It’s that time of year again when Metacritic compiles and analyzes vast amounts of data on the performance of video game publishers over the past calendar year. The rankings are determined by considering the average Metascore across all games released by a publisher, the total number of titles launched, and how many are classified as ‘excellent’ (Metascore of 90 or above), ‘bad’ (49 or below), or ‘good’ (at least a score of 75). For the 2026 rankings, reflecting 2025 performance, a new Japanese publisher has risen to the top, surpassing last year’s leader, Sega.
Square Enix claims the top spot with a total score of 330.5 points. This impressive achievement is largely due to nine of their launched products being rated as at least ‘good’, with one achieving an ‘excellent’ classification: Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth on PC.
Metacritic commented on Square Enix’s leading position, stating: “Ranking first for the very first time in 16 years of compiling these rankings, Japanese publisher Square Enix received positive reviews for each of its 2025 releases while increasing its average Metascore by five points compared to the previous year. A variety of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest titles performed excellently for the publisher last year (and also in early 2026), while even its ‘worst’ 2025 release, SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered, earned critical approval.”
For the remainder of the top 10, you can review the information below. Notably absent from the top tier are major publishers such as Ubisoft (11th), Nintendo (12th), Sony (21st), and Bandai Namco (24th).
- Square Enix – 330.5 points
- Gamirror Games – 322.4 points
- Capcom – 322.2 points
- Thunderful – 306.8 points
- Microsoft – 305.7 points
- Take-Two Interactive – 304.0 points
- Sega – 303.9 points
- Electronic Arts – 302.9 points
- Dotemu – 302.2 points
- Raw Fury – 301.0 points