The Game Awards 2025 was an award show to honor the best video games of 2025. It was the twelfth show hosted by Geoff Keighley, creator and producer of the Game Awards, and held with a live audience at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on December 11, 2025, and live streamed across online platforms globally. It featured presentations from celebrity guests including David Harbour, Dan Houser, Rahul Kohli, and Lenny Kravitz, and a musical performance from Evanescence.
' led the ceremony with thirteen nominations and nine wins, the most in the show's history, including Game of the Year, the first debut game to win. The Game Changer award honored Girls Make Games, an organization supporting young girls to pursue careers in the video game industry. Several new games were announced, including Control Resonant, Divinity, ', ', and '. The show was viewed by over 171 million streams, the most in its history, though responses were mixed.
As with previous iterations of the Game Awards, the 2025 show was hosted and produced by Canadian games journalist Geoff Keighley. He returned as an executive producer alongside Kimmie Kim, while Richard Preuss returned as director, LeRoy Bennett as creative director, and Michael E. Peter as co-executive producer. Sydnee Goodman returned as host of the 30-minute preshow, titled Opening Act. The presentation took place at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on December 11, 2025. Public tickets became available for purchase on November 1. Keighley dedicated the show to his father, who died in August; an empty seat was reserved in his honor, beside Keighley's mother.
The event was live streamed across online platforms including TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as Amazon Prime Video for the first time. It was broadcast on a record number of platforms in China, including Bilibili, Huya Live, and Weibo. The Game Awards partnered with Amazon for the show, creating a dedicated store for merchandise, deals, and new reveals. The Twitch broadcast was streamed in 1440p for the first time. Like the 2024 show, the Future Class initiativeâÂÂan annual list of 50 individuals from the industry who best represent its future, introduced in 2020âÂÂdid not return in 2025, and the list of previous inductees was removed from the show's website.
Keighley sought to balance time dedicated to announcements and awards, wanting to satisfy both sides of the audience; he felt the reveals attracted new viewers and boosted attention to the winners. His team worked directly with developers to prepare trailers and schedule them at specific points in the show to create an emotional arc for viewers. Most of the three-hour show was focused on announcements, with approximately 17 minutes dedicated to awards. According to Kotaku, publishers paid up to for a 60-second trailer and over $1 million for a three-minute slot. Forbess Paul Tassi reported that Highguards developer did not pay for its reveal; the show's producers scheduled it as the final trailer.
Preceding the Game Awards, several announcements were made during broadcasts by Wholesome Games on December 9, and Day of the Devs, the Latin American Games Showcase, and the Women-Led Games Showcase on December 10. A statue was placed in the Mojave Desert in late November to tease a reveal at the show, prompting wide speculation; based on trademark registrations, journalists solved that it was a new entry in the Divinity series. The statue was relocated to the Peacock Theater before the ceremony. The Control Resonant and Divinity reveals featured live theatrical elements, including performers on wires; preparation for the former began in March 2025. In addition to new footage from the upcoming films Street Fighter and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, announcements on released and upcoming games were made for:
New games announced included:
Of the new game announcements, ' received the most followers on Steam with 54,000, roughly the same as the combined total of the next three highest: ' (20,000), ' (18,000), and Control Resonant (16,000). Within a week, the Resident Evil Requiem trailer generated the most media coverage (approximately 1,740 articles, followed by ' with 1,605 and Divinity with 1,357) and most social interaction on Facebook and Twitter (followed by Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis and Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, respectively), while the 2XKO trailer received the most views on YouTube (8 million), followed by Resident Evil Requiem (almost 6.5 million) and Marvel Rivals (5.2 million).
Nominees were announced on November 17, 2025; the Game of the Year nominees leaked a few hours before the official announcement. Any game released for public consumption on or before November 21 was eligible for consideration, including downloadable content (DLC), expansions, remakes, remasters, and seasonal content. The nominees were compiled by a jury panel composed of members from 154 media outlets globallyâÂÂa 14% increase from 2024's 134, particularly from Europe and Latin America. Specialized juries decided nominees for categories like accessibility, adaptation, and esports. Winners are determined between the jury (90 percent) and public voting (10 percent); the latter was held via the official website and Discord server until December 10. The exception was the publicly-voted Players' Voice, for which voting opened on December 1. Millions of votes were cast within hours, causing website delays, which Keighley called "unprecedented"; 123 million votes were cast, a 10% increase from 2024. As with preceding years, a hub world was developed in Fortnite by Nighttimes and Evil Eye Pictures, allowing players and jury members to vote from November 21 for their favorite user-created islands among ten nominees; the winner was announced during the ceremony.
