Unlocking 2025: The Future of Gaming in 8 Moves

The image of a gamer playing alone in their bedroom, battling it out with clunky computer-generated competitors and cut off from a community is gathering dust. The gaming industry is now unbeatable; the final boss for brands competing for audiences’ attention and the pack leader in taking AI and tech innovations to dizzying heights.

2025 is set to become one of the most crucial and eventful years for the gaming industry, and it is one which will separate the noobs from the masters, leaving no level left unexplored. From Hollywood to virtual livestreamers and AI to console wars, here are the eight trends which will shape the gaming industry in 2025.

Gaming IP dominates Hollywood

Gaming’s emergence as a trans-media IP (intellectual property) goldmine continues into 2025. Warner Bros. is hoping to emulate the billion-dollar success of last year’s ‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ with their release of a film adaptation of ‘Minecraft’, while HBO is gearing up to roll out the highly anticipated second season of its Emmy-winning ‘The Last of Us’. We’re also getting new movies and shows from several established transmedia franchises, including Castlevania, Five Nights at Freddy’s and Mortal Kombat. If that wasn’t enough, Sony has just announced their plans to adapt many of their most popular PlayStation game IP into films and shows.

GTA6 sets a new bar for global media launches

Over the course of its multi-decade lifespan, Grand Theft Auto 5 became the highest earning single video game of all time, amassing over $8.5 billion in total revenue. GTA6 doesn’t release until later in 2025, but it is already expected to shatter that record, drawing almost 100 million views of its first trailer on YouTube in just 24 hours.

The biggest games just keep getting bigger

2024 set a record for the number of new video game titles released in a single year, but don’t let that fool you; the market may be more flooded than ever before, but players still spend most of their time in the same handful of titles that have sat atop the market for years: Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Counter-Strike. The big continue to get bigger.

Virtual livestreamers take great leaps forward

Flesh and blood Twitch streamers are so 2020. While V-Tubers (virtual appearances mapped over the motions of real human streamers) have exploded in popularity since the pandemic, 2025 will see the rise of the first fully virtual livestreamer, powered entirely by AI. Eventually, these virtual influencers will reach parity and even surpass most human livestreamers in popularity, and they are likely to begin taking on brand deals much in the way traditional content creators do.

AI becomes your new favourite player 2

AI was a golden token in gaming culture long before the generate LLM incarnations we think of today. To gamers, AI has historically referred to the programming which drives the behaviour of in-game NPCs (non-player characters) who were often simple, predictable and flat. But in this new era of generative AI, NPCs have gotten a whole lot smarter, reacting to and learning from stimuli, game conditions and player behaviors in real time.

As of January 2025, Nvidia has announced they’re bringing their AI stack to games like PUBG to enable in-game NPC teammates that learn, react and improve just like human players do.

AAA game devs emerge in new markets

The US and Japan have long dominated AAA game development, but new players are emerging in the East (specifically China and India). 2024’s launch of ‘Black Myth Wukong’ was a major coming out moment for Chinese developers successfully releasing a game in the West, selling over 20 million copies and proving that the game industry is truly global.

Nintendo’s upcoming console wins holiday ‘25

The release of new Nintendo hardware is always a major event for the gaming world. Entire generations of gamers identify by the Nintendo console(s) which defined their childhoods. So, Nintendo finds itself in a strange place in 2025, with what many would call the single strongest portfolio of gaming IP, trapped in a now elderly hardware platform. The long-awaited successor to Nintendo’s Switch is expected to launch in Q4 of 2025, but details as to how it will iterate on the previous console have been sparse thus far.

Cloud-first gaming emerges as a media opp

Cloud streaming game services have existed in some format for several years, but with internet infrastructure constantly improving and more and more AAA developers being acquired by major publisher groups, these services are finally reaching a point where consumers are ready to make the switch from owning their own hardware. Xbox is leading the charge this year with their ‘This is an Xbox’ campaign, built specifically to showcase how the Xbox brand aims to become a device agnostic streaming services brand for gamers, eschewing the decades-old console centric model.

How brand marketeers can put these insights into play in 2025

It’s shaping up to be a landmark year for gaming, not just as an industry, but a cultural powerhouse impossible to ignore. It’s game on for brands and creators looking to crack the gaming code; the prize isn’t just winning over gamers but redefining a new level of technological integration and brand innovation.

The gaming industry’s rapid AI advancements and expanding cultural dominance offer unique opportunities for brand marketers in 2025. With access to the world's most highly engaged audiences, brands can leverage in-game integrations, gaming content creators, and innovative media collaborations to drive meaningful results. Marketers must align with gaming’s dynamic ecosystem and focus on always bringing value to capture the hearts and minds of its tech-savvy consumers.