The Game Awards 2025 Re-cap

Once more this December, Geoff Keighley invited the crème de la crème of the video game industry to Los Angeles for The Game Awards to hand out some trophies and advertise the next crop of contenders. Read on to find my biggest takeaways, as someone tuned into the space but too cheap to play more than a couple of the games being shown off.

Clair Obscur is the big success story of the show, taking away nine awards

Big Year for Indies

Most years, the games tipped to win big are the ones with big money spent on them. The likes of Sony, EA, Nintendo, and Bandai-Namco have all fielded ‘Game of the Year’ winners in recent years, large teams leading the way for AAA studios.
Last year, Balatro (developed by one person) was nominated, signalling a shift from the hyper-realistic graphics and cinematic story focuses that have been so dominant previously. This year went even further. Not only was indie game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 the winner of ‘Game of the Year’, but Hades 2 and Hollow Knight: Silksong also received nominations, in both the main category and various others.

Clair Obscur is the big success story of the show, taking away nine awards. However, while undoubtedly a massive achievement for the relatively small team, it does nothing to buck genre trends in what The Game Awards look for. It’s a realistically-styled game, with the kind of big actors (Andy Serkis and Charlie Cox in particular) that lend weight to the game’s story even on a surface level. Despite its development giving it the label “indie”, the content of the ‘Game of the Year’ reinforces the image of The Game Awards as the home for your Ghost of Yoteis and Death Strandings as opposed to your Absolums, Ball x Pits, or Blue Princes (the poor games nominated for ‘Best Independent Game’, cursed to never stand a chance against the three ‘GOTY’ nominees).

The preponderance of trailers and presenters there to advertise is a constant annoyance

Showmanship and Commercialism

It is tempting to label the whole show a display of muppetry, but that might be a little cheap. As usual, Disney’s felt mascots attended, this year Miss Piggy and Rolf the Dog, providing a musical number. It just didn’t slot into an award show as well as Statler and Waldorf’s heckling in 2024. The whole show might have benefited from their self-effacing style. Humour is, of course, subjective, but I found them a lot more entertaining than any of the on-stage “bits” in 2025.

The preponderance of trailers and presenters there to advertise is a constant annoyance, though it becomes easy to let it roll over you. As my next section will show, the trailers can themselves be a draw (Kingdom Hearts 4 when?), but it doesn’t make me feel any less advertised to when the cast of the upcoming Street Fighter movie trot up on stage to talk about their project and slip in a mention of award-winner No Man’s Sky.

Fortunately, the trend from last year of presenters being at the very least tangentially connected to video games was kept up. I see it as a promising sign for a show that simultaneously wants to be “The Oscars for games”, yet has in the past been unable to step out from the shadow of the film industry.

My own prayers for announcements went unanswered

Looking Ahead

As always, the awards were only half of the draw to watch. ‘Most Anticipated Game’ may have gone to Grand Theft Auto 6, yet many others had their time to shine. 2026 looks set to start off strong with titles like Resident Evil Requiem, now confirmed to feature the return of fan-favourite Leon Kennedy, and James Bond’s first foray into games since 2012. Trailers for everything announced are online, with many more set to release over the next 12 months, hoping to try their hand at The Game Awards 2026.

My own prayers for announcements went unanswered, Kingdom Hearts 4 continuing its proud streak of having no news for over three years since its last trailer. Despite hype building, even the longer-awaited Half-Life 3 also had no hint of news.

My own tastes lie in the realms of the seemingly slow, and later horrifying, trailer for Divinity, the next venture for 2023 ‘GOTY’ winners Larian Studios. And, despite myself, I cannot help but be interested in Star Wars, as there is promise in a follow-up to the Old Republic series, having the director of the first entry in it.

And so, another Game Awards passes us by. Many congratulations to Clair Obscur and to the orchestra for their medley of music from all ‘GOTY’ nominees (once again, the coolest part of the show). See you again in 2026 (KH4 by then for sure).