If you work in games, The Game Awards has probably become your unofficial December all-hands. It is part industry town hall, part hype trailer marathon, and part “how many categories can I remember when I wake up tomorrow”.
The 2025 edition is packed… long-awaited sequels finally out in the wild, “how is this not AAA” indies, mobile games pulling blockbuster numbers, and a genuinely eclectic esports and creator slate. Below is a read-through you can skim between meetings or enjoy in full while your build compiles.
This year’s show hits on Thursday, December 11, streaming pretty much everywhere at once. Geoff Keighley framed it as both a celebration and a debate… a chance for the industry to argue about what “best” really means in a year where everything from tiny narrative experiments to multi-million dollar live services kept players busy.
It is also a snapshot of where the business actually is in 2025. The nominee list is full of early-access success stories, expansions that kept communities alive, nostalgia plays tuned for new hardware, and at least one game that probably started life as a “what if we really went for it” pitch in a meeting room somewhere. If you care about where game design, production and community management are heading next, this lineup is basically required reading.
Voting is live on TheGameAwards.com, with the usual split between the global jury and fan input. Players Voice will arrive later with its own chaos bracket of 30 titles (and if history repeats, that category will be the one that absolutely melts your social feeds).
(And yes… we will hit every single nominee. There is a full roll call at the bottom.)
Game of the Year: Six Very Different Visions of “Big”
Game of the Year this time feels like a tiny showcase of everything modern games can be… a haunting French Indie RPG in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Kojima’s strand-epic sequel Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Nintendo’s big nostalgic swing with Donkey Kong Bananza, the endlessly replayable Hades 2, the long-mythologized metroidvania sequel Hollow Knight: Silksong, and the brutally grounded historical RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. It is a line-up that stretches from tightly authored 2D design to sprawling narrative blockbusters (and it quietly says a lot about how wide the definition of “best” has become).
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 … The New Kid With Classic JRPG Energy
If there is a breakout headline this year, it is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. A French-made, turn-based RPG where an artist literally paints people out of existence, it feels like someone jammed classic PlayStation-era JRPGs, French art cinema, and modern combat design into the same paintbrush.
Developed by Sandfall Interactive, it leans heavily into timing-based attacks and a painterly Paris-inspired setting. It is a debut game, but it does not act like one… confident art direction, a battle system with real teeth, and a story that actually has something to say about obsession, mortality, and perfectionism.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach … Kojima’s Weird Courier Opera Evolves
Death Stranding was already the most expensive walking simulator joke that turned out to be right. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach doubles down on the oddness… more structured missions, heavier combat moments when you want them, and an even stranger, more personal story about connection, found family, and doomed timelines.
Sam Bridges (Norman Reedus) returns, joined by a larger ensemble and even more fourth-wall-nudging moments. If the first game was “you will cry over a ladder”, the sequel is “you will cry over a beach, a song, and a piece of hardware that probably violates five safety regulations”.
Donkey Kong Bananza … Platformer Royalty Crashes the Party
Nintendo sneaking Donkey Kong Bananza into Game of the Year feels perfectly on brand. It is loud, colorful, readable at a glance, and secretly ruthless if you chase every collectible and time trial. On the surface it is the most straightforward of the nominees… a side-scrolling platformer starring one very marketable ape.
Under the hood it is a masterclass in level readability, camera work, and cooperative chaos. It is also the most broadly “family” GOTY pick, which says a lot about how far platformers have come in terms of mechanical density and replay value without losing approachability.
Hades 2 … “Just One More Run” Becomes a Lifestyle
Supergiant’s first ever sequel could easily have whiffed. It did not. Hades 2 moves the action to Melinoë, sister of Zagreus, with a new cast of gods and a focus on witchcraft and time. The fundamentals are the same (roguelike loop, reactive narration, builds that should not work but somehow do) but it is all sharper and more flexible.
If Hades was “the roguelike for people who hate roguelikes”, Hades 2 is the one for people who thought they were done, then lost another hundred hours experimenting with weapon aspects. On the dev side, it is also a clear flex in early-access-led iteration, with combat, narrative and meta-progression all tuned in front of millions of players.
Hollow Knight: Silksong … The Eternal “Is It Real” Game Finally Lands
After years of “where is Silksong” jokes, Team Cherry finally dropped Hollow Knight: Silksong, and it did the one thing a mythical delayed game has to do… be so good people stop making fun of the delay.
