The new game from Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and Sucker Punch Productions, Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut, isn’t bad. However, it lags behind many other titles released in 2025. How did this happen?

Ghost of Tsushima: Yotei is certainly a huge step up from the original Ghost of Tsushima, released in 2020, but it failed to impress players among this year’s other notable releases. The game didn’t even win an award at The Game Awards, a ceremony hosted by Sony. Sony named it Game of the Year at its own awards ceremony, but many players and critics gave it much lower rankings. As a result, the publisher’s only self-developed game did not make Metacritic’s top 10 list of the best PlayStation games of 2025, which is surprising!

Ghost of Yotei ranks 19th on Metacritic’s list with a score of 86/100. This isn’t terrible, but the game couldn’t compete with many other successful 2025 titles. It was surpassed only by Silent Hill F, a decent game that was overshadowed by others. PlayStation did not release any other traditional first-party games this year. Despite being published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Death Stranding 2 is not considered a first-party game because Kojima Productions owns the IP and worked on it independently of Sony. It was the seventh highest-rated game on the list.

Many smaller AA and indie projects dominated this year, including Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which topped the list and earned a score of 92/100 on Metacritic. Additionally, Microsoft’s Forza Horizon 5, developed by Playground Games and published by Xbox Game Studios, ranked third due to its high rating. Sony’s performance on Metacritic’s list of the best games of 2026 could be much better; games such as Phantom Blade Zero and Marvel’s Wolverine are expected to be released.

Source: Tech4gamers, Metacritic