Success in video games is something we’ve talked about a lot on GameRanx, mainly because it’s something that can be both easy and difficult to measure, depending on the game and the company that made it. For example, you might think that having “the best sales” easily makes a game successful, but that’s not always true. Sure, best-selling games are nice to have, but it’s also good to have games that players continually come back to. In other words, those titles are their “go-to” games that they can pick up and play anytime. Fortnite is one such example of that kind of game.
The free-to-play experience has been dominant ever since it first came out in 2017. While it’s naturally had some ups and downs, it’s also been able to become one of the highest-grossing games around thanks to how much money it makes via microtransactions. Plus, the team at Epic Games put in so much new content via skins and story chapters that there’s always something to do and something new to get.
To prove just how popular it is even now, you need only look at Circana, which compiled data on both PlayStation and Xbox players in the United States to see what it was they played the most across both consoles, and surprise, surprise, Fortnite was on top of both lists:
That says a lot, wouldn’t you say? First, the fact that the title was the top game AGAIN across both consoles in 2025, and second, that it beat something like Call of Duty to get the top spot across all of those systems. Remember that particular FPS is the top of its genre, too, and while the latest version of it didn’t exactly “inspire play” within the community, many of them still got it.
So, the question now becomes, “Can Epic Games sustain this momentum?” More than likely, yeah. Yes, that may sound “easy to say,” but it’s a bit more simplistic than you think. First, the team has been doing this for years now, and they have “cracked the code” on how to make things consistently good and keep players engaged. Plus, the “skin game” alone is enough to keep players coming back for more.
Even if it were to lose the top spot, as it did in 2024 on Xbox, that would still make it the No.2 most-played title in the US on that platform, which is still a huge win.