You play as Hornet in a new kingdom, with faster, more aerial movement and an even more intricate web of shortcuts, secrets and optional bosses. It is less about pure despair and a bit more about momentum, but it still delivers the elegant, brutal precision that made the original a benchmark for 2D design.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 … Historical RPG With Even Bigger Consequences
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 leans deeper into what made the first game a cult hit… grounded medieval combat, complex social systems, and the stubborn refusal to treat you like a chosen one. Armor still matters, literacy is still a skill, and starting a bar fight can still spiral into a political incident.
From an industry standpoint, it is a case study in doubling down on a niche rather than chasing trends. Where most open-world RPGs add more magic and more markers, Deliverance 2 happily adds more mud, more politics, and more ways to embarrass yourself in front of a noble.
Craft Awards: Direction, Narrative, Art, Audio, Performance
When One Game Dominates the Shortlists
Scroll the “prestige” categories and you keep seeing the same handful of names…
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Ghost of Yōtei
- Hades 2
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Silent Hill f
- Lost Records: Bloom and Rage
- South of Midnight
- Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
That is your modern canon… big single-player epics, quiet narrative experiments, and a long-running MMO expansion muscling into the score category.
Art Direction: From Living Paintings To Bleak Futures
For Best Art Direction, the nominees… Clair Obscur, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Ghost of Yōtei, Hades 2, and Hollow Knight: Silksong… cover a huge stylistic range. Clair Obscur frames everything like a moving oil painting, while Ghost of Yōtei leans into prestige-cinema staging, especially in snow and night lighting.
Hades 2 proves that consistent visual identity beats raw polygon count, and Silksong keeps Team Cherry’s ultra-clean 2D linework while upping the animation density. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach turns ruined coastlines and liminal industrial spaces into something strangely beautiful and intimate (only Kojima could make rusted metal and wet sand this iconic).
It is a category that could be shown in art schools for the next decade.
Score and Music: When Your Spotify Wrapped Is Just Game OSTs
Best Score and Music brings together five very different approaches to soundtracking a game… Christopher Larkin for Hollow Knight: Silksong, Darren Korb for Hades II, Lorien Testard for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Toma Otowa for Ghost of Yōtei, and Woodkid and Ludvig Forssell for Death Stranding 2: On The Beach. On paper that is a wild mix… a metroidvania sequel, a roguelike, a French RPG, a samurai drama, and a strand game about trudging across the ruins of the world.
In practice it is a neat cross-section of what game music is doing in 2025. Larkin’s work in Silksong leans into delicate melodies and eerie spaces that shift from fragile to ferocious without ever losing clarity. Korb’s Hades II score is an evolution of the first game’s rock and folk-infused soundtrack (the kind of music that makes UI designers tap their feet while tuning damage numbers). Testard’s score for Clair Obscur wraps its battles and quiet moments in lush, almost theatrical motifs that match the painterly visuals.
Toma Otowa’s music for Ghost of Yōtei goes all in on atmosphere… long, tense stretches that explode into sharp, percussive cues when steel finally leaves the scabbard. Woodkid and Ludvig Forssell take Death Stranding 2 even further into the territory the first game carved out… songs and themes that feel like they were built to be listened to while walking alone through impossible landscapes (with just enough melancholy to make a cargo run feel profound).
Performances: Voice, Face, and Motion Carrying the Weight
This year’s Best Performance lineup is the sort of cast you would expect on a premium television slate…
- Ben Starr … Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Charlie Cox … Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Erika Ishii … Ghost of Yōtei
- Jennifer English … Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Konatsu Kato … Silent Hill f
- Troy Baker … Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
From a production standpoint, what stands out is how integrated these performances are into gameplay. These are not just cutscene roles… they are reactive, systemic, constantly commenting, sighing, laughing and breaking in ways that make the worlds feel alive. We are long past the days where “great performance” in games meant one really good monologue in the final act.
Games for Impact and Narrative Indies: Feelings, But Make It Design-Driven
Games for Impact: Mechanics With a Point
The Games for Impact list is one of the strongest in years…
- Consume Me
- Despelote
- Lost Records: Bloom and Rage
- South of Midnight
- Wanderstop
Consume Me blends cooking, body image, and dating into an uncomfortable but darkly funny exploration of diet culture and self-worth. Despelote is a first-person story about kids, football, and politics in Ecuador, using simple interactions and environmental storytelling rather than speeches. Lost Records is a narrative adventure about a group of friends reunited decades after a fateful 90s summer.
