In what has become the aggregate website’s annual tradition, MetaCritic has today revealed that Japanese behemoth Capcom has been crowned the site’s highest-ranking publisher of 2023. That’s according to the site’s own metrics which weighs publisher performance based on a number of factors. Including not just average score, but also the number of games released by said publisher as well as how many of said games achieved “Great” status – a ranking of 90 or above based on at least a minimum of seven reviews.
Capcom’s return to the top – their second time being crowned the highest-rated publisher, following their first success back in 2019 – should come as no surprise though. Especially to those having followed the Japanese developer and publisher’s output not just over the last twelve months, but before even that over the past half-decade or so. 2023 alone saw the likes of the remake to Resident Evil 4 and Street Fighter 6 among Capcom’s releases. And while the company didn’t always hit the greatest strides with all releases – Exoprimal being the notable odd one out, a commendable-if-flawed game in its own right – it was still enough to outrank the industry’s other notable publishers.
Review: Resident Evil 4 Remake
Hitting all the right notes in being something for both newcomers and long-running fans alike, Resident Evil 4 Remake is a triumph.
Best of the Rest
But the rest of the ranking is still an interesting read. Not least because the likes of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft all failed to hit the Top 5. And while Sony’s and Microsoft’s absence may be expected if you take their 2023 output into consideration, Nintendo – despite their strong showing in 2023 – could only climb to sixth in MetaCritic’s ranking.
If anything, it’s the so-called “smaller” publishers who saw the biggest gains and jumps in ranking. With the likes of Thunderful, Raw Fury and Annapurna Interactive helping to make the Top 10 feel more like another impressive showcase for independent releases in 2023, than necessarily those of more AAA notoriety.
Raw Fury as a result, ending up the biggest winner in that respect. A publisher who might have found themselves previously overshadowed by similarly established and respected names like Devolver Digital (who could only rank as high as 11th this year) and fellow Top 10 publisher Annapurna Interactive. But 2023 landed Raw Fury the title of runner-up in this year’s list – owing much to a consistent schedule of releases that included the likes of Cassette Beasts, Friends vs Friends, Pizza Possum and American Arcadia to name a few.
The Top 10 for 2023
The ranking of the top 10 best-performing publishers is as follows (along with the accompanying MetaCritic scores):
you’re able to find the full ranking and breakdown of performances across the industry – including of course those publishers that didn’t fair so well in 2023 –here.
