Awards Season is Officially Here
Check out the winners of the Golden Joysticks and find out the nominees for The Game Awards.
One awards show announced their top 2025 video game winners, while another announced their finalists. But it is not all good news when it comes to The Game Awards. Find out all the details along with the latest news. Let’s go!
Golden Joystick winners announced
Awards season kicked off last week, with the announcement of the Golden Joysticks. Headlining the winners was Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which took home seven awards.
The winners are decided by an open vote, allowing anyone to participate by choosing their favorites in 25 video game categories. Below is the complete list of winners for the 2025 Golden Joysticks.
- Ultimate Game of the Year - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Console Game of the Year - Ghost of Yōtei
- PC Game of the Year - Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Best Indie Game - Blue Prince
- Best Indie Game - Self-published - Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Critics' Choice - Donkey Kong Bananza
- Best Lead Performer - Jennifer English, Maelle in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Best Supporting Performer - Ben Starr, Verso in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Best Audio Design - Ghost of Yotei
- Best Early Access Game - R.E.P.O.
- Best Game Adaptation - Arcane Season 2
- Best Game Expansion - Lies of P: Overture
- Best Game Trailer - Grand Theft Auto 6 Trailer 2
- Best Multiplayer Game - Peak
- Best Remake / Remaster - The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered
- Best Soundtrack - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Best Storytelling - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Best Visual Design - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Breakthrough Award - Schedule 1
- Most Wanted Game - Grand Theft Auto 6
- Best Gaming Hardware - AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
- Still Playing - Mobile - Pokemon Go
- Still Playing - PC & Console - Minecraft
- Streamers' Choice - Peak
- Studio of the Year - Sandfall Interactive
For those of you who subscribe, your opportunity to vote for The Games Letter’s Game of the Year will arrive via email in early December. Our winners are completely chosen by our subscribers. Not yet a subscriber? Sign up today to get your chance to vote.
The Game Award nominees and news
The biggest video game awards show announced their 2025 nominations, but the news was overshadowed by a recent report on how winners of their diversity award were treated.
The Game Awards posted their finalists in 29 categories. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 led the way with 12 nominations, the most ever for a single game. We compiled the entire list of nominees, but the finalists for Game of the Year are:
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Donkey Kong Bananza
- Hades II
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
The awards show recently came under fire for one of its inclusion programs, with recent winners saying they “were effectively props.” The Guardian interviewed past winners of the award, which is currently on hiatus. From the article:
“We were effectively props,” game producer Dianna Lora, who was inducted into the first Future Class in 2020, said over video call. “Once we got to the Game Awards (most people flew in from other countries, which was expensive), we showed up, and it felt like we were pushed to the side door … We found out later that Keighley had a party in another room with all the influencers and industry people. You know where Future Class met that day? At a Starbucks.”
“No one from official leadership even showed up until the meet-up was basically over,” Future Class member and Retcon Games creative director Jes Negrón said of that Starbucks meeting. “We were pretty bummed about just being cast aside.”
Side Quests (more stories worth reading)
🤑 Microsoft could potentially raise the price of their Xbox consoles for the third time in a year thanks to a global RAM shortage.
🧊 Activists are role-playing ICE raids in Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto to help people prepare for real-world situations.
👦🏽 The New York Times interviewed the CEO of Roblox about child safety in the game, and in their own words, it got tense.
🤖 Krafton’s CEO allegedly asked ChatGPT how to get out of paying Subnautica 2 developers their $250 million bonus.
🆓 The text-based Zork trilogy of games were open sourced under the MIT license, making them free-to-play and the code available to developers to study.
📊 After delaying their earnings call and freezing their stock, Ubisoft finally announced their yearly financials.
⭐ Nintendo is pulling fan-designed rides from Kirby Air Riders that feature the character Chef Kawasaki in a micro-bikini.
🎮 Microsoft held a Partner Preview. Check out everything announced at the virtual press conference.
🥳 Both Ghost of Yotei and Mafia: The Old Country are getting free updates that include new content.
💳 Not sure what to get that special kid in your life for Christmas? Nearly half of children in the U.S. say they want in-game currency.
✊🏿 In a recent games industry survey, over half of the participants said they want to join a union.
💍 NCAA Basketball Final Four 97 for PlayStation apparently included a hidden marriage proposal.
🍝 Hitman World of Assissianation’s next elusive target will have players team up with Eminem to kill his alter-ego Slim Shady.
🫱🏻🫲🏿 Unity announced a partnership with Epic Games which allows developers to bring Unity games into Fortnite.
😢 Legendary game designer, programmer and Space Invaders champion Rebecca Heineman passed away at the age of 62 from cancer.
🎥 The first official photos from The Legend of Zelda live-action movie were posted online.
📈 Round numbers: Street Fighter 6 sold over 6 million copies, Dispatch over 2 million and mobile game Resident Evil Survival Unit was downloaded 1 million times in 24 hours.
New Releases this week:
Check out our article on 11 New Games to Play in November.
11/24: Constance (PC)
11/25: Project Motor Racing (PlayStation, Xbox and PC)
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