Then there is South of Midnight, a Southern Gothic action-adventure steeped in folklore and blues, and Wanderstop, the new game from the team behind Kentucky Route Zero, where you run a tea shop and quietly unravel the fantasy of “cozy” work as the days blur together. It is all wildly different subject matter, but the design through-line is clear… interactivity as the argument, not just the illustration.
Independent and Debut Indies: The “How Is This Not AAA” Moment
Best Independent Game nominees…
- Absolum
- Ball x Pit
- Blue Prince
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Hades 2
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
Best Debut Indie Game nominees…
- Blue Prince
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Despelote
- Dispatch
- Megabonk (since withdrawn due to publisher constraints)
There is a bit of an identity crisis baked in here. When games like Hades 2 and Silksong are in “indie” categories, we are really using “independent” as “non-platform-holder, self-driven creative control” more than “small team in a garage”. But the point stands… the mid-scale, creatively fearless space is where a lot of the industry’s R&D now lives.
Blue Prince in particular has been a critical darling… a puzzle-roguelike about exploring a shifting mansion, halfway between House of Leaves and a very cursed IKEA showroom. Absolum and Ball x Pit bring weirder mechanical hooks (think physics toys dialed up into full games) while Dispatch and Megabonk represent that hyper-online, meme-aware corner of indie where short clips drive wishlists.
Ongoing Worlds and Community Support: Live Service That Earned Its Lifespan
Best Ongoing Game: Games That Refuse To End
Nominees…
- Final Fantasy XIV
- Fortnite
- Helldivers 2
- Marvel Rivals
- No Man’s Sky
Each has its own redemption or evolution arc.
Final Fantasy XIV continues its comeback story with the Dawntrail expansion, taking players to a new continent with sun-drenched holiday vibes layered over existential crises.
Fortnite has basically become an engine masquerading as a game, constantly rotating collabs and modes in a way most MMOs can only dream of.
Helldivers 2 turned a chaotic co-op shooter into a genuinely compelling live galactic campaign, where patch notes read like war communiqués.
Marvel Rivals rode the hero-shooter wave with Marvel’s full IP machine behind it, carving out mindshare in a crowded genre.
No Man’s Sky quietly continued its decade-long “we are not dead” tour with massive content drops that make the 2016 launch look like a prototype.
Community Support: Talking To Players Like Adults
The Community Support category overlaps heavily with Ongoing…
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Final Fantasy XIV
- Fortnite
- Helldivers 2
- No Man’s Sky
If you work on live games, this is the list to study. These teams have turned patch cadence, transparency, and “we actually showed up at 3 a.m. to hotfix that” into differentiators. They are also living proof that “we will fix it live” only works if you really, genuinely do.
Mobile, VR/AR, and Accessibility: Expanding the Edges
Best Mobile Game: Gacha, Shooters, and Global IP
Nominees…
- Destiny: Rising
- Persona 5: The Phantom X
- Sonic Rumble
- Umamusume: Pretty Derby
- Wuthering Waves
Destiny: Rising brings Bungie’s looter-shooter universe to mobile via NetEase, mixing first- and third-person views and an alternate-timeline story. Persona 5: The Phantom X spins up a new crew of Phantom Thieves in a gacha-driven mobile and PC hybrid. Sonic Rumble leans into fast, chaotic party-style races.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby remains the only game where training horse-girls for racing has somehow turned some players into real-world racehorse owners. Wuthering Waves is a post-apocalyptic, anime-styled open-world action RPG with a deep combat system and gacha-based character collection, aiming squarely at the Genshin-shaped hole in many content calendars.
If you still think of mobile as “match-3 and idle clickers”, this category is your reminder that AAA expectations have fully migrated to phones.
Best VR/AR Game: Headsets as Story Engines
Nominees…
- Alien: Rogue Incursion
- Arken Age
- Ghost Town
- Marvel’s Deadpool VR
- The Midnight Walk
These are essentially platform showcases. Alien: Rogue Incursion leans into claustrophobic survival horror in space. Arken Age explores spell-slinging and traversal in a high-fantasy setting. Ghost Town focuses on atmosphere and haunting environmental storytelling.
