Have you got a Game of the Year yet?
Right then! Silksong has been out for a while now, and the first reviews are starting to trickle in – the highly-anticipated Hollow Knight sequel currently has a very impressive 93 average on Metacritic across PC and Xbox so far (92 on PS5).
So, that’s really shaken up the list for the top 10 highest-rated games of 2025! It hasn’t yet put a dent in the Xbox lineup due to only having four reviews for the Xbox version (games require seven reviews or more to be considered for the 2025 “Best Games” list on Metacritic), but we assume it’ll enter the Xbox top 10 very soon.
Before we get into the all formats list, here’s how the top 10 currently stands on Metacritic for Xbox. Assuming Hollow Knight: Silksong remains at a 93 rating, it’ll be joint-top with Split Fiction when it has seven Xbox reviews.
- Split Fiction – 93
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – 91
- Blue Prince – 90
- Monster Hunter Wilds – 90
- Shinobi: Art of Vengeance – 89
- Final Fantasy XVI – 88
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 – 88
- Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii – 87
- Two Point Museum – 86
- Helldivers 2 – 86
Not a bad list, right? It should be mentioned that three other games are also on 86 right now but not inside the top 10 for whatever reason, with those being The Alters, Mullet MadJack and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4.
But what about the all formats list? Well, this is a bit of a weird one because the enhanced versions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are at the top, and considering they’re more like DLC than full releases, we feel they distort the list a little bit. Still, those two are in the #1 and #2 positions with an average score of 95 each.
With those two removed, here’s how the list looks:
- Split Fiction – 93
- Hollow Knight: Silksong – 93
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – 93
- Forza Horizon 5 for PS5 – 92
- Blue Prince – 92
- Donkey Kong Bananza – 91
- Citizen Sleeper 2 – 90
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth – 90
- The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered for PC – 90
- Monster Hunter Wilds – 90
As you can see, there are a few notable differences in the scores here – both Expedition 33 and Blue Prince are more highly-rated on other platforms than Xbox, for example. That doesn’t mean the Xbox versions are any worse, but just that more of the critics who played on other platforms gave slightly better scores overall.
Microsoft has done really well with Forza Horizon 5 this year, to the point where it’s literally up for the Game of the Year debate, although it’s unlikely to be included in any lists considering it first released for Xbox back in 2021. Altogether, there are four games (five if you include Hollow Knight) from the Xbox list in the all platforms list.
Of course, everything could change over the next few months though! We’ve still got some major releases set to arrive before the end of the year, and one thing’s for sure – it’s going to be hard picking a Game of the Year out of this lot!
What do you make of these lists? Let us know down in the comments section below.
Fraser is the News Editor at Pure Xbox, where he spends his time reporting on the biggest stories in the world of Xbox and beyond.
