The ten Largest Gaming Disappointments Of 2025

I’d hoped 2025 could be a greater yr than 2024. And in some private methods, it was. But it surely was additionally one more yr full of layoffs, AI slop, grasping execs, worth will increase, and extra indicators that your complete recreation business is collapsing.

So, like we’ve done in years past, Kotaku has rounded up a group of a number of the worst, most disappointing online game information and occasions from 2025 and catalogued it in a useful dandy record. Take breaks as you scroll by means of this, and let’s all hope 2026 is best. It could actually’t be worse, proper? Please, inform me it may well’t be worse. Please…

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So Many Canceled Video games

This was the yr by which, greater than ever earlier than, plenty of huge video games obtained canned, or we realized about tasks that had been binned not way back.

Perfect Dark, the slick-looking reboot of Uncommon’s sci-fi shooter sequence? Canned, and the studio behind it shuttered. A Surprise Lady recreation from Monolith? Canceled taking the beloved studio behind No One Lives Perpetually and Shadow of Mordor down with it. An EA-published Black Panther recreation from some former Monolith devs that will have reportedly featured a model of Mordor’s standard Nemesis System? Lifeless and the studio behind it closed, too. EA also shelved a Titanfall extraction shooter spin-off; Sony killed just a few live-service video games, including a God of War multiplayer project; and a cool-looking Transformers recreation from Splash Harm obtained the axe this yr, resulting in, you guessed it, layoffs.

And these are simply those that we learn about. I’d wager much more video games had been canceled in 2025 as publishers proceed to focus an increasing number of on fewer franchises that may be reliably counted on to show a revenue. And as famous, many of those cancellations led to layoffs and studios being closed, an issue price speaking about individually, as a result of in 2025, these cuts and closings occurred so much. 

Extra Layoffs And Studio Closings 

2025 wasn’t as dangerous for business layoffs as 2024, however it was nonetheless fairly horrible. Almost 10,000 builders misplaced jobs, according to layoff tracker Amir Satvat. That’s down from the over 15,000 pink-slips peak of 2025, however nonetheless up from 2022. The large cutbacks had been as soon as once more at Microsoft, which shaved a whole lot of jobs throughout its gaming division, together with at Uncommon, Zenimax, and King. 

However these had been hardly the one ones. Notable groups like Cloud Chamber, engaged on BioShock 4, misplaced dozens of workers, Amazon Gaming lower over 100 positions, and Sq. Enix made cuts throughout its worldwide publishing enterprise. Indies had been additionally nonetheless hit laborious. Coronary heart Machine needed to lay individuals off and finish Hyper Gentle Breaker Early Entry improvement early, whereas Wreckreation maker Three Fields Entertainment turned to Patreon as it looks for new funding. 

Randomly trying up the developer behind Floppy Knights to see what they had been engaged on subsequent, solely to search out a shutdown notice on their homepage, just about summed up the continued business vibe.  – Ethan Gach

Generative AI Slop Spreads By means of The Recreation Trade

Generative AI isn’t new tech. It’s been floating round for just a few years now. However in 2025, it felt like AI popped up more than ever throughout totally different video games and studios. Swen Vincke, the pinnacle of Baldur’s Gate 3 maker Larian Studios, stepped into it big time in December after he sounded shockingly bullish on AI technology instruments. And Vincke wasn’t alone. Loads of different online game executives and managers had a lot of constructive issues to say about AI technology instruments.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II director Daniel Vávra is all for AI utilization if it lets his studio make video games quicker. Chris Cocks, the CEO of D&D mum or dad firm Hasbro, mentioned AI is “supercharging fandom.” Nexon CEO Junghun Lee, whose firm owns the studio behind Arc Raiders, said in an interview that it’s “important to assume that every game company is now using AI,” and that different corporations wanted to depend on the tech to “increase [their] competitiveness.” Helldivers 2 boss Shams Jorjani thinks persons are being too fast to dismiss AI and known as Arc Raiders‘ use of the tech interesting, adding that in his view the tech “actually makes gaming better.” Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino reportedly said that it’s “becoming common sense in the creative world to rely on the power of AI to boost work efficiency.” Stage-5 is the studio behind Professor Layton and Ni No Kuni. 

