[STEAM] 2025 U.S. Video Game Chart Rubber-Stamps Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Sales Struggle

[Steam 0]

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ended 2025 as the best-selling game in the U.S., beating its first-person shooter rival

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, which ended down in fifth place. ****** Ops 6, which also launched day one on Game Pass, was 2024’s number one best-selling game in the U.S.

According to sales data from Circana, EA’s Battlefield 6 finished as 2025’s best-selling video game in tracked full game dollar sales. Battlefield 6 ranked first on both Xbox and the aggregated PC storefronts for the year while placing second on PlayStation behind only NBA 2K26.

Battlefield 6 had a massive launch in October 2025, breaking franchise records by selling over 7 million copies in its first three days and becoming the best-selling game of 2025 by revenue. This launch, coupled with the release of the hugely popular extraction shooter, Arc Raiders, put enormous pressure on ****** Ops 7, which has disappointed in sales terms. Indeed, ****** Ops 7’s fifth place finish is the lowest for a mainline Call of Duty game since Call of Duty: World at War ended up at number six in 2008.

There are, however, a number of factors we should take into consideration when analyzing ****** Ops 7’s performance. The number one is that

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, which owns Activision Blizzard, has yet to announce any sales number for the game, in the U.S. or globally, so we’re lacking that important data point.

We do know that ****** Ops 7 (November 14) launched after Battlefield 6 (October 10), so had fewer days to count sales for the year. And then there’s the Game Pass factor. As a

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game, ****** Ops 7 launched day one on Game Pass, where it has trended high in terms of engagement since release. It is thought that Call of Duty’s day one release on

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’s subscription service impacts sales, at the least on Xbox consoles, and perhaps also on PC.

And ****** Ops 7 finished the year relatively strong. It was December’s best-selling game across physical and tracked digital spending, Circana said. 2025 marked the seventh consecutive year a Call of Duty game has been December’s best seller, with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate topping the chart in December 2018.

But there can be no doubting ****** Ops 7’s sales struggle compared to 2024’s ****** Ops 6, a fact that's reflected in everything from

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to

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. Following the release of ****** Ops 7, Activision announced

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to the Call of Duty franchise, including promising never to release back to back games in the same sub-brand (Modern Warfare, ****** Ops). Activision released Modern Warfare 2 in 2022, Modern Warfare 3 in 2023, ****** Ops 6 in 2024, and ****** Ops 7 in 2025.

And then, earlier this month,

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— although he provided no evidence to back up his claim and neither

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nor Activision Blizzard have commented in response.

As for Battlefield 6, it's had struggles of its own since its explosive launch, with

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and

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.

Whatever your take on the Call of Duty vs Battlefield sales war, Epic’s Fortnite led the year in total active users across both PlayStation and Xbox platforms, according to Circana’s Player

Engagement Tracker, with over half of all active users of the two ecosystems engaging with Fortnite at least once.

Roblox was 2025’s leading publisher in digital at retail spending (including gift cards, code on receipts, etc.) for both December and the 2025 year. Digital at retail spending on Roblox during 2025 increased by 16% compared to 2024.

Activision is expected to unveil this year’s Call of Duty game in the summer. Unlike last year, it will have the behemoth that is GTA 6 to contend with.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on

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at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld.

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