The 2025 Game Awards Reccaped

By Christopher Landa

A fantastic year for gaming ended on Dec. 11 as Geoff Keighley’s annual Game Awards honored the industry’s best in class. 

Engagement hit all-time-highs for the Game Awards this year. The event reached record viewership with an estimated 171 million global livestreams throughout its full broadcast, up 11% from last year. Western platforms also estimated a peak of 4.4 million concurrent viewers. 

The biggest winner of the night was French studio Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Along with taking the night’s grand prize, the Game of the Year Award, it also snagged another 8 wins out of its total 12 nominations. 3 of those nominations were for Best Performance, with Jennifer English taking home the honor for her voice as Maelle, the younger sister of the main character Gustave.   

However, some of Clair Obscur’s wins brought backlash, especially its win for Best Debut Indie Game. Some considered the game too expensive for the honor, as the budget for the game was just below 10 million dollars, which is especially high for a game categorized as “Indie.”

Other notable winners were Hollow Knight: Silksong for Best Action/Adventure Game, Arc Raiders for Best Multiplayer Game, and Girls Make Games for the Game Changer Award. 

Game reveals are always a highlight of the night, with numerous titles being revealed. A grisly and gory trailer showed a new installment in the Divinity Series made by Larian Studios, creator of the 2024 Game of the Year winner Baldur’s Gate 3. Lara Croft makes her return with the announcement of a new Tomb Raider game, along with a remake of the original 1996 game Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. A fresh idea also came with the introduction of the podracing action game Star Wars: Galactic Racer.

Live orchestral performances of Clair Obscur’s soundtrack and a performance from Evanescence singing "Afterlife" from the “Devil May Cry” Netflix series also assisted in making gaming’s biggest night bombastic and lively.