The gaming industry is having an identity crisis.
More AAA titles are releasing as disappointments due to factors like unfinished development and bloated prices, while smaller games are finding success in a market choked by a lack of creativity.
2025 has shown that games don’t need to have an insane budget to be successful. In fact, innovation and heart have been the driving forces behind some of the most popular games of the year.
With Hollow Knight: Silksong’s monumental release and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s massive critical acclaim, smaller game studios are proving that passion is the most important part of video game development.
So, why are huge AAA studios unable to keep up?
There is no question that huge releases like Monster Hunter Wildsand DOOM: The Dark Ageshave been well received. However, big studios in the industry, such as Ubisoft, have produced games with mixed reception, as well as a few disasters.
The first title that comes to mind is AAA title MindsEyeby the studio Build a Rocket Boy, which is a new studio with no other games developed. This title was released with dozens of game-breaking bugs, poor performance, and messy mechanics that can’t be fixed. MindsEyecurrently sports a staggering 37 critical review score on Metacritic, with little hope for any fixes or updates.
In contrast, Hollow Knight: Silksongwas recently released to rave reviews and minor bugs (outside of the literal ones), and it boasted a peak Steam player count of nearly 600,000 in the first week.
How can a game made by three people accomplish a feat that many AAA games can’t dream of achieving?
Brand recognition seems like an obvious answer, considering Silksongis a sequel to the original Hollow Knight.Despite this claim, franchises such as Assassin’s Creedthat have pushed out a new installment nearly every year since 2007, cannot reach those numbers despite releasing a game in 2025 with Assassin’s Creed: Shadows.Its all-time peak is a mere 64,000 players.
Brand recognition isn’t the onlypossible answer, either. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33is a debut game from French studio Sandfall Interactive, and it has taken the gaming world by storm.
Expedition 33captured the hearts of many with its original story, beautiful soundtrack, and gripping gameplay. Critics and fans alike praised it for being bold and stepping away from patterns such as checklist objectives and photorealistic graphics that plague AAA gaming.
While Expedition 33isn’t an indie title, its relatively limited budget and smaller team prove that money isn’t everything when making a game. In many cases, imposing constraints breeds creativity and forces developers to consider how they might effectively utilize their time.
The budget and time required to make a AAA game have ballooned in recent years. What once took a year or two to create now takes four at a minimum.Bigger budgets and longer development times often lead to unfocused game design and features that some may deem unnecessary, especially in open-world titles.
Following 2025, I hope that studios like Ubisoft and EA reevaluate what makes video games special. Big companies focus on the shareholders instead of the fans, and games take too long to develop.
If smaller studios can create games that many consider modern classics, then imagine what a studio like Ubisoft could do with the right focus and passion.
I hope AAA studios learn the right lessons from the critical successes of their independent counterparts.
