The gaming year 2025 has already produced some highlights, including three games from Europe that have each sold several million copies – and this should positively influence the industry, says MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz.
We are almost halfway through the current gaming year (2025) and look back on the usual madness of layoffs and studio successes, exciting games, and failures. What excites me the most looking at 2025:
Three of the currently most successful and best-rated games of this year’s class rely on wonderfully old-school gaming experiences, completely devoid of service character, elaborate funding models, and the resulting questionable design decisions that negatively impact gameplay.
Highlight 1 – Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
In my review of Kingdom Come 2, I already explained how much fun I had with Heinrich in medieval Bohemia. There, you will find a similarly immersive, impressive, and entertaining gaming experience as back in Gothic – with a world and inhabitants that feel alive and (mostly) respond understandably.
Here you can see the launch trailer of Kingdom Come 2:
Additionally, there’s the strong presentation of the story, the improved combat system, the avoidance of service nonsense (apart from early announced DLCs), and the enormous scope. To me, this is a significant improvement over Part 1 (which I also thought was great) and is on my shortlist for “Game of the Year” in December.
And the best part: I’m not the only one who thinks so. On Steam, Kingdom Come 2 currently stands at 93 percent positive, with over 72,900 reviews. On Metacritic, the game achieves an 88 Metascore and a user score of 8.7 across all platforms.
All this has also affected the sales figures. The Czech studio Warhorse announced on May 4, 2025, via X.com, that they sold 3 million copies of Kingdom Come 2 after just 3 months. This means the series has now surpassed 10 million copies sold in total.
Highlight 2 – Split Fiction
Also about the current game from the cooperative experts at the Swedish Hazelight Studios I’ve already raved on MeinMMO. How much fun the split-screen adventure of Mio and Zoe is, is also evident from the fact that we still launch it very regularly to play some levels together with the kids.
This strongly reminds me of when I used to sit with my buddies in front of a Nintendo or PlayStation console to have a good time together. I can highly recommend the predecessor, It Takes Two, in this regard as well.
One of the trailers for Split Fiction:
What I have always found very sympathetic about those responsible at Hazelight: They avoid any kind of service model or microtransactions and focus entirely on the co-op experience. Anyone who buys Split Fiction can invite a co-op partner through the friends pass, who doesn’t need their own copy of the game. How cool is that?!
Fortunately, the success proves the developers right. It Takes Two was awarded Game of the Year at the Game Awards 2021 and has sold 20 million copies (via X). Split Fiction has already sold 2 million copies in just one week (via X). On May 6, 2025, an update followed on X: The count is now at 4 million copies sold.
Highlight 3 – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
At MeinMMO’s editorial team, there are several individuals who had or continue to have an incredible amount of fun with the new role-playing game from the French studio Sandfall Interactive. Jasmin has detailed her opinion about the game in the review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. There you will also find the more critical opinions from Alex and me.
But MeinMMO demon Cortyn is also excited, because the role-playing game wonderfully manages to combine mechanics and elements known from other games into a masterpiece. Especially the wonderful art style, music, story, characters, and combat system impress.
One of the trailers for Clair Obscur – Expedition 33:
Like Kingdom Come 2, Clair Obscur has also managed to secure a strong 93 percent positive reviews on Steam. On Metacritic, there is currently no better rated game from 2025, with a Metascore of 92 and an outstanding user score of 9.7 (Blue Prince also achieves a 92 Metascore, but receives only 7.7 from the players, via Metacritic).
And what about the sales figures? Well, even though Clair Obscur is in the Game Pass, the role-playing game has already sold more than 2 million copies (via X, on May 6, 2025). This is an enormous success for the debut work of a studio.
Take a cue, dear publishers
On the one hand, I am incredibly happy about the success of the 3 aforementioned games from Europe, because they have given me many entertaining hours this year (in a time when daily news from around the world only cause worry, this is priceless), and also, because you can see how much passion has gone into each development.
On the other hand, I am delighted about the respective successes because I have learned one thing over the years: Trends in the gaming industry have always been driven by financial successes. While various service games have recently flopped hard, the games that currently focus on providing the best possible gaming experience are thriving.
It’s so delightfully old-school that it should definitely inspire other projects. So, dear publishers: Service games are not the ultimate conclusion. Also make games that are simply meant to be as much fun as possible, and where maximum monetization is not the focus. Many players appreciate this and show it with their wallets. Unfortunately, responsible parties often draw the wrong conclusions from failures, for example here: EA believes Dragon Age flopped because it wasn’t like their last big flop Anthem
