While Microsoft did what it could to trip over price hikes and Xbox Game Pass changes, PlayStation had a less controversial year.
With no Concord-style flops, PlayStation 5 just kept on trucking with a relatively slim lineup of exclusives. Sony even felt charitable enough to publish Helldivers 2 on Xbox, seemingly marking the end of the console wars, while getting Gears of War and Forza Horizon 5 in return, but 2026 and beyond will see returns for Insomniac Games, Housemarque, and potentially Naughty Dog – suggesting the quiet period won’t last long.
Still, with layoffs across multiple studios tallying over 1,500 in recent years, big questions over the future of Bungie, and the rise of the Nintendo Switch 2, it’s not exactly been a spotless 2025.
Minimal hardware changes
Last year saw the launch of the PS5 Pro, and the console certainly got some love with enhancements for big titles like Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Ghost of Yotei, Monster Hunter Wilds, Battlefield 6, and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, making the console much easier to recommend. Expect upcoming titles like 007: First Light, Saros, and more to (hopefully) get even better on the newest hardware.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is how Microsoft’s games have adopted the PS5 Pro. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Forza Horizon 5 are both PS5 Pro-enhanced, meaning they’re better than they were on Microsoft’s own console.
Other than the supercharged console coming into its own, though, hardware news was quiet on Sony’s side. The company announced its own speakers coming in 2026, while there was a subtle DualSense revision that improved the battery life. A new PS5 Pro arrived, too, one that’s lighter and runs cooler, while the FlexStrike fight stick is slated for next year.
PSVR 2 got some new games like Hitman and Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked, but it really does feel as though Sony has stepped away from VR for the time being. That’s a shame, given that the headset is a massive step up from the first-generation version on PS4, but we’ll see if the company tries to make VR a bigger part of its output in 2026.
Faring better is the PlayStation Portal. Sony’s remote player is a far cry from the PSP of yesteryear, but it now has the option to play games from the cloud – no PS5 required. It’s still tied to PlayStation Plus Premium (the priciest membership tier), but it’s now available for all players as of November, having been in beta for much of the year.
Finally, there’s no new DualSense, but between Icon Blue, the God of War model, and plenty of other fresh options, Sony has kept collectors well catered to.
Get to the games
If there’s one thing Sony has done consistently well for years now, it’s to bring tantalizing exclusive titles to its consoles. While next year will see Marvel’s Wolverine, Phantom Blade 0 (also coming to PC), and Saros, PlayStation fans had a quieter 2025 than they may have expected.
Hideo Kojima’s long-awaited Death Stranding sequel, On the Beach, might not sway you if you weren’t convinced by the first game, but Ghost of Yotei was another solid Sucker Punch open-world adventure.
Outside of those, though, it was a pretty quiet one, with plenty of franchises still pretty quiet. With The Last of Us, God of War, Uncharted, and more in its back pocket, Sony can afford to rotate franchises.
This year finally saw Grand Theft Auto 6 break cover, with PlayStation seemingly snapping up the marketing rights for Rockstar’s next epic. That has little bearing on this year, especially given its multiple delays, but expect a bumper sales year for the system off the back of that.
Sony’s pivot to more live service games, however, feels almost entirely in stasis. The company announced layoffs this year in the wake of canceled games-as-a-service projects, with Jade Raymond, founder of Haven Studios, leaving before Fairgame$ has even shipped.
Arguably, nothing sums up Sony’s current live-service limbo like Bungie. The studio, which has presided over the Destiny franchise since 2014 and has pivoted to two expansions per calendar year, has been embroiled in controversy this year.
Following significant layoffs last year, Destiny 2’s Edge of Fate expansion was a critical drop from 2024’s The Final Shape, and while December 2025’s Renegades seems to have improved things, player counts have been lower than ever.
Bungie needs a win, then, with the company reportedly being eyed for assimilation into Sony proper, losing its autonomy. That’s looking more likely, with Marathon slipping from 2025 to next year following accusations of plagiarism for art in its world. It’s slated for March 2026.
Finally, it’s worth noting that Sony has been pushing more of its games to PC. Stellar Blade made the move this year, while Lost Soul Aside, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 also moved to Steam.
The human cost
Again, it’s worth pointing out that developers, even those at Sony studios, are being laid off. While Sony didn’t terminate as many employees as it did in 2024, a round of layoffs in 2025 still hit the PlayStation Visual Arts group following the aforementioned live service cancellations.
If Sony, seemingly the company selling plenty of software and hardware, is still making these kinds of cuts, then what are we doing here?
Cancelled titles reportedly included a God of War spinoff, and are likely to have been caused in some way by the high-profile failure of Concord to find an audience in 2024.
In many ways, Sony’s 2025 was very similar to its 2024, but with diminished returns. There were exclusives, but none shone as brightly as Astro Bot, while hardware changes were minimal after last year’s big new PS5 Pro reveal and release, and layoffs remain just about the only industry constant – not just for Sony.
With Marvel’s Wolverine, Saros, and more planned for 2026, Sony could be set to stop treading water – but with no real pressure, does it need to?
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