Geoff Keighley and company are back again, revealing the nominees for the 2025 edition of The Game Awards, which will stream live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Thursday, December 11, 2025. This year the one to beat is Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which has received 12 nominations, and the most in the show’s history.
Those 12 nominations nearly double the next nearest nominee in Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Sucker Punch Productions’ Ghost of Yōtei with seven. Supergiant Games’ Hades II has six nominations, while Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight: Silksong has five.
Making things interesting is that Clair Obscur, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Hades II and Hollow Knight: Silksong are all up for Game of the Year, alongside Warhorse Studios’ Kingdom Come: Deliverance II and Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Bananza.
Meanwhile, horror fans have a few nominees to cheer for this year, with Konami’s Silent Hill f receiving four nominations (which is sadly less than what Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 received last year), id Software’s Doom: The Dark Ages garnering three, and Compulsion Games’ South of Midnight getting two nominations.
From Software’s Elden Ring Nightreign received its lone nomination in Best Multiplayer Game, while Survios’ Alien: Rogue Incursion has a nomination in Best VR Game alongside Twisted Pixel Games’ Marvel’s Deadpool VR and MoonHood’s The Midnight Walk.
Capcom’s Resident Evil Requiem and CD Projekt Red’s The Wticher IV also received nods in the Most Anticipated Game.
Fans can vote now in all categories via the official website.
Blue Prince only being nominated for the two indie awards is an expected travesty. Merited a GOTY nomination imo and also a OST award nomination. Sad times.
I dunno. It’s a very well-made game, but also kinda… understandable not on the same level as Hades 2, Silksong of Clair Obscur.
Plus it got a GOTY nomination or two, I bet. Which just doesn’t put it high enough though.
Having played a fair bit of it, I can see why it isn’t.
I can ignore the RNG fest that is drawing the rooms but for the love of god there so many interactions that have no business being as long as they are (for example anything related to computer terminals). If the game can clearly be better than it currently is then in my books it cannot be a GOTY nomination. In case of Blue Prince the game could absolutely waste less of the players time. It’s the reason I gave up on it because there’s no reason to play if I feel like the time I spend playing is just wasted time.
It’s just one of those years. There were a lot of great games that came out this year.
I feel out of touch. The only one I saw nominated for anything that I’ve played was no mans sky.
The only other one that I haven’t played but heard of, was that silksong game.
The rest? No clue what these games are. But I see everyone saying this was a great year for games.
Oh wow, you entirely missed Death Stranding 2, Hades 2, Hollow Knight Silksong and Clair Obscur? The latter basically took over the entirety of all gaming discussion and news for ~2 months.
I mean not a bad thing in itself, helps to play games not just read about them. Just surprised that in particular CO:E33 went by you, my grandma heard about it even though she could not associate the name because mainstream TV news had a short bit about the music in it.
Clair Obscur was all anybody gaming related talked about for weeks.
Don’t feel out of touch, the industry is bigger than ever and the sheer number of games coming out is impossible to keep up with. As an employed adult, I’ve found the only way I can sort of keep up is by following a streamer like moistcritikal who is open to playing pretty much anything.
I played the crap out of blue prince and I actually hated the game. Might just be me though but IMO the game has some incredible big flaws.
I completed an absurd amount of the game in spite just so I was 100% sure I hated it. Imo one of the most overrated games I’ve played.
It’s kinda up to the judges of the specific event, and they clearly aren’t interested as much in puzzle games. It never had a chance for GOTY, despite being an extremely good puzzle game.
I know it never had a chance to win it. It never had a chance to win the soundtrack award either, but a nomination is still something.
I’m assuming Silksong snags the Indie Award but Best Debut Indie should be possible to win perhaps. It’s such a unique, interesting and inventive game and it deserves recognition.