My Predictions for the 2025 Game Awards

We surrender! (all our awards to Clair Obscur)

All Rise for the Dorito Pope

The days are getting shorter, the temperatures are dropping and journalists are buzzing about the latest games. You know what that means, it’s Game Awards season! Geoff Keighley himself has blessed us with this year’s nominees, and in preparation for Geoffmas, I will be giving my ignorant, uninformed opinion on the nominees.

I’ll be going through them and giving my thoughts and (limited) insights, picking what I think will win in each category and why. I’ll probably complain about a lot of games, too. Let’s get into it.

Starting off with the most important categories:

EDIT: This post has been updated after the 2025 awards.

Best Esports Team, Best Esports Athlete, Content Creator of the Year

These are people that get paid to do what you and I do for free.

You could put an Esports athlete in front of me, with a sign that says their name and what they play, and I still wouldn’t be able to recognize them. I only know Dendi, and I think he died. My pick for these will be equivalent to random chance.

Nominees: A bunch of people I, frankly, don’t care about.

My picks: Gen.G for best team, Forsaken for best athlete and Burnt Peanut? What the hell is Burnt Peanut? I swear, these are made up. There’s an anime girl there, and it’s not one of the ones that gets constantly spammed on my twitter timeline. The only one I know from here is Moist Critikal. I think he wins? I don’t know. This is a psy op.

Winners: Counter Strike 2 for best Esports game, Jung Chovy for athlete, Vitality for Esports team, content creator is Charlie “Critikal” Moist.

I got all of them wrong except for the Moist man.

Most Anticipated Game

This is the category where GTA6 farms awards before it’s even out.

My pick: Grand Theft Auto 6. You don’t even need the other nominees. GTA6 is the most anticipated game of all time. Even when it comes out, if it ever does, it will win most anticipated for a few years after.

Winner: GTA6. Who could have seen that one coming? Me. I did. If you’re reading this in the future, you might still be waiting for GTA6.

Best Adaptation

Best videogame thing that you can’t play.

Nominees: Minecraft Movie, Devil may Cry, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, The Last of Us Season 2, Until Dawn.

My pick: The Minecraft movie. I didn’t know any of those other shows came out, and they sure as hell didn’t have hundreds of zoomers causing property damage.

I didn’t even know there was a Splinter Cell show.

The Devil May Cry series is another example of why Americans should NEVER be allowed anywhere near the DMC franchise. The first example was DmC: Devil May Cry. The west fundamentally does not understand it. Westoids are incapable of comprehending sincerity and genuine cheese. When Dante screams “I was the one to fill your dark soul with LIIIIIGHT!” in DMC1, it’s supposed to be sincere, even if it sounds funny. The people who know about that scene probably haven’t played DMC1, so they don’t know the context, but they know the funny memes. This is 90% of DMC’s fandom outside of Japan. Fans of the series who haven’t played the games.

Until Dawn (the game) was already a TV show, so it should win, since it’s the most faithful adaptation here, but I reiterate, I don’t remember Until Dawn causing hundreds of underpaid theater employees to have existential breakdowns.

Winner: The Last of Us Season 2. I shouldn’t have bet against the Druckmeister. I forgot that this franchise has game journalists in a chokehold.

Best Multiplayer

Finally we get to something that looks like a real category. These are games you play with your friends, I assume.

The nominees: Arc Raiders, Battlefield 6, Elden Ring: Nightreign, Peak and Split Fiction

My prediction: Arc Raiders. I haven’t played it, but it’s been making a ton of waves on social media. EA has the money and the clout to curry favor for Battlefield 6, but recency bias suggests Arc Raiders.

My personal pick: This is one of the few, if not the only category, where I have a say in something. I choose Peak. It’s a ton of fun to play with friends. It has enough gameplay to be engaging, while allowing for natural lulls in the experience to be filled with banter and conversation. It’s great friendslop. One might even say it’s… peak.

Winner: ARC Raiders. Peak was robbed.

Best Sports/Racing

Sports! Sports! Sports! Sports! Sports! Sports!

Nominees: EA Sports FC 26, F1 25, Mario Kart World, Rematch, Sonic Racing: Crossworlds.

My pick: Rematch. I haven’t played it, but it looks like a real next-gen sports game, giving each player their own spot on the field. It looks fun.

I find it funny that you have two serious EA sports games competing with Sonic and Mario kart racers.

Winner: Mario Kart World.