Marvel’s Deadpool VR is the loudest of the bunch (in the best way) with fourth-wall-shredding combat and comedy. The Midnight Walk plays things quieter, a more reflective, narrative-driven VR experience that treats presence and pacing as the main mechanics.
Innovation in Accessibility: Design That Broadens the Audience
Nominees…
- Assassin’s Creed Shadows
- Atomfall
- Doom: The Dark Ages
- EA Sports FC 26
- South of Midnight
The trends here are encouraging… built-in remapping as a default, difficulty and pacing options that do not shame players, extensive subtitle and audio customization, and clever use of haptics and visual signaling to support players with different needs.
The takeaway is not just “options menu good”. Accessibility is increasingly baked into core systems, and judged at the same level as graphics and FPS.
Genre Awards: Action, RPG, Sim, Sports, Family, Multiplayer
Best Action Game: The Loud End of the Spectrum
Nominees…
- Battlefield 6
- Doom: The Dark Ages
- Hades 2
- Ninja Gaiden 4
- Shinobi: Art of Vengeance
This is the category for people whose idea of “wind down after work” is fighting twelve things at once. Battlefield 6 pushes larger maps and more destruction. Doom: The Dark Ages gives the Doom Slayer a shield and asks “what if medieval but still riffs”.
Ninja Gaiden 4 brings back one of the original “you will suffer” action franchises. Shinobi returns in hand-drawn 2D, trading spectacle for razor-sharp platforming. Hades 2 sits here as the stylish outlier… a roguelike whose combat flows so well it can stand shoulder to shoulder with pure action games.
Best Action/Adventure and RPG: Story-Driven Power Trips
Best Action/Adventure nominees…
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Ghost of Yōtei
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Split Fiction
Best RPG nominees…
- Avowed
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
- Monster Hunter Wilds
- The Outer Worlds 2
Between them, these categories cover most of the big-budget single-player experiences of the year. Death Stranding 2 and Ghost of Yōtei anchor the prestige-cinematic end of the spectrum. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Split Fiction mix pulp adventure with systemic design. Hollow Knight: Silksong represents the 2D end of the action-adventure range while still hanging with the giants.
On the RPG side, Obsidian has double representation with Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 (that is a lot of branching dialogue trees under one roof). Monster Hunter Wilds takes the series into more dynamic, storm-struck ecosystems. Kingdom Come 2 keeps things grounded, historical, and occasionally miserable in all the right ways. Clair Obscur threads the needle between indie aesthetics and full-scale RPG ambition.
Fighting, Sim/Strategy, Sports/Racing… The “Spreadsheet or Frame Data” Divide
Best Fighting Game…
- 2XKO
- Capcom Fighting Collection 2
- Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves
- Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection
- Virtua Fighter 5: R.E.V.O. World Stage
SNK’s City of the Wolves and Riot’s 2XKO represent the new blood. Virtua Fighter and Mortal Kombat deliver tuned-up classics. Capcom Fighting Collection 2 is a museum piece and tournament staple rolled into one.
Best Sim/Strategy Game…
- The Alters
- Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles
- Jurassic World Evolution 3
- Sid Meier’s Civilization VII
- Tempest Rising
- Two Point Museum
If you enjoy a good 3 a.m. “one more turn” spiral, this is your home. Civilization VII pushes into more detailed climate and culture simulation. The Ivalice Chronicles remasters and extends classic Final Fantasy Tactics content. The Alters explores identity and cloning through survival strategy, while Two Point Museum continues the “Theme Hospital but for X” lineage with exhibitions and guest flow instead of bed counts. Tempest Rising scratches that classic RTS itch with modern pacing.
Best Sports/Racing Game…
- EA Sports FC 26
- F1 25
- Mario Kart World
- Rematch
- Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
Here, the tension is between simulation and arcade. FC 26 and F1 25 are iterative but commercially gigantic. Mario Kart World, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, and Rematch chase the “party racing” crown with items, shortcuts, and enough rubber-banding to test any friendship.
Best Family Game and Multiplayer: Couch Chaos and Online Mayhem
Best Family Game…
- Donkey Kong Bananza
- LEGO Party!
- LEGO Voyagers
- Mario Kart World
- Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
- Split Fiction
Best Multiplayer Game…
- Arc Raiders
- Battlefield 6
- Elden Ring: Nightreign
- Peak
- Split Fiction
There is a sneaky overlap here. Split Fiction shows up in both categories, trying to be that rare game you can play with your kids… and with your sweaty competitive friends later that night. Arc Raiders and Peak represent different flavors of co-op chaos. Elden Ring: Nightreign extends the interconnected world FromSoftware built. Battlefield 6 holds down the “giant war sand-box” slot.
