Rolling Stone's Top 25 Games Of 2025 Features Two Xbox First-Party Titles

I’ve given up on caring about any of these stupid awards or top lists.

I still find it irritating Publishers/Platform holders decide to count games that they published but otherwise had little or nothing to do with as ‘first party’. I don’t consider Death Stranding or Ninja Gaiden 4 or Bayonetta 3 as first party by any stretch of the imagination. Doesn’t diminish the quality of a game by any means, but calling it ‘first party’ is a misnomer these platform holders should avoid.

I still haven't played a single minute of Mario Kart World since i got my Switch 2.

Nice to see SoM and Blue Prince on this kind of list, I adored both

South of Midnight doesn’t belong on this list let alone as high as it is. Outer Worlds 2 isn’t there. Doom the dark ages isn’t there. No kingdom come deliverance 2 is asinine. The alters isn’t on it.

@Balaam_ I disagree with this. Publishers invest in games no different from developers they own. NG4 and Bayonetta are great examples, Platinum did both of these and talks about working closely with both Nintendo and Xbox for those games. Publishers funnel money, resources and staff for these games. Even Gears of War 1-3 was by non owned Xbox studio Epic and that was considered their second strongest first party titles next to Halo.

@Balaam_ Couldn't agree more - Microsoft may have funded it's 'entire' cost and of course Publish it, but its not their IP and it was the Studio's idea and they 'developed' the game in the way they 'wanted' thanks to 'MS' help, But First Party has to be at LEAST an Owned IP or an Owned Studio (in the case of Licenced games like Indy, MLB, Blade, Spider-Man etc - IP's not owned by Publisher/Developer) and 'published' by them.

First Party means its 'all-enclosed' within. Games/IP's built by Internal Studios - of course you can licence, finance and support development on your own IP's made by 'independent' studio's (like Flight Sim) and call that a 'First Party', because its still your own IP.

Yes it would not have existed IF it was not for MS funding and publishing it, but the Studios and Owners of IP are NOT owned by MS.

@ILuvGames Gears was never considered 'First Party' until they acquired the IP from Epic, but it was considered one of the best 'Exclusives'.

Exclusive doesn't mean First Party (although now they are First Party as MS owns them). You have to own more than just Publishing rights. Ownership of all 3 (Publishing Rights, IP Ownership and/or Studio Ownership) if not 2 out of 3 minimum, is First Party and where things get 'complicated' with some games who have 2 or more different party's that own various different rights - Goldeneye N64 is 'complicated' as Rare own Game Asset rights, Nintendo own Publishing rights and MGM (I think) own the James Bond Licence and music rights...

So MS may have Publishing Rights and 'funded' its development to ensure it got made, they don't own either the IP or the Studios whose creative ideas and vision for their OWN IP was allowed to develope and become a realised product for market by that funding, but that's not 'First Party' to me....

@BAMozzy from an old Gears head, yes it was always considered first party because Microsoft/Xbox helped build it from the ground up without owning the studio. But I will say I am glad you put “that’s not first party to me” because it’s recognizing all the silly rules that you have created for somebody else’s product.

@ILuvGames It's not rules I've created, its what First Party tends to mean and when Ninja Gaiden isn't a Microsoft owned IP or Microsoft owned Studios, not really their 'own' - more a Collaboration than '3rd Party' but its not really that dissimilar from FF being funded and 'exclusive' to PS for some time or Death Stranding...

Gears was 'never' first party to me back then, it was like BioShock or Mass Effect - just Published by MS Exclusively but ultimately an Epic owned and developed game - We know now that they did do some work on a PS version back then too.

Anyway, I still think that what more a Collaboration than 'First' Party, but that Trilogy became 'First' Party when they acquired all the Rights and ownership under one (hence First) party - MS.

Game and IP rights/ownership remain under a separate Party from MS and its not even 'exclusive' so at most they have 'full' publishing rights. The game 'code' and any assets created are likely owned by the Developer and owner of IP - not MS so at least '2' Party's are involved and its maybe more a Collaboration of Parties rather than being First or Third party - like the 'Xbox' Ally or Meta hardware - MS is Providing the Software and 'Support' to those devices - but not 1st or 3rd Party!

Doom dark ages is so so underrated it's crazy!!

These rankings seem totally random, that's why each one is so different. That's fine, they are made by other human beings.

@ILuvGames Not to mention that Sony and Microsoft acquired most of their studios and that Nintendo outsources most of their "first-party" games.

@BAMozzy there are usually always two parties involved unless a developer is self publishing.

Those are rules that others have made up when really the same rules apply to both situations. The publishers fund the developer to create a game while feeding them resources. Doesn’t matter if they are an owned developer or not. It’s also platform specific, when Xbox games are published on their own platform it is first party. When they are not they are third party. So to Xbox, Sony and Nintendo any games they publish on their own platform are indeed first party titles. There are also games all 3 support but do not publish.

Gears has always been synonymous with Xbox. So much so that when it was announced for PS people put the stake in Xbox’s identity. To say it was not a first party title back in the 360 days is wild.

@Banjo- yea the whole argument to me is silly. The only thing holding something back from a first party for these corporations is that they didn’t buy up even more of the industry? How about less of that and more of the encouragement for these big dollar corporations investing in independent studios.

I have no issue with the idea of games being classed as 1st party if published, providing the rules are applied to all three main players. My biggest issue irk is when fanboi logic is used to make out that Ninja Gaiden 4 counts, but Death Stranding 2 doesn't, or vice versa.

@ilyn I agree. It’s like people saying Helldivers 2 isn’t Sony first party. It clearly is. Death Stranding is interesting though because 505 Games published it on Xbox and PC but Sony published it on PlayStation. That game is all over the board haha

People actually listen to Rolling Stone's opinion about video games?