The Game Awards 2025 nominees include Clair Obscur, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Hades 2

We won’t have to wait too long to find out which game will follow the marvelous Astrobottriumphed at last year’s edition of The Game Awards. The 2025 ceremony will take place on December 11 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. Between a cavalcade of trailers and video game announcements, the series will win some real awards. We now know who the contenders are for The Game Awards 2025 after Monday’s announcement of the nominees.

The players competing for the top Game of the Year prize are:

• Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33 – Interactive Sandfall/Interactive Kepler

• Death Stranding 2: On the Beach -Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment

• Donkey Kong Bananza – EPD Nintendo/Nintendo

• Hades II – Supergiant games

• Hollow Knight: Song of Silk – The Cerise team

• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II -Warhorse Studios/Deep Silver

Half of them are also up for Game of the Year at the Indie Game Awards. These three games (Chiaroscuro, Hades II And Hollow Knight: Song of Silk) are also in the running for the best independent game award during this ceremony, alongside Absolute, Ball x Pit And Blue Prince.

With 12 nominations in total – including three in the best performance category – Chiaroscuro isn’t just the most nominated game this year. It is the most nominated game in the 12-year history of the ceremony. Death Stranding 2 And Ghost of Yōtei have eight nods each, Hades II has seven and Song of Silk has five. Sony Interactive Entertainment leads among publishers with 19 nominations.

Many high-profile games have not been nominated for the main prize. However, people like Arc Raiders, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Mario Kart World, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Elden Ring: Nightreign, Battlefield 6, Split Fiction, Monster Hunter Wilds And Silent Hill received nominations in other categories. It’s nice to see games like Consume me, Despeloterevenge And Shipping also receive nominations this year. In the meantime, Marvel’s Deadpool VRa game that doesn’t even come out until tomorrow, got a nod.

Fan voting for this year’s The Game Awards begins today on the TGA website. Public ballots make up 10 percent of the final vote, and a jury made up of dozens of media outlets makes up the remaining 90 percent. Nominees for the Players’ Voice Award – the only one determined entirely by fans – will be announced on December 1.

The Game Awards (which is being criticized for its handling of the abandoned Future Class program) will be broadcast on a wide variety of platforms, including Prime Video for the first time. As always, we’ll be up to date with all the big news from the event, so stay tuned to Engadget for all the juicy details. Place your bets now on what will be announced. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a glimpse of Half-life 3?