumers. The tariffs impacted Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony's gaming plans, as Microsoft and Sony raised Xbox and PlayStation consoles, citing global economic conditions. Nintendo did not raise the price of the Switch 2, but did hike prices for a range of accessories. Nintendo also raised the price of the original Switch. All of the companies impacted by the tariffs did not eat the cost but instead passed the costs on to consumers at the same time as their own revenue and profit levels continued to soar. And speaking of increasing costs, Nintendo opted to charge $80 for Mario Kart World, making it the first new game in a long time from any company to sell for that much. Nintendo's decision to charge that much--which it said was due to the value the game offers--has led some to wonder if other companies may follow suit. Microsoft, for example, said it would charge $80 for games this year, beginning with The Outer Worlds 2. It later reversed course and confirmed it would not charge $80 for any games in 2025. Uncertainty around tariffs and the general global economic environment was also the reason that Valve did not divulge the price of the Steam Machine. Another unanswered question as it relates to pricing is how much GTA 6 will cost when it comes out next year. Some have theorized that Rockstar and Take-Two might go up to $80 or more, while others believe that's not a good idea because the real money for GTA comes from GTA Online, and a lower cost of entry might encourage more people to get the game (and then spend more on microtransactions later on). Xbox Game Pass gets a huge price hike In October, Microsoft announced a 50% price hike for Xbox Game Pass and a restructuring of the subscription service's other tiers. The company also added other elements to Game Pass Ultimate, including subscriptions to Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ Classics to help sweeten the deal, or soften the blow, depending on how you look at it. The dramatic price hikes are in effect now if you subscribe directly from your Xbox. However, most major US retailers selling subscription cards have not yet adopted the higher prices. The price hikes reignited debates and discussions about the merits and value of Game Pass. People are also continuing to wonder about the economic realities of Game Pass, and question if the subscription model is a good thing or a net negative. A report said Microsoft missed out on $300 million in revenue for 2024's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 due to the game being on Game Pass. That doesn't tell the whole story, though, as Black Ops 6 being on Game Pass no doubt also drove people to sign up for Game Pass, thus creating revenue for Microsoft. Whether that calculation ultimately works out in Microsoft's favor, however, is unknown. Arc Raiders launches to big success, reignites AI debate After coming on the market with the free-to-play shooter The Finals, Embark Studios followed it up with a much bigger hit in Arc Raiders. The PvPvE game launched in October--squeezed between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7--and it achieved enormous success critically and commercially. By one analyst's count, the $40 game has sold close to 8 million copies thus far. At a time when people were openly questioning the viability of an extraction-type shooter like Arc Raiders, the game became one of 2025's biggest breakout hits, but the game has also courted controversy. Like The Finals before it, Arc Raiders uses AI for a text-to-speech (TTS) system for voice lines. The developers maintain that the real human actors who lent their voices to the studio for this were compensated and that the studio overall doesn't plan to use AI to replace people. However, people expressed dismay and frustration over this, saying it may represent a slippery slope. Arc Raiders is published by Nexon, whose CEO has maintained that "every game company is now using AI," including Embark. After all, AI systems and tools are baked directly into popular game-development software and engines, including Epic's Unreal Engine. "First of all, I think it's important to assume that every game company is now using AI," Junghun Lee said. "But if everyone is working with the same or similar technologies, the real question becomes: How do you survive? I believe it's important to choose a strategy that increases your competitiveness." To answer his own question of surviving in a competitive development market, Lee expressed that "human creativity" is what'll push an OK game to a fabulous game. This sentiment mirrors what Embark Studios CCO Stefan Strandberg told Eurogamer in October 2025, that there are "no shortcuts to making great games" despite using AI to "assist in some content creation." The debate about AI in gaming propagated from a variety of sources. Strange Scaffold founder Xavier Nelson Jr. responded with condemnation on Bluesky , personally confirming that "a lot of other studios"--whether indie or AAA--are not using generative AI in their games. Tommy Thompson, founder of AI video game analysis company AI in Games, also disputed Lee's argument, posting on Bluesky that "very few [studios] have gone all in" on AI. Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney chimed in to defend the use of AI in gaming. "This technology increases human productivity in some areas by integer multiples, and views on whether this is a net good and should be rewarded, or bad and should be fought against, are speculative and generally distributed along political lines," Sweeney said. "Game developers compete to build the best games in order to attract gamers. When tech increases productivity, competition leads to building better games rather than employing fewer people." Sweeney personally and professionally stands to benefit from AI becoming more and more popular, as he runs the company behind one of the world's most popular and successful game engines. Sweeney has also said it "makes no sense" for platforms like Steam to demand that studios disclose the use of AI in their production. He has said such disclosures are nonsense because "AI will be involved in nearly all future production." Beyond the discussions tied to Arc Raiders, EA has said its workers should view the controversial technology as "thought partners" while demanding its employees train AI on their work. Krafton Inc. has announced plans to invest $70 million to become an "AI-first company." Square Enix wants generative AI to automate at least 70% of game QA and debugging work. And even Sony has laid out plans for incorporating AI in its games going forward . This is not to mention the myriad developers who've recently said that AI should be embraced by the industry, or those who refuse to work with it will sell themselves short. Horses and censorship concerns Italian independent developer Santa Ragione was in the news this year when his game, the horror title Horses, was banned from multiple stores, including Steam and Epic Games Store. This controversy goes back to 2023, when Steam originally banned it. But Horses was back in the news at the end of 2025 when it was banned again, this time by the Epic Games Store and Humble. Epic said Horses contained violations of its inappropriate content policy and hateful or abusive content policies, and that it had received an Adults Only rating (Epic does not host AO games as a matter of policy). The developer appealed Epic's decision and said the game is actually aiming to critique violence and abuse, not endorse it. Some aspects of it are indeed very disturbing. The horses at the center of the game aren't really horses at all. They're people who have been forced to wear horse masks and live like a horse. The game contains pixelated nudity and whatever sex scenes the game does have are "brief and censored," the developer said. While not every platform is hosting Horses, the game remains available for $5 on GOG and Itch.io . All of this transpired against a backdrop where people continue to raise concerns about censorship in the gaming landscape. In the past year, activist groups called on Steam and Itch.io to remove games, and in many cases, both storefronts agreed. The pressure to remove adult games--and games with adult themes--also came from companies that process those platforms' payments to remove them. One of these companies, Mastercard, said its actions are based on the "rule of law" and aren't an attempt to enforce censorship. There was a massive pushback against these efforts, as game organizations, developers, and artists have rallied together. The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has called for "greater transparency and fairness" in the moderation of adult games, while other groups have urged people to put pressure on the two payment processors and flood them with calls to register their concerns about censorship. Battlefield outsells Call of Duty (sorta) It finally happened. Battlefield 6 had an enormous launch in October 2025, selling millions of copies and posting the highest single-month sales for any game going back to 2022, at least in the US. That means the first-month sales of Battlefield 6 eclipsed similar first-month sales for 2024's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and 2023's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 launched on November 14, and the November US sales data will be published on December 17, so we will soon find out more about how Battlefield 6 and Black Ops 7 compare in terms of sales. And then in January 2026, Circana will release its full-year report, and many will be watching eagerly to see how Battlefield 6 and Black Ops 7 compare. Of course, no comparison is complete or even fair between the two. For one, Black Ops 7 is available with Game Pass, and secondly, Battlefield 6 is only available on current-gen and PC, while Black Ops 7 is available on those platforms and last-gen. In any event, Call of Duty hasn't been outsold by another shooter in the US since 2006 , so if Battlefield 6 can do that, it would be a big deal. "This part of the market hasn't been this competitive in 20 years," Circana's Mat Piscatella said of the shooter category. Layoffs continue One trend from 2024 (and 2023 before it) is mass layoffs in the gaming industry, and that continued at full steam in 2025. Thousands upon thousands of people worldwide working in games lost their jobs this past year, with cuts affecting studios and teams of all sizes. Significant cuts were made at places like Eidos-Montreal, Square Enix, Amazon Game Studios, Funcom, The Outsiders, Crystal Dynamics, Cloud Chamber, Microsoft, 1047 Games, Supermassive, Xbox, Niantic, Bend, Netease, and Ubisoft, and this represents just a small fraction of the total number of teams cutting staff this past year. There are numerous reasons why publishers and developers are cutting staff, including a post-pandemic slowdown, changes in consumer interest and behavior, mergers and acquisitions, and rising costs, just to name a few. The cuts at Microsoft were particularly notable considering Microsoft's business is booming. CEO Satya Nadella said the mass layoffs were due in part to "the enigma of success," a comment that many said was tone deaf and emblematic of a CEO not understanding reality on the ground. