Thoughts on the 2025 Game Awards Nominees

(Or: I Don't Want To Spam Discord Right Now)

The Game Awards! Some love em, some hate em. I love it, sorry. Here are my thoughts on this years nominees (or at least the ones I want to talk about). 

• Most Anticipated Game, Voted For Marvel's Wolverine. This category is dumb and stupid. Anyways I really like Insomniac's Spider-Man games so I'm very excited for this even though I know it probably won't be that similar gameplay wise.

• Best Adaptation, Voted For None. Also a bad category. Only thing I've seen here is Minecraft, which is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Sonic 3 should be here.

• Innovation in Accessibility, Voted For None. Only played Doom so I would feel voting for this one. That being said it's great how this category exists.

• Best Multiplayer Game, Voted For Peak. I liked Split Fiction and Battlefield 6 (it's kind of amazing that that game is good given the previous few) but in situations like this I'm more inclined to vote for games with humbler beginnings (plus Peak is, as they say, Peak). 

• Best Sports / Racing Game, Voted For None. I only played Mario Kart World out of these, so I can't vote. I just want to comment on MKW being worse than eight (granted I only played it once).

• Best Fighting Game, Voted For None. 2XKO isn't out yet???????????

• Best Action / Adventure Game, Voted For Split Fiction. Nice to see Jones getting some nominations, but I didn't play it lol. Split Fiction is real good and deserves all the love it's about to not get.

• Best Action Game, Voted For Doom: The Dark Ages. Usually I think that this category is too similar to Action/Adventure but this year I can actually tell the difference lol.

• Best Debut Indie Game, Voted For Megabonk. I have not played megabonk. I will not play megabonk. I want it to win because I subscribe to the theory that the dev is a former youtuber and want to see them on stage. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has hundreds of people who worked on it, it should not be here (you could argue it's still independent but it has a publisher).

• Best Independent Game, Voted For Blue Prince. I liked e33 more but again it should not be here

• Games for Impact, Voted For Consume Me. This category has always struck me as slighty offensive because what exactly do they mean by it's title. Anyways I played Wanderstop but thought it was just ok. I watched a playthrough of Lost Records and thought it was worse. I watched Consume Me as well and it floored me. It's incredible and it should be nominated for so much more.

• Best Performance, Voted For Jennifer English. Oh my god E33 calm down. Anyways Maelle's performance was pretty darn good.

• Best Score and Music, Voted For E33. Gross that this is branded now.

• Best Narrative, Voted For E33. Death Stranding 2's story is worse than 1's and has too many Kojima-isms for me to earnestly recommend it even if its a fun time. Kingdom Come Deliverance II is the nazi game in my head so thats a no go. Silent Hill F has a good message but fumbles at saying it. E33 has a fine story but I think the average gamer™ plays so few titles with narratives actually worthy of praise that this is groundbreaking to them meanwhile if it was a movie or some other medium it would be criticized far more.

• Best Game Direction, Voted For Split Fiction. I've always believed this category should not exist since it's basically 2nd place to the actual GOTY's. Expand GOTY to 10-12 games instead (and add some more categories based on genres)

• Game of the Year, Voted For Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Despite my criticism of it, it's the best game I've played this year that released this year. Granted it's only competing with a few games for that role, but hey it counts for something. 

Overall this years game awards just aren't as exciting as last years since this is a fairly middling year for AAA games, which is what the show primarily focuses on. However, there were still a ton of great releases, especially if you broaden your horizons a little bit.

Originally Published on November 17th, 2025.