Best Adaptation: When Game Worlds Jump Screens
Best Adaptation is the clearest proof that game IP now lives far beyond the console and PC. This year’s slate pulls from wildly different corners of the medium… A Minecraft Movie, Devil May Cry, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, The Last of Us Season 2, and Until Dawn. It is a mix of long-running series, genre staples, and one horror game that quietly built a cult audience before heading to film.
A Minecraft Movie is the biggest mainstream swing… taking the most recognizable sandbox on the planet and trying to turn emergent, player-driven toybox chaos into a narrative people actually want to sit through in a theatre. Devil May Cry leans into the opposite energy… loud, stylish, deeply anime, exactly what you would expect from a franchise that turned juggling demons into a personality trait. Splinter Cell: Deathwatch is the slow burn of the group, playing up espionage, paranoia, and the fantasy of being the one person in the room who knows what is really going on.
The Last of Us Season 2 continues the gold standard for prestige game adaptation, walking that tightrope between staying faithful to the source material and making changes that work better in serial TV. Until Dawn is the most traditional horror pick on paper, but it is also a fascinating test… can an interactive slasher story that relied so heavily on player choice still land when the camera belongs to a director instead of the audience. Together they show just how far the idea of “a video game adaptation” has evolved (and how much appetite there is for game worlds that live on in other formats).
Esports and Content Creators: The Meta Around the Games
Best Esports Game and Events: The Perennial Pillars
Best Esports Game…
- Counter-Strike 2
- Dota 2
- League of Legends
- Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
- Valorant
Best Esports Event…
- BLAST Premier: World Final
- The International
- League of Legends World Championship
- MSI
- Valorant Champions
Nothing shocking here. These are the titles that have built multi-year pipelines around talent, events, and sponsorships. The interesting part is how stable this list has become (it is a sign that new esports hopefuls now aim for niches rather than “top five or bust”).
Esports Athletes and Teams: Personal Brands and Systems
Best Esports Athlete…
- brawk
- Chovy
- f0rsakeN
- Kakeru
- MenaRD
- Zyw0o
Best Esports Team…
- Gen.G (League of Legends)
- NRG (Valorant)
- Team Falcons (Dota 2)
- Team Liquid PH (Mobile Legends: Bang Bang)
- Team Vitality (Counter-Strike 2)
From Zyw0o anchoring Counter-Strike to MenaRD collecting Street Fighter world titles, these names reflect how much of modern esports is personality plus consistency. On the team side, it is a familiar pattern… organizations that have learned how to survive multiple metas, roster overhauls, and the occasional org-level drama.
Content Creator of the Year: Where Hype Actually Starts
Nominees…
- Caedrel
- Kai Cenat
- MoistCr1TiKaL
- Sakura Miko
- The Burnt Peanut
Streaming and creator culture now sit upstream of a huge amount of game discovery and discourse (whether your marketing plan likes it or not). Caedrel has basically become League of Legends’ unofficial professor, co-streaming major tournaments and turning terrifying macro concepts into “oh, that actually makes sense” moments. Kai Cenat keeps rewriting the rules on what a “variety stream” looks like, with subathons that turn into full-blown cultural events. MoistCr1TiKaL (penguinz0) is still the internet’s deadpan Greek chorus, reacting to everything from world record speedruns to industry drama… and somehow also found time to voice Sonar, the half man – half bat crypto bro, in Dispatch (which shows up in the best debut indie category).
Sakura Miko represents the VTuber side of the ecosystem, juggling idol energy, chaos, and an army of extremely committed fans. The Burnt Peanut is the wildcard of the list… a filter-masked agent of chaos whose peanut-headed clips prove that one weird bit, repeated consistently, can become a full-blown brand. If you are wondering why your carefully produced trailer did not move the needle as much as one noisy reaction stream, Content Creator of the Year is your answer (this is where a lot of the real hype budget lives now).
Most Anticipated Game: The 2026 Backlog Starter Pack
Nominees…
- 007 First Light
- Grand Theft Auto VI
- Marvel’s Wolverine
- Resident Evil Requiem
- The Witcher IV
This category is basically a preview of your future time sink. 007 First Light carries the weight of rebooting one of the most storied licenses in games. Grand Theft Auto VI is the obvious gravity well (every system designer on earth will be secretly benchmarking against it).
