Here Are The Top Games Of 2025, Ranked By Gamers
The top 15 is full of familiar names we've covered this year, with the FPS genre rounding out the top and bottom—EA's Battlefield 6 reigns supreme at #1 cross-platform, with 23.8 million players. Meanwhile, ARC Raiders, developed and published by Embark Studios with some funding from Korean giant Nexon, rounds out the list at #15 with 6.7 million players. On PC, both titles have been praised for their high fidelity and performance optimization, and they also enjoyed healthy cross-platform success.
A surprisingly high amount of the most-played games this year also wound up being indie favorites, especially co-op indie games. REPO, PEAK, Schedule 1 and Split Fiction all fall under the umbrella of co-op indie games. REPO and PEAK, in particular, both feature in-game voice acting and strong character models, which add some extra comedy to the in-game action. Single-player indie games, including the Steam-crashing Hollow Knight: Silksong and TGA-sweeping Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 also made the list.
The Alinea Analytics data also reveals that 78% of Steam's revenue in 2026 actually came from paid titles rather than Free to Play games, and that indie games accounted for "25%+" of Steam revenue. The graphic above scales each game to the amount of money it made, with Schedule 1 raking in $150 million+ gross revenue.
The Elephant In The Room: Missing Data & Hot Hardware's Hottest Games of 2025
Donkey Kong's Elephant transformation in Donkey Kong Bananza. (Sorry)
There is one major gap in the Alinea Analytics data, though—no Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Switch 2 data. Nintendo is more cagey on these data points than other platforms, but based on its historic sales numbers, Switch 2 was a massive success despite its relatively high pricing and exclusive titles like Kirby Air Riders, Donkey Kong Bananza and Mario Kart World are sure to dominate that platform's player counts.
And of course, the Alinea Analytics list has no bearing on what critics liked most—or even what we at HotHardware liked most, though we did cover a fair share of these titles. To cap off the year (and this article), here are HotHardware's picks for the best game of 2025: (We'll update the list as more staff writers sound off.)
My most played new release this year was Ninja Gaiden 4, which dropped on October 21st but still got 11% of my playtime (or 101.6 hours) this year. Ninja Gaiden 4 marks the biggest return of a dormant stylish action franchise since 2019's Devil May Cry 5, which is another all-time favorite. I'll be playing Ninja Gaiden 4, as well as the rest of the Ninja Gaiden series, alongside DMC and fighting games for years to come. The game wasn't a major sales success, but it has a solid 82 on Metacritic, and genre fans like myself adore it. If you like punishing action games, I can't recommend it enough, especially if you share my Soulslike fatigue.
The game is also 30% off on Steam at time of writing, and available for just $48.99.
Head Honcho David Altavilla's favorite 2025 release was ARC Raiders. Sadly, he didn't get much time to play the game, but he called it a "visually gorgeous game" and clearly enjoyed the hours he could squeeze in. The game is 20% off on Steam at the moment as well, for readers also interested in hopping in for the low price of $31.99.