2025 marked the first year in which multiple Game of the Year nominees were independent games, representing a 50/50 split. The six nominees sold a combined 22.3 million copies and each saw sales increases after their nominations. Three gamesâÂÂ', ', and Ghost of Yà ÂteiâÂÂwere nominated for all five major craft awards (Best Game Direction, Narrative, Art Direction, Score and Music, and Audio Design), and Expedition 33 was the second game to receive three nominations in a single category (Best Performance) after 2016's '. Megabonks Best Debut Indie Game nomination was removed on November 18 at the request of its developer, who felt he did not qualify as it was not his debut game; it was the first time a developer had willingly withdrawn a nomination, and the second rescission overall following the removal of two fangame nominations in 2016. It was subsequently nominated in the 30-game first round of Players' Voice.
The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on December 11, 2025. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won all but one of its jury-nominated awards, including Game of the Year and four of the major craft awards; it lost Best Audio Design to Battlefield 6 and the fan-voted Players' Voice to Wuthering Waves. It was the first debut and first French-developed Game of the Year winner, and the first to also be nominated in (and win) the indie game categories. Most of the 30-person development team, Sandfall Interactive, flew from France and bought tickets to attend the show, each dressed in traditional French marinière with red berets. The game's engagement tripled after the show, with its most successful sales day since May and most cumulative Steam players (57,000) since June; more than 300,000 copies were sold in the following five days. The game saw a 160% weekly increase in players on December 13, of whom 17% were new. Of the other winners, South of Midnight and No Man's Sky saw a 32% and 14% increase in daily active users on the following weekend.
Baldur's Gate 3s Best Community Support win was its eighth award overall (briefly breaking the show's overall record before Expedition 33s ninth win) and its third consecutive year at the show (following its six wins in 2023 and one in 2024). Nintendo won two awards, totaling 24 at the Game Awards overall, while 's win marked Square Enix's twelfth and Final Fantasys tenth overall. id Software and Supergiant Games received their third awards with ' and Hades II, having won two each with Doom and Hades in 2016 and 2020, respectively. Several studios received their first award, including Compulsion Games for South of Midnight (its first nomination), Team Cherry for ', KOF Studio and SNK for ', and Kuro Games for Wuthering Waves. No Man's Sky won Best Ongoing Game for the second time, having done so in 2020. Grand Theft Auto VI is the second game to win Most Anticipated Game twice consecutively, after Elden Ring in 2020 and 2021, and The Last of Us is the first two-time Best Adaptation winner, having won for its first season in 2023.
Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger ().
The Game Changer award was given to the organization Girls Make Games, which supports girls to pursue careers in the video game industry. The award was accepted by Ellie Freeman and Monica Paredes.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 received 13 nominations, the most in the show's history. Other games with multiple nominations included Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yà Âtei with seven, and Hades II and Hollow Knight: Silksong with six. Sony Interactive Entertainment had 19 nominations, more than any other publisher, followed by Kepler Interactive with 14 and Electronic Arts with 10. Microsoft Gaming's subsidiary companiesâÂÂBethesda Game Studios and Xbox Game StudiosâÂÂreceived a combined nine nominations. Netflix and PlayStation Productions both received two nominations for their television series in Best Adaptation.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and its publisher Kepler Interactive led the show with nine wins, the most in the show's history. It was the only game to win multiple awards at the ceremony. Nintendo was the only other publisher to win multiple awards, receiving two (one each for Donkey Kong Bananza and Mario Kart World, while Microsoft Gaming's subsidiary companies received two awards (one each for Bethesda's Doom: The Dark Ages and Xbox Game Studios's South of Midnight. While Sony Interactive Entertainment led the nominees with 19 nods, it ultimately won no awards.
Cast members from the second season of Fallout were set to present at the ceremony as part of the Game Awards's new partnership with distributor Amazon. The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or introduced trailers. All other awards were presented by Keighley or Goodman.
Lorne Balfe, the conductor of the Game Awards Orchestra, started considering music for the show before the nominations were announced; he researched the year's releases with his son to predict possible nominees. He sought to choose music that was popular among players, rather than simply selecting each game's theme music. The show opened with music from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which some journalists considered a hint at its awards success.
The following individuals or groups performed musical numbers.