The gung-ho angle so many gaming execs and managers have towards gen AI instruments doubtless explains how ugly, wonky AI slop retains ending up in huge video video games, together with Battlefield 6, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7,  Anno 117: Pax Romana, and others. And regardless of gamers virtually universally being towards AI artwork and different slop, this development isn’t going away in 2026. PUBG writer Krafton plans to spend practically $70 million on turning into an “AI-first” company. Ubisoft, in the meantime, is investing so much into leveraging the controversial tech into its future video video games, even showing off an FPS that was built entirely around AI tech.

The shit has even labored its approach into stuff like GZDoom and television show recaps. That is our future. It fucking sucks, and till the AI bubble pops, all of us should put up with extra slop in 2026, so grasping execs could make the road go up extra by changing devs and artists with AI chatbots and hoping avid gamers finally recover from it.

Enjoying Video Video games Is Turning into A Very Costly Pastime

It’s by no means been low-cost to play video video games. However in 2025, this already costly interest turned much more expensive. As noted by Stephen Totilo over at Game File, since April, there have been eight worth hikes whole from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft on consoles, equipment, and subscriptions. This is likely one big reason why console sales were in the gutter in November. And even in the event you tried to purchase a used Xbox or PS5 to economize, it would still likely be more expensive than that same console would have cost at launch in 2020.

In the meantime, Nintendo turned the primary writer to interrupt a stunning worth barrier when it introduced that Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World would be priced at $80. Later, Xbox introduced that The Outer Worlds 2 would even be $80, but the backlash was so strong that it relented and lowered the worth to $70. Nevertheless, Xbox didn’t again down on elevating costs on Recreation Move and turned the service, as soon as known as one of the best deal in gaming by many, into a more complicated and expensive subscription service. Sony raised prices on PlayStation Plus as well.

Maybe you determine to skip consoles totally, construct a PC, and make the most of all the nice offers on shops like Steam and GOG. Properly, due to a variety of elements, together with tech corporations gobbling up components for AI utilization and President Trump’s idiotic tariffs, RAM and other PC parts are becoming more and more expensive. And this additionally implies that PC handhelds, just like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, will doubtless price extra when newer variations are introduced, and costs on current fashions will most likely enhance. Valve has also announced that it’s accomplished making the most affordable model of the Steam Deck, which isn’t excellent news for folk in search of an reasonably priced and accessible entry into PC gaming. I imply, none of that is excellent news, and with rumors swirling that next-gen machines will be expensive behemoths, I’d recommend gamers start saving up money as we enter 2026.

Valve And Credit score Card Firms Resolve What Video games Are Allowed To Exist

It’s been five months since Steam and itch.io started purging sure NSFW video games from their storefronts following stress from fee processors like Mastercard. Regardless of a direct backlash and ongoing calls to not let banks censor artwork, tons of video games stay unavailable to buy on the world’s largest PC gaming storefronts.

The worst a part of all is that it’s nonetheless not even clear who the company companions are attempting to appease with the crackdown. The message to potential censorship advocates is that in the event you make sufficient noise, controversy-averse corporations will again down. – Ethan Gach

The $55 Billion Saudi / EA Deal

Digital Arts might be not anybody’s favourite writer, given it’s answerable for turning some beloved IPs into live-service slop and gutting sure groups underneath its umbrella after undermining them for decades, however no one desires to see a company bought out by the Saudi government.

