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| Friends jumping into games together on Christmas Day, a pattern that keeps Fortnite, Call of Duty, and other live service titles at the top of holiday engagement charts. |
By Jon Scarr
Circana’s Mat Piscatella shared a fun little look back, prior to the weekly what gamers played this week numbers, pulling the most played games on Christmas Day across the last five years. It’s one of those posts where you read it and go, “Yep, that checks out,” and then you still end up staring at the lists anyway.
The charts come from Circana’s Player Engagement Tracker and rank the top five games by active users on Christmas Day for PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam. These are total active users, not concurrent peaks. (And for 2023 to 2025, Call of Duty includes all games played through the Call of Duty launcher.)
Consoles on Christmas Day Are About Familiar Ground
On PlayStation and Xbox, the top of the Christmas Day list barely moves year to year. Fortnite sits at number one every time. Call of Duty stays right behind it. And Grand Theft Auto V (Remastered) refuses to leave the conversation, even now.
After that, it turns into the kind of lineup that makes sense for a day when people are in and out of the living room. Roblox keeps showing up on Xbox because it’s easy to jump into with friends or family, and it doesn’t ask much of you to have a good time. NBA 2K rotates through yearly versions, but the role stays the same. It’s a quick, familiar “load it up and play” game that fits the vibe.
What’s interesting here isn’t that these games are popular. It’s that Christmas Day seems to push people toward the safest, most dependable picks. New console, new controller, maybe even a fresh account setup, and you still end up installing the same heavy hitters first.
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| PlayStation’s Christmas Day top five barely changes year to year, with Fortnite and Call of Duty continuing to dominate holiday play. |
Steam Is Where the Story Actually Shifts
Steam is the one platform where the Christmas Day top five feels like it has more movement. In 2022 and 2023, Counter-Strike 2 owns the top spot. In 2024, Marvel Rivals and Path of Exile II are right up near the top. And in 2025, ARC Raiders climbs to number one.
Even with those changes, the pattern is still pretty clear. Competitive shooters, co-op-friendly games, and titles that scale well with groups dominate the list. Seeing Warframe in 2025 fits that same idea. Battlefield 6 landing high does too.
Steam tends to react faster to updates, free weekends, and content drops than consoles do, so the Christmas Day list isn’t locked in the same way. But it still doesn’t escape comfort gaming. You can feel that “play something that works” energy here too.
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| Steam’s Christmas Day top five shows more movement than consoles, with ARC Raiders leading and shooters dominating the rest of the list. |
Why These Lists Don’t Change Much
Christmas Day is one of the most predictable gaming days of the year. New hardware means old favourites get installed first. Social games win. Big live services win. Anything that needs a long onboarding process usually waits until later in the week.
Seeing Fortnite, Call of Duty, GTA V, and Roblox pop up year after year isn’t people being boring. It’s people picking familiarity on a day that’s already busy, loud, and shared with other people. You don’t want to fight menus or tutorials when someone’s asking you to pause because dinner’s ready.
Mat called it “a wee bit static at the top,” and honestly, that’s kind of the point. Some gaming habits don’t need to change to still make sense.
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