The Game Awards 2025 was not just a trophy handout, it was gaming’s yearly group chat made real. One stage, a lot of hype, and millions of viewers waiting to see who won and what got teased next.
This year’s show had a clear main character. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 cleaned up in major categories and walked away with Game of the Year, turning a “cool nominee” into the night’s big story.
The winners that mattered most
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won Game of the Year over heavy competition, including Death Stranding 2, Donkey Kong Bananza, Hades II, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.
It also stacked awards in categories such as Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Score and Music, Best RPG, and more, with reporting noting it won nine awards overall.
Not every category went to the same giant, though. Deadline’s running list highlights other wins like Hades II taking Best Action Game and Donkey Kong Bananza earning Best Family, which helped keep the night from feeling like one long sweep.
Awards such as Games for Impact and Best Adaptation also showed the event’s “bigger than games” approach, with Deadline noting South of Midnight for Games for Impact and The Last of Us Season 2 for Best Adaptation.
The trailers people will replay
Even if someone skipped the awards, the trailers were hard to miss. Sega revealed Total War: Warhammer 40,000, introduced on stage by David Harbour, adding a new flavor to the long-running strategy series.
Behind the hype, there was also a money conversation. A Kotaku report said some publishers paid up to US$450,000 for a one-minute trailer, and over US$1 million for three minutes on the main show, and GameSpot echoed the same figures.
IO Interactive also got a big reaction with 007: First Light, a James Bond origin story. GameSpot noted the trailer included a look at Bond in Mauritania and a villain played by Lenny Kravitz.
GameSpot also pointed to Lords of the Fallen 2 with a first look at gameplay, plus crossover moments like Hitman: World of Assassination, revealing Milla Jovovich as an Elusive Target.
Polygon’s recap also called out Jonathan Blow’s next game, Order of the Sinking Star, plus other announcements that widened the show beyond “only AAA.”
The controversy file, old wounds, new fuel
No awards show comes without arguments, and this one arrived with a full backpack of them. Some fans revived the old “platform favoritism” conversation by referencing past Astro Bot debates and calling certain winners “too Sony.”
Astro Bot was not a sales disaster, but it did become a lightning rod because its commercial scale looked small next to recent GOTY winners. Alinea Analytics estimated the game had passed 2.3 million copies sold, which is solid for a tightly scoped platformer, yet it is still the lowest-selling winner in over a decade.
It also drew criticism for feeling heavily inspired by Nintendo’s Mario-style 3D platforming. Some reviews and commentary argued that, while it was polished, it did not feel as “new” as its biggest influences.
Then there is the classic history lesson. God of War beating Red Dead Redemption 2 for GOTY in 2018 still gets cited as the moment many players realized juries and fan polls can live in different universes.
That old fight keeps coming back because it is easy to understand. One side values craft, pacing, and direction; the other, values scale, immersion, and “how could that lose,” and neither side is fully wrong.
Fan favorites, shutouts, and the Kojima factor
Black Myth: Wukong stayed a magnet for awards-season debate in 2025. Commentary around it framed the game as a fan favorite whose reputation online did not always translate into the outcomes people expected.
Part of that conversation leaned on the difference between popularity and juried scoring, plus the wider awards circuit. Fans also discussed its nominations elsewhere, like BAFTA chatter, as proof that it had real awards momentum.
Kojima also became part of the conversation for a different reason. Death Stranding 2 had seven nominations but won zero awards, which surprised many viewers given the series’ awards history and Kojima’s high profile. Keighley’s long-known friendship with Kojima is one reason people even look for “bias” patterns, even when the results go the other way.
What it all means after the confetti
The Game Awards 2025 showed two truths at once. A juried sweep can happen, Clair Obscur proved that, and the reveal trailer circus can still steal the spotlight on the same night.
The loud debates, from Astro Bot claims to the RDR2 vs God of War flashback and Wukong discourse, are basically the show’s unofficial afterparty. Love it or hate it, that noise means people still care.