The Game Awards 2025, an annual premier event celebrating the videogame industry through a major award ceremony, world-premiere reveals, and live musical performances, will be livestreamed from 12 December at 2:00am SAST (11 December at 7:30pm ET). The full show will remain available to watch online afterwards.
The nominees for the event’s most prestigious award, Game of the Year, include a fierce line-up that blends breakout newcomers with long-awaited sequels.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive) is the roleplaying game contender that has built serious momentum over 2025. Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment) brings Hideo Kojima’s cinematic sequel into the race with a high-concept, story-led ambition. Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Bananza (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo) delivers blockbuster platform energy and broad appeal.
Hades II (Supergiant Games) and Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry) fly the flag for indie sequels in the category, each following a breakout original with huge expectations. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhorse Studios/Deep Silver) rounds out the category with a grounded medieval role-playing follow-up built around historical realism and open-world immersion.
Nominees for most categories are selected by an international jury of 100 plus global media and influencer outlets, each submitting an unranked ballot of their top five picks per category, with the most-frequently cited games becoming nominees, and specialised juries handling areas such as esports, accessibility, and best adaptation. Winners are then decided through a blended vote weighted 90% to the jury and 10% to public voting.
The 2024 Game of the Year was awarded to PlayStation’s Astro Bot which also won in the best game direction and best family game categories. The 2025 nominees across all categories are listed on the The Game Awards website.
Last year’s event featured performances of music from the Netflix TV series Arcane, with the duo Twenty One Pilots delivering a spine-tingling rendition of The Line alongside other pieces by artists d4vd and Royal and the Serpent. Snoop Dogg also took to the stage.
This year, the rock group Evanescence has been announced as a live act. They will perform their song Afterlife, which is featured in the Netflix animated series Devil May Cry.
“And to all you Dante fans out there, there might be some exciting news about season two,” said Amy Lee, Evanescence lead vocalist, in a recent social media post where the announcement was made.
Where to watch The Game Awards 2025?
The Game Awards 2025 will be livestreamed from 12 December at 2:00am SAST (11 December at 7:30pm ET). It is available to watch across several livestreaming platforms, including YouTube and Twitch. For the first time, it will be available on Amazon Prime Video.
Geoff Keighley, creator and CEO of The Game Awards, says: “We’re thrilled to bring our global celebration of video games to even more audiences with the addition of Prime Video. With the upcoming launch of Fallout season two and an exciting slate of game adaptations, Prime Video is a natural home for our show. We’re honoured to have Amazon stand alongside so many other entertainment technology companies as partners to our show.”
The Game Awards 2025 is held at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles, USA.
The Game Awards nominees covered on Gadget this year include:
- Best game direction: Split Fiction.
- Best audio design: Battlefield 6.
- Innovation in accessibility: Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and Doom: The Dark Ages.
- Games for impact: South of Midnight.
- Best ongoing: Helldivers 2 and Marvel Rivals.
- Best action game: Alien: Rogue Incursion, and Ninja Gaiden 4.
- Best RPG: The Outer Worlds 2.
- Best fighting: 2XKO.
- Best family: Lego Voyagers and Mario Kart World.
- Best sim/strategy: Jurassic World Evolution 3 and The Alters.
- Best adaptation: A Minecraft Movie, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, and The Last of Us season two.
- Most anticipated game: 007 First Light, Grand Theft Auto VI, Marvel’s Wolverine, and Resident Evil Requiem.
* Watch The Game Awards 2025 on YouTube here.