Best Sim/Strategy

Nominees: Final Fantasy Tactitcs, Jurassic World Evolution 3, Sid Meier’s Civilization 7, Tempest Rising, The Alters, Two Point Museum

My pick: Civilization 7. I love Civ 3, 4 and 5. Not a fan of 6, and 7 looks a lot like 6 but with more questionable ideas. It’s also the biggest profile game in this category, so it’ll win on name recognition alone. I didn’t know The Alters was a sim/strategy game. I thought it was one of those narrative-driven movie games. I haven’t played Tempest Rising, but it looks neat. Stormgate didn’t even get a cursory mention. Wow. That game flopped hard. Sad to see, but it was basically just StarCraft again, but worse.

Winner: Final Fantasy Tactics Remake. Civ couldn’t even win the most obvious award. That’s incredible.

Best Family

This one is for the greatest family, which should be yours, but it’s about family games.

The nominees: Donkey Kong Bananza, Lego Party!, Lego Voyagers, Mario Kart World, Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, Split Fiction.

My pick: Mario Kart World. I don’t think Sonic is going to beat Nintendo. Geoff won’t allow it.

I know why Bananza is here, because it’s family-friendly, but it’s a singleplayer game. This is the opposite of a family game. This is a game you have to share with your siblings, which leads to arguments and mom taking the Switch away and hiding it in the closet. Split Fiction doesn’t look like a family game. Maybe for an older family. Of geriatrics. Who don’t like fun games.

Winner: Donkey Kong Bananza.

Best Fighting Game

This is what you play to keep from punching your brother when he keeps hogging Bananza.

Nominees: 2XKO, Capcom Fighting Collection 2, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection, Virtua Fighter 5.

My Pick: Fatal Fury. 2XKO might win, because it has Riot money, but it’s not there yet. I don’t like 2XKO at all.

I have to point out that this category doesn’t make much sense. You have two collections here. First off, they’re old games. None of these came out this year. The collections did, but the games in the collection are all old. If you wanted to, you could re-release Street Fighter II every year and have it compete here. Second, which ones are we supposed to vote for here? Because Capcom Fighting Collection 2 beats Mortal Kombat Legacy hands down, but it has Capcom Fighting Evolution, which I would rank below Mortal Kombat 3.

Do we count each game individually? If so, Mortal Kombat Kollection is rigging the vote, because it’s actually eleven games. Ten, actually, since it includes Mythologies: Sub Zero, and that’s not really a fighting game. and Capcom’s collection has eight.

Virtua Fighter 5 is here, too, and while that game is excellent, (it’s my personal pick for the best fighting game on this list), it’s still ancient. The re-release came out this year, but that’s a re-release of a re-release of a re-release of an update of a game from 2006. It’s almost 20 years old at this point. It came out with the Xbox 360. It predates Halo 3. The only two that should be competing here are Fatal Fury and 2XKO, but if we’re pitting old vs old, I’d pick Virtua Fighter 5. At least they didn’t put a single player brawler in this category like they did with Sifu.

Winner: Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. It’s the only one that should count, really.

Blue Prince was snubbed. Not even a nomination.

Best RPG

These are the games where you play as a dude with a sword and you kill stuff to make a number get big.

Nominees: Avowed, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Monster Hunter Wilds, The Outer Worlds 2

My pick: Clair Obscur. It’s the big, hit game of the year. It won over all sorts of players, casuals and hardcore alike. I haven’t played it yet, but it looks like a good time. Out of all the ones listed here, it’s the one I’m most willing to play.

As for the others, I liked the first Kingdom Come a lot, except for the part in the monastery. That was a real drag. If the second one is anything like the first, it’s a solid time.

Monster Hunter is not an RPG. It has a lot of RPG elements, but you and I both know it doesn’t feel like an RPG. This is one of those subjective things. You know it when you see it, type deal, and Monster Hunter is not an RPG. Even if you do play as a dude with a sword and you kill stuff to make a number get big. Wait, maybe it is an RPG. No, still not convinced.

Avowed looks like crap. I’m not going to mince words. I don’t like what I’ve seen of this game, and people that I know that enjoy old Bioware games have told me it’s boring and very shallow. I don’t think it looks interesting at all. Neither does The Outer Worlds 2. I played a few hours of the first one a few years back, and it was boring to the point of being a crime. It had zero personality, absolutely no charm, a negative amount of soul and absolutely no entertainment value. I wandered around ugly planets, talking to wooden puppets trying to pretend they’re NPCs, listening to some of the cringiest Reddit-ass dialogue about how capitalism is bad, and none of it appealed to me at all. It was the videogame equivalent of waiting at a Doctor’s office. If Outer Worlds 2 wins, I will play through the entire Borderlands series and review it.

