Metacritic Ranks the Best Publishers of 2026
The review aggregator site delivers its verdict. Who will be number one?
For the sixteenth consecutive year, Metacritic compiles the ranking of the best video game publishers. It looks at titles released in 2025: only publishers with at least 5 distinct games on PC and console (thus excluding mobile) during the period under review are included in the ranking. To establish the ranking, the main criterion is the average Metascore of all the publisher's games, but the percentage of good games (score>74%), bad games (score<50%), and any great games (score>89%) are also taken into consideration.
Metacritic's 2026 Publisher Ranking
You can find the complete ranking and a detailed explanation of how it works on Metacritic's website. The 2026 edition included 28 publishers: among the lowest positions, it's surprising to find excellent names like Bandai Namco and Sony. A video game institution like Nintendo has to settle for a mid-table position, alongside Konami and Koei Tecmo. Electronic Arts, Sega, and Microsoft are doing very well, all in the top 10.
The Podium of the Ranking
On the lowest step of the podium, we find a guarantee of quality like Capcom, which ranked second last year and triumphed in 2024. In second place, however, is a smaller publisher, Gamirror Games, whose flagship title was Absolum. The triumph went to Square-Enix: this is the first victory for the Japanese company, which can boast a great game like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.