Top 5 Most-Played Games on PlayStation & Xbox in 2025

Despite a year filled with highly anticipated releases, the most-played games in the United States remained stagnant in 2025. Data shared by Mat Piscatella, an analyst at Circana, indicates that the top five most-played games on PlayStation and Xbox were exactly the same as they were in 2024. This trend highlights a significant shift in how players are engaging with the medium.

The data suggests that while new games are being released, the audience is increasingly sticking to established favorites. This behavior is driven by the rise of live service games and a capped market audience. As a result, the industry is seeing a consolidation of playtime among a select few titles, making it harder for new intellectual properties to gain traction.

The consistency in the rankings is striking. For the PlayStation platform, the top five games for both 2024 and 2025 were Fortnite, Call of Duty, GTA V, Roblox, and Minecraft. The data indicates that despite the release of titles such as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Death Stranding 2, players returned to the same experiences.

The Xbox platform showed a similar pattern, featuring the exact same five games. The order on Xbox differed slightly, with Minecraft and Roblox swapping positions compared to the 2024 rankings. However, the core group of games remained unchanged, reinforcing the dominance of these specific live service titles in the US market.

According to Piscatella, this trend is a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic prompted a surge in the video game audience, bringing in huge numbers of new players. As a result, major gaming markets effectively reached a cap on how many new players they can obtain, because the audience was already largely present.

On top of market saturation, the capped audience is playing a smaller number of games overall. Rising game prices contribute to this behavior. Players are gravitating toward live service games they are familiar with, spending smaller amounts of money for a fun experience on a platform they already own, rather than risking larger amounts on new titles.

Piscatella explains that the market used to work by players buying one big new game, spending time on it, and moving to the next. However, that cycle has broken. He provided statistics on current purchasing habits:

• 30% of people that play video games were expected to not buy a video game in 2025.
• 18% would purchase a new game every six months or less frequently.
• Only 12% buy a game once a month.
• 4% buy new games more often than that.

The consolidation of playtime has severe implications for developers and publishers. Piscatella notes that developers are being hurt the most when targeting the small percentage of players who purchase games frequently. Meanwhile, the vast majority of players are buying only one or two games a year, sticking to titles like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox.

This shift makes it harder than ever for brand new games to break through. This difficulty has been cited as a major factor in the recent wave of layoffs, studio closures, and project cancellations that have impacted the industry. The dominance of existing titles creates a barrier to entry for new intellectual properties.

Piscatella summarized the challenge facing the industry with a specific observation regarding market competition. He stated, "The biggest competitor to any new video game is Fortnite." This highlights the immense challenge new titles face in capturing player attention in the current landscape.