10 Reasons 2025 Is Make Or Break For Triple-A Games

7. Indie & AA Games Continue To Threaten AAA

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The biggest competition to a AAA game isn't really other AAA games - it's the AA and indie titles which, while developed on just a fraction of the budget, might resonate far more deeply with players.

Last year, Helldivers 2 came out of nowhere and took the gaming world by storm, becoming a sales juggernaut while being a AA title produced for a relatively modest budget. 

Similarly, who among us expected indie masterpiece Balatro to come out of nowhere and eat the lunch of so many less-successful AAA games?

Yet these successes could be a result of 2024 being a relatively uninspired year for AAA, and so the true test of AAA's health will come throughout 2025. 

With so many long-awaited blockbusters due for release, will AA sleeper hits still manage to beat them at their own game? 

Given that studies indicate younger audiences care less about cutting-edge graphics, don't be shocked if the lower-budget likes of Split Fiction and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 end up stealing the thunder away from glossier tentpole games.

If AAA can't thrive in a year with so much apparent quality on the horizon, then the future of the industry must surely lie elsewhere.

 
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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.