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood is reportedly calling for the company's various business units to become even more profitable , including Xbox, and the profit-margin targets Hood has allegedly assigned to Xbox may be impossible to meet, experts said. In 2025, Microsoft made some of the biggest and most drastic cuts to its Xbox business in recent years , cancelling games like Everwild and a new MMO from ZeniMax Online Studios, and laying off staff at many of its teams across the globe. Microsoft also hiked the price of Game Pass significantly, and it's not hard to imagine these decisions stemming from the enduring desire by executives to make more money. Strikes and landmark union formation The SAG-AFTRA strike for video game actors that began in July 2024 finally came to an end after 11 months in June 2025. The main sticking point appeared to be the matter of AI, with veterans like Jennifer Hale saying this was an "existential" issue for performers that needed to be worked out fairly. In addition to protections pertaining to the use of AI and digital voice replicas, voice actors in the union scored other victories, including higher base wages and better retirement benefits. In another win for collective bargaining, 2025 also saw the establishment of the video game industry's first-ever industry-wide union in the form of the United Video Game Workers-CWA Local 9433. The union's mission is to "take back our lives, our labor, and our passion from those who treat us like replaceable cogs," the union said in a statement. "We are going to create a game industry that works for us, one that nourishes its talent and invests in its future, rather than constantly seeking short-term profits." Developers have unionized before, but in smaller groups, often limited to specific teams. This CWA union, however, is an industry-wide group that aims to find strength in numbers. EA going private In September, Electronic Arts announced that after 30+ years of trading as a public company and rising to become one of the biggest and best-known gaming publishers in the world, it was taking a $55 billion offer to go private. But this was anything but a traditional deal. EA's $55 billion sale, which remains pending and is expected to close in 2026, is to a private consortium of investors, led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (along with Silver Lake and Affinity Partners). The PIF is understood to become the majority owner if the deal materializes, with documents showing the Kingdom will own more than 93% of EA . It remains to be seen if the deal will close, but approvals for mergers and acquisitions have been moving forward under the business-friendly Trump administration, and many assume the deal coming together is a foregone conclusion in part because Trump's own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, heads up Affinity Partners. The deal is also structured as a leveraged buyout (LBO), and it is in fact the largest LBO in history, for any business area. What this means for EA is that it's on the hook for a huge amount of debt--$20 billion--and people fear the company will get aggressive with cost-cutting by closing studios, laying people off, and selling off various assets. Another core component in understanding the deal is the social and cultural elements of it, with some current and former EA workers contending that the PIF will seek to avoid "the gay stuff" and politics if the deal materializes. For its part, EA has acknowledged that its ability to attract, retain, and motivate developers may be negatively affected by the pending sale. This will be an ongoing story in 2026, so stay with GameSpot for the latest. What's going on with Xbox? Microsoft and Xbox made some major headlines in 2025, kicking off the year with the announcement that Microsoft would launch more of its games on rival platforms like Sony's PlayStation 5 and Nintendo's Switch. The move drew some consternation from a portion of the Xbox fandom, while others embraced the ability to play Xbox games outside of the Xbox console ecosystem. Xbox-published games like Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 5, Grounded, and Pentiment came to rival systems, and in some cases, to great effect for Microsoft--at least in terms of business performance. Forza Horizon 5 in particular seemed to enjoy breakout success on PlayStation, and with Sony's console market so much larger than Xbox's, this was a boon for business at Microsoft. One of the franchises most synonymous with Xbox, Halo, is making the leap to PlayStation in 2026, while the new Gears of War game, E-Day, is rumored to land on PlayStation at some point as well. Microsoft has only spoken positively about its new multiplatform approach, so people hoping to see things go back to the way they were may want to adjust their expectations. What's more, Microsoft is also releasing newer games on PS5 day-and-date, including Doom: The Dark Ages and The Outer Worlds 2. But there is no one-size-fits-all approach for Microsoft's multiplatform release strategy, as games like Avowed, Starfield, and Grounded 2 have not yet been announced for rival consoles. Another major development for Microsoft and Xbox in 2025 included the multiple rounds of mass layoffs and game cancellations mentioned earlier. Also in 2025, Microsoft launched the ROG Xbox Ally devices in partnership with Asus. Some balked at the eye-popping price points for the devices, and the devices sold faster than Asus expected, with the company promising to ramp up production to meet demand. And while Microsoft is telling everyone they do not need to