THE GAME AWARDS 2025 Nominees Revealed!

Hello, everybody. It's Jeff Keighley, and the Game Awards season is officially here, leading up to our live show streaming everywhere on Thursday, December 11th. Welcome to our 2025 Global Nomination Announcement Special. Every year, we come together as a community to celebrate

and, of course, debate the absolute best in video games. And of course also get a look at what's next from our industry's most talented creators. This year there have been so many incredible games created and updated, but only a handful have the honor of being selected as nominees for the Game Awards by our global voting jury. Who's in the running? Well, you're about to find out as we reveal this year's nominees across all the categories.

And you can help select the winners by voting at thegameawards.com. All right, should we do it? Here's the first category. For Best Performance, the nominees are Den Star for Claire Obscure Expedition 33, Charlie Cox for Claire Obscure Expedition 33,

Erika Ishii for Ghost of Yotei, Jennifer English for Claire Obscure Expedition 33, Konatsu Kato for Silent Hill F, and Troy Baker for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. For Best Ongoing Game, the nominees are Final Fantasy XIV, Fortnite, Helldivers 2, Marvel Rivals, and No Man's Sky. For Best Mobile Game, the nominees are Destiny

Rising, Persona 5 The Phantom X, Sonic Rumble, Uma Masume Pretty Derby, and Wuthering Waves. This year's nominees for Best Art Direction are For Best Score and Music, leveled up by Spotify, the nominees are are Christopher Larkin for Hollow Knight Silksong, Darren Korb for Hades II, Lorianne Testar for Claire Obscure Expedition 33, Toma Otoa for Ghost of Yotei, and Woodkid and Ludwig Forcel for Death Stranding 2 On The Beach. The best audio design nominees are Battlefield 6, Claire Obscure Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2 on the Beach, Ghost of Yotei, and Silent Hill F.

Best Adaptation was added to the Game Awards in 2022 to recognize an outstanding show, movie, or other creative work inspired by and based on an established video game world. Here are this year's nominees for Best Adaptation. A Minecraft Movie, Devil May Cry, Splinter Cell Deathwatch, The Last of Us Season 2, and Until Dawn. For Best Narrative, the outstanding nominees are Claire Obscure Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2 On The Beach, Ghost of Yotei, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2,

and Silent Hill F. Best Community Support celebrates game developers who continually and transparently engage, support, and respond to their players. This year's nominees are Baldur's Gate 3, Final Fantasy 14, Fortnite, Helldivers 2, and No Man's Sky. Your nominees for Games for Impact are

Consume Me, Despelote, Lost Records Bloom and Rage, South of Midnight, and Wonderstop. In the category of Best Multiplayer, the nominees are Ark Raiders, Battlefield 6, Elden Ring Nightgrain, Peak, and Split Fiction. Best Independent Games celebrates games with a high degree of risk tolerance, produced

outside the traditional publisher system. Those nominees are Absalom, Ball Pit, Blueprints, Clair Obscure Expedition 33, Hades II, and Hollow Knight Silksong. Best Debut Indie Game recognizes a development team that hasn't won a game award before. In fact, these teams published their first game this year. The nominees are Blueprints, Claire Obscure Expedition 33, Despelote, Dispatch, and Megabonk. For Best VR AR Game, the nominees are Alien Rogue Incursion,

Ark in Age, Ghost Town, Marvel's Deadpool VR, and The Midnight Walk. For Content Creator of the Year the nominees are Kedrel, Kai Sanat, Moist Critical, Sakura Miko, and The Burnt Peanut. Part of the Game Awards is looking forward to what's next, and don't worry, we'll have lots of games to announce for you on December 11th. But what's the most anticipated upcoming game? Here are the nominees based on currently announced titles.

007 First Light, Grand Theft Auto VI, Marvel's Wolverine, Resident Evil Requiem, and The Witcher 4. The Best Action-Adventure Game nominees are Death Stranding 2 On The Beach, Ghost of Yotei, Hollow Knight Silksong, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Split Fiction. For Best Role-Playing Game, the jury selected

Avowed, Claire Obscure Expedition 33, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Monster Hunter Wilds, and The Outer Worlds 2. In the category of Best Fighting Game, the nominees are 2XKO, Capcom Fighting Collection 2, Fatal Fury City of the Wolves, Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection, and Virtua Fighter 5 Revo World Stage. The nominees for Best Action Game are

Battlefield 6, Doom The Dark Ages, Hades 2, Ninja Gaiden 4, and Shinobi Art of Vengeance. Innovation and Accessibility celebrates games that are making our industry available and enjoyable to more people. The nominees for Innovation and Accessibility are... Assassin's Creed Shadows, Atomfall, Doom The Dark Ages, EA Sports FC 26, and South of Midnight. Next up, Best Family Game. The nominees are Donkey Kong Bonanza, Lego Party, Lego Voyagers, Mario Kart World,

Sonic Racing Cross Worlds, and Split Fiction. The Best Sim Strategy Game nominees are The Alters, Final Fantasy Tactics, Ivalice Chronicles, Jurassic World Evolution 3, Sid Meier's Civilization VII, Tempest Rising, and Two Point Museum. These games are nominated for Best Sports Racing Game, EA Sports FC 26, F1 25, Mario Kart World, Rematch, and Sonic Racing Cross Worlds. Now the nominees in our three eSports categories, starting with Best eSports categories starting with best eSports game the nominees are

Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, League of Legends, Mobile Legends Bang Bang and Valorant. The nominees for best eSports athlete are Brock, Chovy, Forsaken, Kakarot, MenaRD and ZywOo. And for Best Esports Team, our special esports committee nominated these teams. Gen.G League of Legends, NRG Valorant, Team Falcons Dota 2, Team Liquid PH Mobile Legends Bang Bang, and Team Vitality Counter-Strike 2. Okay, we're almost done, but there are still two very important categories to go.

First, Best Game Direction recognizes outstanding creative vision and innovation in game direction and design. The nominees are... And now it's the big one. Goaty, Game of the Year, recognizing a game that delivers the absolute best experience to players across all creative and technical fields. For this year's awards, our global TGA jury

has selected the following six games as the nominees for Game of the Year. Flare Obscure, Expedition 33 from Sandfall Interactive. Death Stranding 2 On the Beach from Kojima Productions. Donkey Kong Bonanza from Nintendo. Hades 2 from Supergiant Games.

Hollow Knight Silksong from Team Cherry. And Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 from Warhorse Studios. There you have it, your nominees for Game of the Year. And now that those are official, you can anticipate Lauren Balfe and the Game Awards Orchestra playing their themes

as part of our musical salute to the nominees live on December 11th. But before that, we need your help to decide which nominees become the winners. Make sure to head to thegameawards.com to cast your ballot, and new this year, download your vote card so you can share your picks on social media. There is still one more category where the nominees have yet to be revealed, Players Voice, where fans 100% select the winner from 30 nominees.

We'll announce those nominees on Monday, December 1st, so set a reminder on the website if you want to be alerted. The winners in all categories will be revealed live during TGA when it streams globally on Thursday December 11th starting with opening act at 4 30 p.m. Pacific 7 30 p.m. Eastern 12 30 a.m. GMT at thegameawards.com and live across every major video and social platform out there. GMT at thegameawards.com and live across every major video and social platform out there. Thanks for watching. I hope to see you live on Thursday, December 11th