The Game Awards 2025 is an upcoming award show to honor the best video games of 2025. It is set to be the twelfth show hosted by Geoff Keighley, creator and producer of the Game Awards, to be with a live audience at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on December 11, 2025, and live streamed across online platforms globally. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 leads the ceremony with twelve nominations, the most in the show's history.
As with previous iterations of the Game Awards, the 2025 show is set to be 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] The presentation is set to take place at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on December 11, 2025.[3] Public tickets became available for purchase on November1.[4]
The event will be live streamed across online platforms including TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as Amazon Prime Video for the first time. The Game Awards partnered with Amazon for the show, creating a dedicated store for merchandise, deals, and new reveals. The Twitch broadcast will be streamed in 2K resolution 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—will not return in 2025, and the list of previous inductees was removed from the show's website.[5][6]
Nominees
Nominees were announced on November 17, 2025;[7] the Game of the Year nominees leaked a few hours before the official announcement.[8] Any game released for public consumption on or before November 21 was eligible for consideration,[9] including downloadable content (DLC), expansions, remakes, remasters, and seasonal content.[10] The nominees were compiled by a jury panel composed of members from over 150 media outlets globally.[2] Specialized juries decided nominees for categories like accessibility, adaptation, and esports.[9] Winners are determined between the jury (90 percent) and public voting (10 percent);[11] the latter is held via the official website and Discord server[a] until December 10.[12][13] The exception is the publicly-voted Players' Voice, for which voting is set to open on December 1.[11]
Millions of votes were cast within hours, causing website delays; Keighley called the traffic "unprecedented".[14] 2025 marked the first year in which multiple Game of the Year nominees were independent games,[15] and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the second game to receive three nominations in a single category (Best Performance) after Uncharted 4: A Thief's End in 2016.[16]Megabonk's Best Debut Indie Game nomination was removed on November 18 at the request of its developer, who felt he not qualify for the award as it was not his debut game;[17][18][19] 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.[20]
Keighley produces and hosts the Game Awards, and Balfe conducts its orchestra.[13]
Cast members from the second season of Fallout are set to present at the ceremony as part of the Game Awards's new partnership with distributor Amazon.[1] The Game Awards Orchestra, conducted by Lorne Balfe, is set to perform.[13]
Reception
Nominees
Some viewers and journalists criticized the decision to discontinue the Future Class initiative.[11][21][22][23] 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.[5][6]Polygon writers criticized the show's categories: Paulo Kawanishi considered the Best Role Playing Game category too broad due to the diversity of its nominees,[24] 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.[25]
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