Winner: Clair Obscur.

Best Action/Adventure

These are games that, usually, have none of the two. Movie games.

Nominees: Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Ghost of Yotei, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Split Fiction.

My pick: Hollow Knight: Silk Song. This is the only game here with actual gameplay. It has action, it has adventure, it has a tiny bug thing with a needle. What more could you ask for?

Death Stranding 2 is a movie. You walk forward and watch a movie. That’s it.

Indiana Jones Goes to Circle K is a movie with token gameplay. Split Fiction keeps getting mentioned here, and I don’t like it. Stop it.

Winner: Hollow Knight Silksong. Finally, it got something.

Best Action Game

These drop the adventure and give you PURE, ADRENALINE PUMPING ACTION

Nominees: Battlefield 6, Doom: The Dark Ages, Hades 2, Ninja Gaiden 4, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance

My pick: Ninja Gaiden 4. I think this game stinks, but it has the Ninja Gaiden name attached to it, a name that means something. It’s from Platinum, another name that meant something. Now, NG4 doesn’t have any Ninja Gaiden DNA, and Platinum doesn’t have any of the people who worked on the first Bayonetta, Vanquish or Metal Gear: Rising. It’s a studio coasting on previous achievements, wearing the skin of a beloved franchise, and people are eating it up. It has real “Ninja Gaiden fan plays Ninja Gaiden for the first time” energy, and that’s what everyone’s going to pick.

DOOM: The Dark Ages brought parry to Doom. Who thought this was a good idea? Why does everything need a parry? Give it a rest already.

Hades II won’t win because the hype for the first game already passed. We’ve been here, we’ve done that. It’s old hat. Besides, Clair Obscur and Silksong are going to win other awards, so the indie quota is filled. Same for Shinobi. It’s a small game, and those are already covered.

I don’t have an opinion on Battlefield 6.

Winner: Hades II. Not only was I wrong, I was confidently wrong. I thought Ninja Gaiden 4 would win for sure. There are a lot of people on social media that are very hurt by the fact that NG4 didn’t win. They say the game was robbed. I’m not one of them. That game stinks.

Best VR/AR

I don’t know anything about VR because I’m a brokie. I’ll guess that Alien Rogue Incursion will win because it has a big IP attached to it, and it’s probably scary, and people love spooky VR games.

Winner: The Midnight Walk.

Best Mobile Game

Games you can play on the toilet.

Nominees: Destiny: Rising, Persona 5: The Phantom X, Sonic Rumble, Umamusume: Pretty Derby, Wuthering Waves.

My Pick: Umamusume? I don’t know about mobile games. I know Umamusume was a big thing with content creators a few months back. I don’t know if it still is. I didn’t know Destiny had a mobile game, but that sounds like the most boring thing ever. Destiny was already a mobile game-tier grindfest with predatory monetization. I can’t imagine the depravity contained within that app. I’d rather read a shampoo bottle instead.

I didn’t know any of the other games existed, but I know Wuthering Waves is one of those waifu gacha games. They might rig the voting by offering their players feet pics if they win or something.

Winner: Umamusume, or “Ooh Mama Zoomie”, according to the presenter. Did you know they make sashimi out of horses?

Best Debut Indie

Tiny games with smol budget and little UwU teams.

Nominees: Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Despelote, Dispatch, Megabonk

My pick: Clair Obscur. Score another for the French, mon petit baby! I don’t see anything else beating this one. Ignore the fact that it has a multi-million dollar budget and several hundred outsourced employees.

Dispatch is pretty popular, but it came out too close to nominations. It hasn’t had time to sit in the public consciousness. Clair Obscur also looks like more of a game than Dispatch.

Despelote is an artsy indie, and those don’t win anymore. It’s not the era of Everybody’s Gone to The Rapture anymore. Blue Prince looks like a great puzzle game. I’ve had my eye on it for a while, and will probably get it soon. Megabonk is another survivors clone, and I don’t agree with those.

Winner: Clair Obscur.

Best Independent Game

Tiny games with smol budget and- wait, isn’t this the same category? Oh, this one can have repeat studios.

Nominees: Absolum, Ball x Pit, Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hades 2, Silksong

My pick: This is a tough one. It’s between Clair Obscur and Silksong. The others aren’t even in the running. Clair Obscur is going to get a lot of other awards, but I don’t know if they’ll take Silksong’s place here, since that’s the indie darling. There isn’t much consistency to these winners; Clair Obscur might not get best indie but it might win best game overall, which doesn’t make much sense. How could it be the best game, but not the best indie?

