Key Games of the First Quarter in Numbers: Major Releases in Terms of Revenue, Sales, MAU, and Other Metrics

Which games released in the first three months of 2025 turned out to be the most successful? We have prepared an extensive analysis based on sales charts from various countries and platforms, insights from analytical companies like Newzoo, as well as official data from developers and publishers.

What data did we rely on?

Steam (PC) — a weekly chart of the most successful products on the Valve platform, updated every Tuesday. Games are ranked by gross revenue (not copies sold) over the past seven days. Other open Steam data, such as peak concurrent user numbers (CCU) for specific titles, were also used.
GfK (consoles) — a weekly chart of UK retail sales. It is based on the sale of physical copies of games in the country (without specific figures).
Famitsu (consoles, mainly Switch and PlayStation) — a weekly chart of Japanese retail sales. The chart compilers also specify the number of physical copies sold for each title.
Circana (PC and consoles) — a monthly chart of the best-selling premium games in the US (by revenue). Another tool is the Player Engagement Tracker, which regularly records the most popular titles on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox by the number of weekly active users (WAU).
Newzoo (PC and consoles) — a monthly ranking of the highest-grossing (by revenue) and most popular (by monthly active users, MAU) games worldwide. It is based on data from six key markets: the US, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and France.
VG Insights (PC) — an analytical service that estimates the gross revenue and sales of PC releases. It uses a complex methodology, including multipliers based on the number of reviews, regional prices, and its own algorithm based on actual data from publishers and developers. The platform is not immune to errors for individual releases, but the creators assure that the overall measurement error is around 5%.

Contents:

Monster Hunter Wilds — the main release of 2025 so far

By the end of the first quarter, Monster Hunter Wilds (released on February 28) emerged as the undisputed leader across all key metrics. Capcom’s own data primarily supports this. In the first three days, it managed to sell 8 million copies — the best result in the history of the Japanese company. Previously, the record was held by Monster Hunter: World, which sold 5 million copies over a similar period.

The global success of Wilds is also demonstrated by external sources:

The fifth-best concurrent user count among all games in the history of Steam — at its peak, over 1.3 million people were playing Wilds simultaneously, surpassing the numbers of such hits as Cyberpunk 2077 (1 million), Elden Ring (953,000), Hogwarts Legacy (879,000), and Baldur’s Gate 3 (875,000);
The game has been in Steam’s bestseller chart for 17 consecutive weeks — the last time it left the top 100 was in the week ending December 3, 2024;
Wilds spent 10 of the 13 weeks of 2025 in the top 10 highest-grossing Steam titles — after its release, it also topped the chart for paid and free-to-play products, briefly dethroning Counter-Strike 2;
VG Insights estimates Wilds’ gross revenue at $363.5 million (Steam only);

Top 10 new releases of 2025 by weeks spent in the top 10 weekly Steam chart (including pre-orders)

The only new game of 2025 to make it into the monthly list of the world’s most popular games according to Newzoo — in just one day, it reached 13th place in the overall February MAU chart (between The Sims 4 and Apex Legends), and it reached seventh place on PC;
The third highest-grossing game of February on PC and consoles according to Newzoo — in terms of revenue, Wilds was only surpassed by giants like Call of Duty and Fortnite (it took first place on PC);
The best-selling premium game of February in the US — by the end of the first two months of 2025, Wilds also held the title of the year’s best-selling title in the country (more than half of the revenue comes from PC);
The best start of 2025 in Japanese retail — over 600,000 copies sold on physical media in the first week alone on PS5 (by March 23, the total circulation exceeded 763,000 copies);
After topping the UK’s GfK chart at launch, Wilds hasn’t left for five weeks — after a strong start, it spent another two weeks in second place, falling to 15th place by the end of March.

Monster Hunter Wilds

Recall that Capcom is heavily betting on Monster Hunter Wilds. From April to December 2024, the company’s revenue fell by 16.3%, and operating profit plummeted by 35%. In the absence of major releases, the company had to rely only on its back catalog. Wilds is precisely meant to correct this situation, as its phenomenal success should provide Capcom with another record financial year. The fiscal year ended on March 31, 2025, so we can expect a report and fresh details on the new Monster Hunter installment’s performance soon.

The most popular and highest-grossing games in the world on PC and consoles for February (according to Newzoo)

The triumph of Kingdom Come, issues with Civilization VII, and the controversial launch of Avowed

February turned out to be the most bountiful month for major new releases.

It all began with Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, which was released on February 4. Below are some key data points about the worldwide success of Warhorse's medieval RPG:

One million copies sold in a single day — for comparison, the first part crossed this mark only a week after its launch;
2 million copies sold in less than two weeks — the original KCD took a year to achieve this;
Including pre-orders, the game has been in the top 100 of the Steam chart for 13 weeks in a row — at release, it also topped the weekly chart among premium and free-to-play titles (only two new releases of 2025 can boast a similar achievement: Monster Hunter Wilds and the indie hit Schedule I);
KCD2's peak concurrent user count on Steam exceeded 256,000 CCU — the fifth-best result this year and a record figure for publisher Deep Silver (a subsidiary of Embracer Group);

Top 10 new releases of the first quarter of 2025 by peak concurrent users on Steam