Marvel’s Wolverine gives Insomniac a very different kind of superhero to build around. Resident Evil Requiem keeps Capcom’s horror renaissance going. The Witcher IV has to follow one of the most beloved RPGs of all time, while also living in a post-Cyberpunk 2077 world where CD Projekt RED has a lot to prove.
In other words… your future backlog is already booked.
Full Nominee Roll Call – 2025 Game Awards
Game of the Year
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Donkey Kong Bananza
- Hades II
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
Best Game Direction
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Ghost of Yōtei
- Hades II
- Split Fiction
Best Adaptation
- A Minecraft Movie
- Devil May Cry
- The Last of Us: Season 2
- Splinter Cell: Deathwatch
- Until Dawn
Best Narrative
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Ghost of Yōtei
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
- Silent Hill F
Best Art Direction
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Ghost of Yōtei
- Hades II
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
Best Score and Music
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Hades II
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Ghost of Yōtei
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Best Audio Design
- Battlefield 6
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Ghost of Yōtei
- Silent Hill F
Best Performance
- Ben Starr
- Charlie Cox
- Erika Ishii
- Jennifer English
- Konatsu Kato
- Troy Baker
Innovation in Accessibility
- Assassin’s Creed Shadows
- Atomfall
- Doom: The Dark Ages
- EA Sports FC 26
- South of Midnight
Games for Impact
- Consume Me
- Despelote
- Lost Records: Bloom & Rage
- South of Midnight
- Wanderstop
Best Ongoing Game
- Final Fantasy XIV
- Fortnite
- Helldivers 2
- Marvel Rivals
- No Man’s Sky
Best Community Support
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Final Fantasy XIV
- Fortnite
- Helldivers 2
- No Man’s Sky
Best Independent Game
- Absolum
- Ball x Pit
- Blue Prince
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Hades II
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
Best Debut Indie Game
- Blue Prince
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Despelote
- Dispatch
- Megabonk (withdrawn by the dev after nominations)
Best Mobile Game
- Destiny: Rising
- Persona 5: The Phantom X
- Sonic Rumble
- Umamusume: Pretty Derby
- Wuthering Waves
Best VR/AR Game
- Alien: Rogue Incursion
- Arken Age
- Ghost Town
- Marvel’s Deadpool VR
- The Midnight Walk
Best Action Game
- Battlefield 6
- Doom: The Dark Ages
- Hades II
- Ninja Gaiden 4
- Shinobi: Art of Vengeance
Best Action/Adventure Game
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Ghost of Yōtei
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Split Fiction
Best RPG
- Avowed
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
- The Outer Worlds 2
- Monster Hunter Wilds
Best Fighting Game
- 2XKO
- Capcom Fighting Collection 2
- Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves
- Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection
- Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage
Best Family Game
- Donkey Kong Bananza
- LEGO Party!
- LEGO Voyagers
- Mario Kart World
- Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
- Split Fiction
Best Sim/Strategy Game
- The Alters
- Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles
- Jurassic World Evolution 3
- Sid Meier’s Civilization VII
- Tempest Rising
- Two Point Museum
Best Sports/Racing Game
- EA Sports FC 26
- F1 25
- Mario Kart World
- Rematch
- Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
Best Multiplayer
- Arc Raiders
- Battlefield 6
- Elden Ring: Nightreign
- Peak
- Split Fiction
Most Anticipated Game
- 007 First Light
- Grand Theft Auto VI
- Marvel’s Wolverine
- Resident Evil Requiem
- The Witcher IV
Content Creator of the Year
- Caedrel
- Kai Cenat
- MoistCr1TiKaL
- Sakura Miko
- The Burnt Peanut
Best Esports Game
- Counter-Strike 2
- Dota 2
- League of Legends
- Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
- Valorant
Best Esports Athlete
- brawk
- Chovy
- f0rsakeN
- Kakeru
- MenaRD
- Zyw0o
Best Esports Team
- Gen.G – League of Legends
- NRG – Valorant
- Team Falcons – Dota 2
- Team Liquid PH – Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
- Team Vitality – Counter-Strike 2
Players’ Voice / Game Changer
- Players’ Voice: nominees come later; 30 games, 100% fan-voted.
- Game Changer: may return, but details/nominees (if any) will be revealed during the show.