I’m going with Silksong on this one. Mostly as a pity vote.

I’d like to shout out Absolum. It’s a roguelite beat-em-up from the people who made Streets of Rage 4. It’s really solid.

Ball X Pit? I’m going to use my remaining brain power to refrain from making a testicle joke here.

Winner: Clair Obscur. I thought this one would go to Silksong, because it’s more of a real independent game. Kepler published Clair Obscur, and they have a stake in the Game Awards, further proving that Silksong is more of an indie game. Still, an incorrect prediction.

Best Community Support

This category sounds like it’s for best community, but it’s for the game that supports its community with updates, and isn’t that what best ongoing is for? I don’t get it.

Nominees: Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy 14, Fortnite, Helldivers 2, No Man’s Sky.

My pick: Probably Fortnite. It’s the biggest game ever. I think this category exists just so they can keep nominating Baldur’s Gate 3 forever. The other games are live service games, and they are updated regularly, I guess.

My personal pick would be Helldivers 2, since the devs go above and beyond to keep updating and refining the game.

Winner: Baldur’s Gate 3. I should have gone with my gut.

Best Ongoing

This is the same category again! What’s the difference!?

Nominees: Final Fantasy 14, Fortnite, Helldivers 2, Marvel Rivals, No Man’s Sky

My Pick: Helldivers 2? I don’t know. This is the same category, but they swapped out Baldur’s Gate 3 for Marvel Rivals. Rivals has just been adding skins, they haven’t fixed a lot of the game’s issues. It still lags, crashes and it’s horribly unbalanced. I don’t get this category, nor the previous one.

Winner: No Man’s Sky. A decade later, and the game is finally decent.

Games for Impact

These are games that hit something at a high speed. According to the page, these are “thought-provoking” with a social message. Story-driven movie games, but with less budget than the ones in action/adventure.

Nominees: Consume Me, Despelote, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, South of Midnight, Wanderstop

My pick: South of Midnight. It’s from Xbox, they need a win.

Winner: South of Midnight. I still don’t know what this game is.

Innovation in Accessibility

Games that you can access.

Nominees: Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Atomfall, DOOM: The Dark Ages, EA Sports FC 26, South of Midnight

My pick: DOOM. It would be nice if this category specified what their accessibility innovations are- you know- the reason why they’re nominated. I’m going to make bold assumptions and guess.

DOOM is my pick because it’s a recognizable IP. I know it has a bunch of sliders for difficulty, so you can tailor the experience to your liking, which means whatever way you play it, someone else will say you played it wrong because it’s not meant to have that difficulty that high, or you were supposed to crank another difficulty setting to the max. I don’t like this “pick your own difficulty” buffet thing. Craft an experience with purpose, and let the players deal with it.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows innovated accessibility by making a game even your dog could play. It’s the first game accessible to pets!

Atomfall’s accessibility comes from its ability to access copies of Fallout 3 and Far Cry and copy them.

EA Sports FC 26 innovated by making gambling accessible to everyone, including children.

South of Midnight isn’t accessible. No one even knows it exists.

Winner: DOOM: The Dark Ages.

Best Performance

Award for the one who drank matcha, wore Labubus and carried a tote bag in public. (this joke will be old before this gets published but I don’t care)

Nominees: Ben Starr (Clair Obscur), Charlie Cox (Clair Obscur), Erika Ishii (Ghost of Yotei), Jennifer English (Clair Obscur), Konatsu Kato (Silent Hill F), Troy Baker (Indiana Jones Goes to Circle K)

My pick: There are three Clair Obscur nominees here, so I think one of them is going to win. Troy Baker has the star power, but I don’t think even the critics liked Indiana Jones. They did, but they like everything with a budget in the seven figures. I think Jennifer English will win. She has a few articles written about her. That’s my reasoning.

Winner: Jennifer English.

Best Audio Design

Games that sound good, but most people will listen to them through a $20 sound bar or blown out air pods.

Nominees: Battlefield 6, Clair Obscur, Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yotei, Silent Hill F.

My pick: Clair Obscur. It wins because it’s Clair Obscur, and it has nice music. If Battlefield 6 sounds anything like the older Battlefield games, it should win, but this is community driven, and people will vote for the game with the pretty audio and not the one with the technically solid audio.

Silent Hill F gets a pity nomination here. Same with the Oscars. They give the technical nominations to movies to say “yeah, we notice you exist. Here’s a biscuit”.

