As with previous iterations of the Game Awards, the 2025 show was hosted and produced by Canadian games journalist Geoff Keighley.[1] 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.[2] Sydnee Goodman returned as host of the 30-minute preshow, titled Opening Act.[3] The presentation took place at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on December 11, 2025.[4] Public tickets became available for purchase on November1.[5] Keighley dedicated the show to his father, who died in August; an empty seat was reserved in his honor, beside Keighley's mother.[3]
The event was live streamed across online platforms including TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as Amazon Prime Video for the first time.[1] It was broadcast on a record number of platforms in China, including Bilibili, Huya Live, and Weibo.[6] 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.[1] Like the 2024 show, the Future Class initiative—an annual list of 50 individuals from the industry who best represent its future, introduced in 2020—did not return in 2025, and the list of previous inductees was removed from the show's website.[7][8]
Announcements
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.[9]:5:35 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.[9]:6:55 Most of the three-hour show was focused on announcements, with approximately 17 minutes dedicated to awards.[10] According to Kotaku, publishers paid up to US$450,000 for a 60-second trailer and over $1million for a three-minute slot.[11]
Preceding the Game Awards, several announcements were made during broadcasts by Wholesome Games on December9, and Day of the Devs, the Latin American Games Showcase, and the Women-Led Games Showcase on December10.[9][12][13] A statue was placed in the Mojave Desert in late November to tease a reveal at the show, prompting wide speculation;[14] based on trademark registrations, journalists solved that it was a new entry in the Divinity series.[15] The statue was relocated to the Peacock Theater before the ceremony.[16][17] The Control Resonant and Divinity reveals featured live theatrical elements, including performers on wires;[18][19] preparation for the former began in March 2025.[20] 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:[3][21]
Of the new game announcements, Total War: Warhammer 40,000 received the most followers on Steam with 54,000, roughly the same as the combined total of the next three highest: Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis (20,000), Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve (18,000), and Control Resonant (16,000).[22][23] Within a week, the Resident Evil Requiem trailer generated the most media coverage (approximately 1,740 articles, followed by Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic 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 (8million), followed by Resident Evil Requiem (almost 6.5million) and Marvel Rivals (5.2million).[23]
Winners and nominees
Nominees were announced on November 17, 2025;[24][25] the Game of the Year nominees leaked a few hours before the official announcement.[26] Any game released for public consumption on or before November 21 was eligible for consideration,[27] including downloadable content (DLC), expansions, remakes, remasters, and seasonal content.[28] The nominees were compiled by a jury panel composed of members from 154 media outlets globally—a 14% increase from 2024's 134, particularly from Europe and Latin America.[29] Specialized juries decided nominees for categories like accessibility, adaptation, and esports.[27] Winners are determined between the jury (90 percent) and public voting (10 percent);[30] the latter was held via the official website and Discord server[a] until December 10.[31][32] The exception was the publicly-voted Players' Voice, for which voting opened on December1.[30] Millions of votes were cast within hours, causing website delays, which Keighley called "unprecedented";[33] 123million votes were cast, a 10% increase from 2024.[6] 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.[34]
2025 marked the first year in which multiple Game of the Year nominees were independent games,[35] representing a 50/50 split.[36] They had sold a combined 22.3million copies[b] and each saw sales increases[c] after their nominations.[37][38] Three games—Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, and Ghost of Yōtei—were nominated for all five major craft awards (Best Game Direction, Narrative, Art Direction, Score and Music, and Audio Design),[29] and Expedition33 was the second game to receive three nominations in a single category (Best Performance) after 2016's Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.[39]Megabonk's 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;[40][41][42] 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.[43] It was subsequently nominated in the 30-game first round of Players' Voice.[44]
The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on December 11, 2025.[45][46]Clair Obscur: Expedition33 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.[47][48][49] It was the first debut and first French-developed Game of the Year winner,[50][51] and the first to also be nominated in (and win) the indie game categories.[52] Most of the 30-person development team, Sandfall Interactive, flew from France and bought tickets to attend the show,[11][53] each dressed in traditional French marinière with red berets.[50][54] 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.[22][55] The game saw a 160% weekly increase in players on December13, 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.[23]
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.[3][60]
Multiple nominations and awards
Multiple nominations
