Metacritic’s 16th annual game publisher rankings released, Nintendo ranks #12

Metacritic just went live with its 16th annual publisher rankings, and as usual we’re able to get a look at Nintendo’s placement. The company did see an improvement this past year.

Previously, Nintendo ranked #22 in 2024. In 2025, the company was actually powered by past titles – Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom’s new Nintendo Switch 2 Edition scored well with critics and were some of the highest rated releases. Another game that did well was Donkey Kong Bananza, which had a score of 91. Drag x Drive was one title which lowered Nintendo’s Metascore.

According to Metacritic, Nintendo had 68 percent “good” games and 0 percent “bad” games. Three were “great” titles – again, that’s Zelda and Donkey Kong. Nintendo’s average Metascore for 2025 was 77, which actually wasn’t much different from 2024 (76).

For those wondering, Square Enix was the top publisher for 2025, which was actually the first time ever for the company. Various Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest releases contributed to that. In fact, Square Enix had positive reviews for every one of its 2025 releases while increasing its average Metascore by five points. Its “worst” game was SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered, but still saw a positive reception.

You can check out the full results here. Let us know what you make of the results in the comments.