The best sports games are getting worse

Metacritic scores for the highest-rated console simulation game based on the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and Soccer by season*, 1998-2024

(Please use a modern browser to see the interactive version of this visualization)

* Season applies to the NBA and NHL; if a game was released in the fall of a particular year, it counts toward the following year's season (i.e., a December 1998 release counts toward 1999, etc).

For pre-Metacritic years, archived GameRankings averages were used.

Chart: Neil PaineSource: GameRankings, Metacritic, WikipediaCreated with Datawrapper