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 received 13 nominations, the most in the show's history.[2] Other games with multiple nominations included Death Stranding2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yōtei with seven, and HadesII 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 companies—Bethesda Game Studios and Xbox Game Studios—received a combined nine nominations. Netflix and PlayStation Productions both received two nominations for their television series in Best Adaptation.[2][24]
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and its publisher Kepler Interactive led the show with nine wins, the most in the show's history.[61] It was the only game to win multiple awards at the ceremony.[62] Nintendo was the only other publisher to win multiple awards, receiving two (one each for Donkey Kong Bananza and Mario Kart World),[52] 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).[45] While Sony Interactive Entertainment led the nominees with 19 nods, it ultimately won no awards.[52]
Geoff Keighley (top) hosted the main show while Sydnee Goodman (bottom) hosted the preshow.[3]
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.[1] The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or introduced trailers. All other awards were presented by Keighley or Goodman.[3]
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.[67] The show opened with music from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which some journalists considered a hint at its awards success.[50][68]
The following individuals or groups performed musical numbers.[3][66]
Some viewers and journalists criticized the decision to discontinue the Future Class initiative.[30][71][72][73] 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.[7][8]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;[74] Paulo Kawanishi considered the Best Role Playing Game category too broad due to the diversity of its nominees;[75] 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.[76] Some Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 cast members called for a new category for motion capture actors,[77] and Charlie Cox credited his nomination to his character's motion-capture performer, Maxence Cazorla.[78]
Keighley's post-show Twitter poll received mixed responses, with almost 39% of over 404,000 votes grading the show "D or below".[95][96]Kotaku's Alyssa Mercante criticized the ticket prices, noting that nominees received only two tickets and were required to buy more—priced between $58 for the upper mezzanine and $1,000 for the rear orchestra—for additional attendees, who were often seated apart. She highlighted the complications in mixing developer and public seating, referencing the 2022 stage interruption.[11] 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 the chief executive officers of Microsoft Gaming and Take-Two Interactive, Phil Spencer and Strauss Zelnick.[97][98]
Several critics considered the show a celebration of smaller, independent games, citing Clair Obscur: Expedition33's awards;[17][52][68]Polygon's Oli Welsh compared its success to films like Everything Everywhere All at Once and Oppenheimer leading the Academy Awards in 2023 and 2024, respectively.[52]GamesIndustry.biz's Rob Fahey suspected the game's success would lead to attempted emulations,[99] though Kotaku's Ethan Gach considered its record-breaking status "overblown" and thought it should have been ineligible for the indie game categories[100] and Bloomberg News's Jason Schreier felt its sweeping success removed tension from the awards.[16] The French president, Emmanuel Macron, congratulated the developers.[51][101][102]Gamepressure's Matt Buckley found the in-person excitement to the game's response "contagious", lauding the show's overall atmosphere.[103]
The Washington Post's 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.[104]Polygon's 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".[19] 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.[17][104][105]Kotaku's Gach found most announcements unmemorable.[100] Several journalists found the show's final reveal—Highguard, a free-to-playfirst-person shooter from a new studio—questionable or lackluster, with some viewers expecting an announcement from an established series or different genre,[106][107][108] though others found the trailer intriguing regardless.[109][110][111]
Viewership
An estimated 171million 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 4.4million concurrent viewers—the most in its history and a 9% increase from 2024—including 1.4million viewers on the official YouTube broadcast (an 8% increase) and 1.8million on Twitch. On YouTube, the ceremony peaked at 2.4million total concurrent viewers (a 9% increase), including a record 8,600 co-streams.[6] More than 16,500 creators co-streamed on Twitch—a record for the show, representing a 50% yearly increase—with total unique viewers and hours watched each increasing 5% from 2024.[6][112] On Twitter, posts about the show increased by 12%, with more than 1.79million posts from December 10–12, while the broadcast and related videos received over 60million views.[6]Eurogamer's Connor Makar noted the figures "overshadowed" the 97th Academy Awards, which received 19.7million viewers in the United States.[112]
Notes
↑In China, fan voting was held via platforms such as Bilibili.[2]
↑The Game of the Year nominees had sold a combined 22.29million copies by the time of nomination:[38]
↑Fujiwara, Hikeaki (December 12, 2025). "The Game AwardsのGOTY名物"フルート男"、今年は「過去最高に凄い」と脚光浴びる。見たこともない謎楽器がどんどん飛び出すスペクタクル"[The Game Awards' GOTY speciality, 'Flute Man,' is in the limelight this year as 'the most amazing ever.' A spectacle of mysterious instruments never before seen popping out.]. Automaton Media (in Japanese). Active Gaming Media. Archived from the original on December 12, 2025. Retrieved December 13, 2025.
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