The 2025 Game of the Year nominees for The Game Awards have been revealed, and the results likely come as no surprise to gamers who have been following discussions about it online for the past couple of weeks. The nominees were also leaked a couple of hours before the reveal, surprising everyone even less when they were announced in an official video. The Game Awards is generally a big deal every single year, as gamers are intrigued to see who wins Game of the Year. 2025 has some heavy hitters in the lineup, with all six having been highly anticipated titles. The event is also used as a springboard for announcing upcoming games. Last year saw the announcements of a new Onimusha game, alongside the official reveal for The Witcher 4.
Many online will say there’s a pretty clear winner, and even I have my own personal suspicion on which game is going to win. Based on the first-hand knowledge of the game and seeing the overwhelmingly positive reception it’s gotten since release. That game is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a turn-based RPG that mixes in real-time dodge mechanics for some awesome combat. The other nominees include Donkey Kong Bonanza for the Nintendo Switch 2, Hades II, Kingdom Come Deliverance II, Death Stranding 2, and Hollow Knight: Silksong. By all accounts, every game in the list is a hit, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see any of them win. That being said, there’s been a lot of talk about Clair Obscur of late.
In addition to the 2025 Game of the Year, nominees have been announced for all other categories
Game of the Year is no doubt the award that most viewers of the program will be eager to see given out. The show is about much more than just these six games, though. There are several amazing games that come out that never make it into the Game of the Year nominations, but they’re still worthy of praise and admiration. Like any other awards show, The Game Awards has several other award categories that will be included, and it announced all of those categories and their nominees in its official announcement special that went live this morning.
This includes categories like Best Community Support, Best Ongoing Game, Best RPG, and many more. The Game Awards doesn’t go live until December 11, so there are still a few more weeks to wait before the night of the event. With the nominees officially announced, however, you can start to think about who you want to win each category. Voting for these awards will be coming up rather soon.
