2025: Predictions for the Year Ahead

The New Year is upon us. Filled with possibility, 2025 could see new highs and lows hit our industry. Here are just a few we can see happening.

For the first time in a while, 2025 feels like it can stand alone without reference to Covid. While the last couple of years have been chocked full of delayed titles, this year seems quieter somehow. Then again, we’ve said that before.

While there may not be the bulk of anticipated titles this year that there has been in 2023 and 2024, there’s no doubt that some amazing things are on the way. That includes some pretty big hitters in major franchises: Assassin’s Creed leading the charge.

Xbox has an amazing year ahead, presuming things release as expected. Avowed, Fable, Doom: The Dark Ages and South of Midnight are all due this year, with rumours of things like an Oblivion Remaster/Remake on the horizon too. Call of Duty, inevitably, will end up one of the biggest games of the year. PlayStation has Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2 announced, while Nintendo might have a bit of a busy year ahead of them too.

But ultimately none of that matters. Why? Grand Theft Auto 6. The game that’ll save the gaming industry. Well, fingers crossed.

Consoles, Consoles, Consoles

We’re only half way through the current generation, but that’s not going to stop 2025 being all about consoles, consoles, consoles.

The biggest headline will be the announcement and release of the Switch 2. The announcement was on last year’s list too, but at this point it would be too much for Nintendo not to put out its new device. The console has been photographed, detailed, unveiled and revealed multiple times now. What are Nintendo waiting for? Well, it might be the announcement of some Nvidia tech, due to be shown in the next week. Hopefully beyond that, the floodgates open.

And while we know a lot about the Switch 2, we don’t know what we’ll be playing on the Switch 2. Amazingly, Nintendo have managed to keep their entire launch roster under wraps. But we know their biggest developers have been cooking for a good while, so the first year will be exciting to see.

Elsewhere, 2025 will generally be the year of the handheld. Both PlayStation and Xbox are supposedly working on handheld devices, and it’s possible we may find out more about them. But beyond that, other companies will have handhelds to show. SteamOS will become available on other devices, and we’ll see some higher end things

I also predict that Apple show some more of their gaming plans. Fans have wanted an Apple TV with gaming capabilities, and that’d be an interesting way forward for the company.

Grand Theft Auto 6

There’s a lot of pressure on Grand Theft Auto 6. It’s already predicted to be the biggest media launch of all time. But that’s not all. As the industry struggles with costs, there’s hope Grand Theft Auto might breathe some new life into sales. People who’ve held off on upgrading from a PS4 or Xbox One might finally make the plunge, and there will be much rejoicing all around.

If there’s any franchise that can pull it off, it’s Grand Theft Auto. Rumour has it that companies are leaving their release dates fluid in the effort not to face up to the behemoth directly. I wouldn’t bet against it.

The question isn’t whether it’ll end up big – it will. It’s not even if it’ll end up that big – it doesn’t really matter. The question is whether it’ll release at all. Rockstar has a lot riding on this, and they’ll want it to be close to perfect at launch. There are some interesting questions around Grand Theft Auto Online, which is the cash cow that keeps on giving. Will it be available to day one players?

There’s no reason to think it’ll get delayed into 2026, outside of precedent anyway. Both Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 were pushed back, quite a bit in the latter case.  Still, this time is likely to be different, and I’m certain that’s not only wishful thinking on my part.

What’s Happening at Xbox?

As listed above, this is going to be a great year for games at Xbox. There will be some real big hitters. Luckily, nobody will be left out. They’ll be coming to PlayStation and probably Switch 2 too. That’s not a bad thing, but it begs a bunch of questions that haven’t been answered yet. Anybody who read my Should I Buy An Xbox article will know the main one: is there really any reason to get into the ecosystem?

My prediction is that by the end of 2025, we know a bit more about the future of the brand than we do now. I’m not promising that there will be a penny drop moment. There may be no single piece of information that, had we known it 12 months ago, would’ve made everything make sense. But I do think Microsoft has to do something. There’s never been more confusion about where Xbox is going – and that’s saying something. Are they removing the Series consoles from sale in some territories or are they ramping up to their most powerful console yet? Are they teaming up with other brands to create off-brand Xboxes, is everything an Xbox or is nothing an Xbox?  I don’t know and worse, sometime it doesn’t feel like Xbox knows. Hopefully that changes in the next 12 months.

More Games Than We Want

2024 saw a lot of big games fail to meet expectation. That’s a trend we’re going to continue to see in 2025. Why? Because the basic cause of these issues hasn’t changed. We don’t have enough time, we don’t have enough money. We have backlogs a mile long. There will be exceptions – probably whatever Tiktok latches onto. But for the most part, things will do just okay and maybe not even that.

There’s also going to be a lot of talk about performance over the next year. On one front, the PlayStation 5 Pro will inevitably run Xbox games better than any Xbox can. Expect some interesting case studies.

But performance is going to be a conversation across the board as more games, like Indiana Jones last year, make raytracing the default. We’re into the latter half of the generation now, and we’re going to start seeing things that consoles just can’t manage to run.

And naturally, part of that conversation will be around optimisation and releasing things before they’re ready. I suspect it’ll be a brutal year for smaller teams using Unreal especially.