The 2025 Game of the Year has been officially crowned, with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 taking home the top prize in gaming, along with almost every other award they were nominated for. With all the accolades Sandfall and Kepler achieved, it shouldn’t take away from the brilliant games we were graced with this year.
Before the big announcement was made, we published a poll here on Game Rant, asking our valued readers to declare who should be the winner of the 2025 GOTY, giving you all the official nominees, along with an additional option for those splendid games that just missed out of the top six spots for the year. It came as no surprise to us, but you were all spot on in your predictions, and not by a small margain, either.
The Game Awards 2025 Official Winner List: GOTY to Best Indie and Everything In-Between
The Game Awards 2025 crowns the very best this year had to offer, from Game of the Year and Best Content Creator to Best Indie Game and beyond.
Game Rant Readers Called It — Clair Obscur Won GOTY
The nominees were set, and the stage was ready. All that was left was to declare a champion for 2025. So, as the anticipation for The Game Awards for this year hit a boiling point, we took to the polls. Here’s how the GR Community saw this year’s GOTY award going.
Which Game Deserves to Win GOTY at The Game Awards 2025?
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 —46% / 301 votes.
- Hollow Knight: Silksong — 15% / 99 votes.
- Other (2025 game that wasn’t nominated) — 14% / 90 votes.
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II — 10% / 66 votes.
- Death Stranding 2: On The Beach — 5% / 35 votes.
- Donkey Kong Bananza — 5% / 34 votes.
- Hades II — 5% / 32 votes.
Game Rant readers were in full force to declare there would be no surprises or upsets when it came to the Game of the Year, and they were spot on. Nearly half of the voting group gave their support to Clair Obscur, who walked away with a ton of awards, who gave back to their fans with a surprise DLC for their troubles.
The second place went to Australia’s Team Cherry with Hollow Knight: Silksong, one of the most anticipated games of all time, which was so popular when they announced the release date that it broke pretty much all the storefronts on the internet. After seven years of development, speculation, and anticipation, fans got what they had been waiting for, and it impressed tenfold.
Interestingly, the third most popular selection was a game that wasn’t nominated. There were a host of brilliant titles that didn’t get the nod, from surprise gems like Dispatch, Blue Prince, and PEAK, to the big AAA releases like Mario Kart World and Battlefield 6. The amount of support thrown behind those not nominated just goes to show how good the quality of games was this year.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II took out third position from the nominated games, followed by an incredibly close contest between the remaining three nominees in Death Stranding 2, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Hades II. In any given year, all four of these games could take out top spot, but Clair Obscur proved too strong an entrant in their historic performance.
Now, with the 2025 Game of the Year crowned at the Game Awards, the question begs: who wins the true GOTY? We mean, of course, the GR Community Game of the Year! Cast your vote in the article below to have your say!
Vote for the Game Rant Community Game of the Year!
Have your say on our community pick for 2025!
