The highest rated Metacritic game of 2025 actually came out in 2023
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been knocked from its spot as Metacritic's best reviewed game of 2025.
The fight for 2025's best reviewed video game has been a tight one so far, with the number one spot being regularly overtaken by new entries.
AAA games like Monster Hunter Wilds and indies like Blue Prince have all vied for the crown, though surprise hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has held the top spot quite comfortably (and rightly) since its April launch.
Now, though, it has been dethroned and not even by a new game but the updated re-release of The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom for Nintendo Switch 2.
Clair Obscur now has to share the number two spot with the other big Switch 2 re-release: The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild.
Although both Zelda games have been available on Switch 2 since June 5, reviews have only recently begun to come out, since Nintendo didn't supply review copies at launch.
It's not surprising to see both games score so highly. After all, they did when they originally came out too, and have only been enhanced further on Switch 2 thanks to their improved frame rates, visuals, and the handy Zelda Notes app.
Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.
At the time of writing, Tears Of The Kingdom has an average Metacritic score of 95, making it the highest scoring game of 2025 on Metacritic. Breath Of The Wild and Clair Obscur are in joint second at 93.
So, what can we take away from this? Frankly, it's that Metacritic' score aggregation system, for determining the best games of the year, isn't perfect.
While both Zelda games definitely deserve their perfect scores, and they are technically 2025 releases, it doesn't seem fair to pit them against other brand new games.
And yet if you were to discount them it soon becomes very difficult to know where to stop, given how the lines between remaster and remake are constantly being blurred.
But there's another problem in the way Metacritic aggregates average scores, where high scoring games can benefit from having fewer reviews. If a game only has two reviews and they're both positive, it can perform better than a game with 100 good reviews and just a handful of more negative ones.
This is the case with the two Zelda games. At the time of writing, there are only 10 critic reviews for Breath Of The Wild on Switch 2 (one of which doesn't provide a score) and only eight for Tears Of The Kingdom.
By comparison, Clair Obscur has 84 critic reviews and while the majority are positive, the scores lean between perfect 10/10s to as low as 7/10. So the wider range knocks its average down. More Trending
The same logic can be applied for bad games too. Right now, the worst reviewed game of the year is MindsEye, with an average Metacritic score of 37.
However, publisher IO Interactive Partners never supplied review codes, so there are only a small handful of official reviews to aggregate, with just eight of them at time of writing.
Admittedly, none of them are positive, but more reviews mean more opportunities to earn at least average scores, that could help push it a bit further up. (Spoiler: we're willing to bet that doesn't happen.)
Not to mention Metacritic's list doesn't include games that have less than seven critic reviews, so it's likely the actual worst game of 2025 is something most people have completely overlooked.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.
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For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.
MORE: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sells 3.3 million copies after 33 days
MORE: Nintendo Switch 2 owner loses 20 years' worth of save data in botched transfer
MORE: Twitch streamer breaks down in laughter trying to promote MindsEye
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