Although EA claims it is going to preserve artistic freedom after the $55 billion deal is signed, sealed, and delivered, all it takes is one particular person from on excessive to say that BioWare can’t embrace queer relationships in Mass Impact 5 or that The Sims is now going to focus completely on the nuclear household for all of that independence to go away. EA can placed on a courageous face all it desires, however that is bleak, and plenty of good builders and tales are doubtless going to endure for it.  – Kenneth Shepard

Mindseye

 

There was plenty of buzz round Mindseye, the primary recreation from longtime Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies’ indie video game studio. It was going to be a GTA-like semi-open-world motion recreation that tied into a bigger suite of on-line recreation creation instruments that individuals might use to construct their very own experiences, ala Roblox or Fortnite. As a substitute, what Mindseye ended up being when it launched earlier this yr was a complete disaster. It was extraordinarily buggy, ran like crap, was full of boring missions, and felt sterile and empty. It was easily one of the worst games of the year, and it doubtless jeopardizes the way forward for Benzies’ studio and different tasks.

President Trump’s Gaming Posts And The Lack Of Any Pushback

The Trump administration turning fascist propaganda into the stuff of memes isn’t terribly stunning, however it’s disappointing that a number of the largest corporations in video video games simply let him use their IP to do it. Microsoft and The Pokémon Firm each noticed their creations utilized in posts from the Trump administration attempting to recruit nerds to affix ICE, and whereas The Pokémon Firm mentioned it hadn’t given permission for the usage of its work, it stopped in need of condemning the video submit of ICE brokers “catching” immigrants set to the enduring anime theme tune from the ‘90s. Microsoft, meanwhile, didn’t say a goddamn phrase.

With the present administration being this brain-rotted and on-line, I think about most individuals need to simply preserve their heads down and never put the highlight on themselves for longer than they must. But when Sabrina Carpenter can inform Trump to eat shit, so are you able to, Grasp Chief. – Kenneth Shepard

The Continued Dying Of Bodily Media

2024 was a nasty yr for bodily media, and 2025 simply introduced extra dangerous information on that entrance. Some bodily recreation releases on the Swap 2, the most popular new console round, make use of Recreation Key Playing cards, which are basically little pieces of plastic that don’t contain the game, however as a substitute a digital DRM key that permits you to obtain and play a selected recreation. They rely on the web and Nintendo’s servers, and that should make everyone nervous.

In the meantime, I walked right into a Goal to do some Christmas purchasing and found that my native retailer has simply stopped promoting Xbox video games. The Outer Worlds 2 skipped a bodily Xbox launch totally. And PlayStation made only 3 percent of its total profits in 2024 from physical game sales. Yikes. Whereas bodily video games aren’t going away totally in 2026, it does seem to be the period of shops full of aisles of video games to purchase is lengthy gone.

GTA 6 Delayed Twice As Rockstar Faces Accusations Of Union Busting

Grand Theft Auto 6, presumably probably the most extremely anticipated online game launch in a decade, suffered two extra delays in 2025. Initially, Rockstar’s long-awaited open-world crime sim was purported to launch this yr, with many anticipating a fall arrival. However within the spring, the game was delayed until May 2026. Followers got a second trailer to make up for the delay and marked the brand new date on their calendars. After which, about six months later, Rockstar announced another delay, pushing GTA 6 again all the way in which till November 2026.

In fact, this wasn’t probably the most disappointing information to return from Rockstar Video games in 2025. No, that will be the union-busting accusations leveled against the company after it fired over two dozen workers for allegedly sharing confidential info on Discord. The workers who had been fired deny these allegations and, with the assist of the Impartial Staff’ Union of Nice Britain, continued to protest at Rockstar’s offices. This entire state of affairs has blown up a lot that the UK’s Prime Minister has openly called out Rockstar Games and demanded additional investigation. It’s clear this isn’t going away like Rockstar Video games doubtless hoped, and when (if?) GTA 6 lastly launches in 2026, the corporate’s firing of those workers will doubtless be a sizzling subject among the many press and followers.