Here’s my review of gaming in 2025, including a prediction for the new year.

The Consoles

I don’t own any current generation game consoles, but it’s clear even to me that they are a stagnant technology. They are going nowhere fast, but that’s fine since there doesn’t seem to be anywhere left to go. Graphical fidelity is as close to perfect as anyone can afford, and everyone is just playing the same old games anyway. I don’t think there is a prediction worth making for 2026. No noteworthy hardware releases or updates will occur in the next twelve months. Nintendo just released their Switch hardware refresh, Sony is sitting quite comfortably on its laurels, and Microsoft/Xbox is sitting in the corner eating paste. I’d guess three to five years for another major hardware release (from anyone), and I wouldn’t even be surprised if that didn’t happen.

The (Glorious) PC

Forgive my use of such an old meme. I’ve been a PC gamer for a very long time, and I remember a time before the Glorious PC Master Race was a merch store. Despite my critical tone, I do believe that PC gaming was actually decent in 2025, for the usual reasons. As a platform PC is wide open, the barriers to entry are low for both gamers and game developers alike. The online discourse around this hobby is misleadingly negative. You don’t actually need NVIDIA’s latest gaming widget to play, and you don’t need to sell your kidneys to afford it either.

The back catalog of PC games is the absolute best, full. Stop. Although there were a fair few good releases this year, that literally doesn’t matter considering just how many top-shelf releases already exist, and often at bargain-basement prices. There are already enough good games to keep most people entertained for a lifetime.

I could list a few cheap mini PC’s that demonstrate a point about accessibility, but I’ll take this opportunity to talk about the Steam Deck instead. It might not beat them on value per dollar, but its amazing value compared to even a ‘mid-range’ custom gaming machine. I absolutely love my Steam Deck, and it is a right-proper gaming PC, for both enthusiasts and casual players. I was able to convince a friend to buy one. He had never played PC games before, but now he has 100’s of hours in Hell Divers 2 and Palworld.

In the ways that matter most I think PC gaming will have another fine year in 2026, but due to the current state of technology and the global economy I’ll make this my prediction for the following year. (using inflation adjusted dollar values)

At any constant dollar value between $1000 and $1500 CAD, overall performance of a custom gaming PC will fall through 2026.

This feels like a bit of a stretch, but if the AI bubble doesn’t pop then this won’t be all that surprising. As someone who has always enjoyed building his own gaming computers I do find this unfortunate. But ultimately I don’t really think this will matter all that much. A powerful or modern machine is in no way necessary. Many good older titles work perfectly on modest hardware, as well as newer indie releases.

The Games

I believe game design is at a near stand-still. My opinion here might be slightly controversial, but I do believe that game design is largely a ‘solved’ problem, meaning I don’t believe there is space left for anything so innovative as a whole new ‘genre’. There will always exist new ideas, but in many of the ways that games ‘get better’ over time they already have, which means there isn’t much left to improve. I think of gaming as having come of age, and has matured in a way similar to movies and music. We know what satisfying music sounds like, what stories and character arch-types most people will enjoy. And so every year ‘new’ content gets made, and real creativity is expressed, but within a quite rigid structure that appeals to audience expectations. And that’s OK, there will always be room for creativity and expression even if there is no longer any significant innovation.

With just one obvious exception, I don’t believe there will be any truly stand-out game releases in 2026. Similar to this past year there will be a handful of good indie and medium budget releases which will enjoy their short time in the spotlight before everyone’s attention moves along to the next title. The aforementioned exception to this will of course be the mammoth in the room, Grand Theft Auto 6. My expectation is that the release will be similar to that of GTA5 in 2013, it will be raucous and will dominate new cycles for weeks both before and after launch day. It will be superior to GTA5 in all the ways that matter, and will very likely be considered the best game of the year.

I won’t give a specific prediction for 2026, but I will say that I believe GTA6 might be the final high watermark for the scope of a video game release. It seems clear to me that the industry is very close to the limit of what is possible for budget, staffing, development time, world size, etc… I personally don’t see this as a problem, but I do see in the discourse around gaming that many people are failing to realize this.

Artificial Intelligence is a massive wild card, and I could eventually be proven wrong. It is possible that in years to come there will be technological solutions available that will allow games (and virtual worlds in general) to far surpass current limits, but I’m willing to say confidently that that won’t be happening in just the next year.