Winner: Battlefield 6. I thought this one should have won, but I still put Clair Obscur as my official vote, so I got it wrong.

Best Score and Music

To most, this category and the previous are the same thing.

Nominees: Silksong, Hades 2, Clair Obscur, Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2

My pick: Clair Obscur. I haven’t played the game, but I’ve been exposed to the music, and it sounds great. If it can reach even a curmudgeonly old man like me, it means it’s spread far and wide.

Death Stranding keeps getting nominated. I think Geoff himself is doing it. He wants to honor Kojima.

I would accept if Silksong wins, too.

This category has a Spotify link, but it doesn’t link to any of the soundtracks. Death Stranding 2’s soundtrack isn’t even on Spotify. Amazing.

Winner: Clair Obscur.

Best Art Direction

Games that look pretty.

Nominees: Clair Obscur, Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yotei. Hades 2, Silksong.

My pick: Clair Obscur will win, because it’s the hot new thing. I don’t think it has a particularly good art style. Whatever creative decisions were made are buried under 50 pounds of Unreal Engine jank.

Hades looks nice, but again, it’s old hat. We’ve been there, done that.

Death Stranding has no art direction. It’s photorealism. That’s it. Geoff, we know you love Kojima, but please stop it with the Death Stranding.

In my personal opinion, I’d go with Silksong. It looks the best out of all of these. It has a very solid art direction with a strong identity, and it’s executed beautifully.

Winner: Clair Obscur. I don’t think this game looks better than Silksong.

Best Narrative

This is the award for best Clair Obscur.

My Pick: Clair Obscur.

I keep seeing this Ghost of Yotei thing popping up. What even is that? I thought it was Assassin’s Creed for a bit, but apparently it’s a different game? It’s a sequel to Ghosts of Tsushima. That one game that looked like Rise of the Ronin and seven other samurai games. I swear, these are all the same game but they put different names on them as a prank.

Winner: Clair Obscur. Yay.

Best Game Direction

This is like the best director award at the Oscars. I don’t know why this exists… OH WAIT A MINUTE!

My pick: Death Stranding 2. THAT’S why this category exists! It’s to secure a win for Kojima. I can’t name the director of any other game, and I don’t think even Clair Obscur could prevent Geoff from giving his boy a trophy this year.

Winner: Clair Obscur. Kojima couldn’t even get the Kojima award. Dark.

Game of The Year

Clair Obscur

I’ve typed that name out so much that it doesn’t even seem like a real word anymore. Granted, I don’t think either of its words are real to being with, but you know what I mean.

Winner: Clair Obscur. Got it right.

Conclusion

Do I really think Clair Obscur is going to win every single award, or is that one of my weird bits where I repeat something over and over in the vain hope that it will become funny? Both. I genuinely believe it’s going to win, the “repeating it until it’s a joke” part came naturally, since it’s nominated for every single category. It’s even nominated THREE TIMES for best performance, so yeah, I think it’s going to sweep the Geoffs.

I don’t have a horse in this race, but I’d rather Clair Obscur win this over Death Stranding or Ghost of Yotei. At least Clair Obscur looks like it has gameplay, even if it is Paper Mario but french. On that same note, I wouldn’t mind if Silksong won. It’s the long-awaited savior of indie games, but it doesn’t seem to have made the same splash as Expedition 33. Maybe because the game is too difficult for the Hollow Knight fans who haven’t played Hollow Knight.

Tune in to the Game Awards to see if I got anything right!

If I get 100% of my predictions right, I’ll be crowned the new Dorito Pope.

20-28 predictions correct, I’m big genius

15-20, slightly knowledgeable

10-15, should have flipped a coin

5-10, not even trying

0-5, I should work for Kotaku

0, I end Load Last Save

If Outer Worlds 2 wins anything, I have to review the entire Borderland series.

Final Tally: 15 correct, 15 incorrect. I was as useful as a coin flip. Wait, there are four choices per category, so it’s not a coin flip. I wouldn’t know. I never took a statistics class.

There was a “Gamer’s Choice” award where people voted, and I didn’t predict it because it wasn’t on the website when I wrote this article before the awards. I will give myself a pity win on that category since Wuthering Waves won, and I predicted that the game would activate its legions of players to vote in any community vote by bribing them with anime feet pics, and that’s exactly what happened.

At least I don’t have to review Borderlands. If I had lost that bet, I think I would have just closed the blog and quit substack.

Join us in 2026 to see even more incorrect predictions!

Click here to read my completely outdated predictions for the 2024 awards, and laugh at how wrong I was.