Some viewers and journalists criticized the decision to discontinue the Future Class initiative. Several alumni felt they had been abandoned after not receiving responses from Keighley or Future Class organizer Emily Weir. Some suspected the initiative's discontinuation was in response to an open letter they wrote to Keighley in 2023. Polygon writers criticized the show's categories: Austin Manchester felt the term "indie" was misapplied, considering Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Dispatch to be double-A and triple-I, respectively; Paulo Kawanishi considered the Best Role Playing Game category too broad due to the diversity of its nominees; and Giovanni Colantonio suggested the show implement smaller, more knowledgeable juries (like the Academy Awards) for categories like Best Mobile Game to better represent genres and mediums. Some Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 cast members called for a new category for motion capture actors, and Charlie Cox credited his nomination to his character's motion-capture performer, Maxence Cazorla.
Several journalists highlighted the lack of Game of the Year nominations for Blue Prince, Ghost of YÃ Âtei, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Silent Hill f, and Split Fiction, which they attributed to the quality of the competition, and felt ARC Raiders, Dispatch, Donkey Kong Bananza, and South of Midnight deserved additional nominations. Some thought ' deserved recognition for its narrative and Alex Jordan for his performance in The Alters. The Best Adaptation category was criticized for its nominees' mixed reception; some felt Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was snubbed, theorizing its December 2024 release date weakened its chances. Streamer Shroud, who won Content Creator of the Year in 2019 and was nominated for Trending Gamer in 2017, called the awards "rigged" after ARC Raiders was not nominated for Game of the Year, though journalists called these claims unfounded and noted the game had tough competition.
Keighley's post-show Twitter poll received mixed responses, with almost 39% of over 404,000 votes grading the show "D or below". Kotakus Alyssa Mercante criticized the ticket prices, noting that nominees received only two tickets and were required to buy moreâÂÂpriced between $58 for the upper mezzanine and $1,000 for the rear orchestraâÂÂfor additional attendees, who were often seated apart. She highlighted the complications in mixing developer and public seating, referencing the 2022 stage interruption. Dozens of members of the union United Videogame Workers protested outside the Peacock Theater to raise awareness of recent industry layoffs, with some directing their message at Phil Spencer and Strauss Zelnick, the chief executive officers of Microsoft Gaming and Take-Two Interactive, respectively.
Several critics considered the show a celebration of smaller, independent games, citing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33s awards; Polygons Oli Welsh compared its success to films like Everything Everywhere All at Once and Oppenheimer leading the Academy Awards in 2023 and 2024, respectively. GamesIndustry.bizs Rob Fahey suspected its success would lead to attempted emulations, though Kotakus Ethan Gach considered its record-breaking status "overblown" and thought it should have been ineligible for the indie categories and Bloomberg Newss Jason Schreier felt its sweeping wins removed tension from the awards. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, congratulated the developers, calling it "a great pride" for Montpellier and France. Gamepressures Matt Buckley found the in-person excitement "contagious", lauding the show's atmosphere.
The Washington Posts Gene Park found the ceremony more entertaining than previous years and praised the live staging but recommended different categories to celebrate fields like character and level design. Polygons Claire Lewis criticized important awards being relegated to the preshow or announced in quick succession but applauded the lack of time restrictions for speeches and the quality of the announcements, writing, "Yes, it was a three-and-a-half-hour commercial. But it was a good three-and-a-half-hour commercial". Some critics named independent game announcements, like Bradley the Badger and Coven of the Chicken Foot, among the show's highlights, as well as the Resident Evil Requiem and two Tomb Raider trailers. Kotakus Gach found most announcements unmemorable. Several journalists found the show's final revealâÂÂHighguard, a free-to-play first-person shooter from a new studioâÂÂquestionable or lackluster, with some viewers expecting an announcement from an established series or different genre, though others found the trailer intriguing regardless.
An estimated 171 million viewers watched the ceremony, the most in the show's history and an 11% increase from the previous year; the figure does not include Prime Video viewers. According to Streams Charts, the ceremony peaked at 4.4 million concurrent viewersâÂÂthe most in its history and a 9% increase from 2024âÂÂincluding 1.4 million viewers on the official YouTube broadcast (an 8% increase) and 1.8 million on Twitch. On YouTube, the ceremony peaked at 2.4 million total concurrent viewers (a 9% increase), including a record 8,600 co-streams. More than 16,500 creators co-streamed on TwitchâÂÂa record for the show, representing a 50% yearly increaseâÂÂwith total unique viewers and hours watched each increasing 5% from 2024. On Twitter, posts about the show increased by 12%, with more than 1.79 million posts from December 10âÂÂ12, while the broadcast and related videos received over 60 million views. Eurogamers Connor Makar noted the figures "overshadowed" the 97th Academy Awards, which received 19.7 million viewers in the United States.