buy an Xbox to play Xbox games, the company reiterated its commitment to hardware and provided some indication that its n ext-gen Xbox could adopt some PC-like sensibilities. GTA 6 delays + union firings Rockstar Games delays pretty much every game it works on , so when the company announced in May 2025 that GTA 6 was delayed to May 2026, no one should have been surprised. Things got worse for GTA fans again in November when Rockstar announced that GTA 6 would not launch in May 2026 but instead was shifting to November 2026. In both cases, Rockstar said it needed more time to deliver a quality product. One of the lines that Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has repeated over and over is how Rockstar is "seeking perfection" with GTA 6, and this can be a slow process. "When we feel we've optimized creatively, that's the time to release," he said. "There's inherent tension, potentially, between getting something to market and creating perfection," Zelnick added. "But this company errs on the side of perfection." Rockstar recently fired 30-40 workers in Scotland and Canada for what it called "gross misconduct" reportedly related to leaking secrets, not for trying to form a union. A UK union pushed back, saying Rockstar was blatantly and ruthlessly trying to block a union with the firings. More than 200 Rockstar workers signed a letter demanding that the fired staffers be reinstated. UK lawmakers have raised concerns about the Rockstar situation in proceedings recently. While this is all going on, reporter Jason Schreier of Bloomberg said these events are unrelated to GTA 6's latest delay to November 2026. "This delay was not due to the firings ... While the fallout from those firings could certainly have a long-term impact on the project and lead to more missed deadlines in the future--due to those vacant roles, protracted legal battles, morale loss, etc.--the game did not slip six months because 34 people were fired a week ago," he wrote. Tariffs can't stop Switch 2's huge debut After years of waiting, lots of leaks, and questions (serious and unserious alike) about the viability of new hardware platforms in 2025, the Switch 2 launched in June 2025 and had an enormous debut. The Switch 2 became the fastest-selling system ever for Nintendo , despite its relatively higher price. It's sold more than 10 million units as of September 30, and that figure is no doubt set to grow substantially thanks to Black Friday and the holiday shopping season. It was on the very same day in April that the Switch 2 was formally unveiled that US President Donald Trump announced a controversial sweeping tariff plan that sent global markets into turmoil. Nintendo was forced to delay preorders for the Switch 2 as it assessed the situation, with many fearing Nintendo would come back with a higher price point. That did not end up happening, but Nintendo did raise the price of numerous Switch 2 accessories, citing the tariffs. Steam Machine comes on the scene Out of nowhere, Valve announced the Steam Machine this November. A six-inch cube-like device, the Steam Machine will play your Steam library on your TV. Some may recall that Valve originally debuted Steam Machine models more than 10 years ago, but those devices failed commercially. The new Steam Machine is a compact, powerful PC designed for desks, living rooms, and more, leveraging all of the lessons Valve has learnt with the Steam Deck. One of the biggest unknowns about the Steam Machine is its price. Valve made no mention of the price in its announcement or in media interviews, but experts have read between the lines and surmised that the Steam Machine could cost $700 or more. The Steam Machine is set to go on sale in 2026, so it won't be much longer before Valve confirms a price point and opens preorders. Is the Steam Machine a threat to the established living room consoles from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo? Probably not, experts, say, but instead it could be a solid option for Steam users who want to play their game libraries on the couch with a big screen. "So partially, the Steam Machine is for current Steam users. It's an attractive second device for PC gamers who want a living-room gaming setup without building a full rig or investing in another ecosystem," Alinea's Rhys Elliott said. He went on to say that the Steam Machine nicely slots into Valve's ambition to "make PC gaming more accessible and flexible." With the Steam Machine, users don't have to worry about the hassle of upgrading components because everything is already in the box. In the same announcement, Valve also revealed a new Steam Controller and a new Steam Frame virtual reality headset, so it's clear Valve is making another big bet on hardware. Other big news from 2025 2025 was stuffed with big news beyond what was covered in earlier slides, and here some some quick-hit highlights: Nintendo president Doug Bowser announced his departure from the company after 10 years. The iconic and venerable gaming magazine Game Informer returned , with the backing of filmmaker Neill Blomkamp and his NFT/Web3 company Gunzilla. Niantic sold its Pokemon Go business and gaming division to Saudi Arabia's Scopely. The Super Nintendo World theme park attraction opened in Orlando. Warner Bros. canceled its Wonder Woman game and closed developer Monolith. Ubisoft announced a restructuring plan that included a huge investment from Tencent and the creation of a new "creative house" led by the CEO's own son. Hollow Knight: Silksong finally came out. Really. What took so long? It may not be what you think.
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