The 11th Game Awards, scheduled for Dec. 11, are wide open. Grand Theft Auto 6, which was previously expected to dominate the Awards this year, has been delayed into 2026. That will make for a much less predictable Game of the Year competition at the leading awards ceremony for the game industry — the Oscars of gaming, as it were.
The Game Awards’ voting body is composed of a wide range of international games media (Polygon included), with a 10% contribution from fan voting. There are a number of strong indicators for what will perform well in the Game of the Year category. A high Metacritic rating (preferably over 90) is a must; role-playing games and action-adventures are strongly favored, as are games with strong narrative elements; indie and multiplayer games struggle harder for recognition than AAA single-player adventures. We used these metrics to correctly predict last year’s winner, Astro Bot. (We also got four of the six nominees right, and correctly called 14 other categories.)
Below, you’ll find our predictions for the most likely nominees, of which there are six each year, for Game of the Year 2025. Unlike the film industry, where most titles are known quantities well in advance, you never really know what kind of impact a video game will have, or how good it will be, until it’s out. With that in mind, this list only includes games that are already out. We’ll update these rankings throughout the year as new games are released. We’ll also list some likely upcoming contenders and some of the 2025 GOTY race’s dark horses, too.
Update (Sept. 15): Hollow Knight: Silksong is a new entry in our list of front-runners and likely nominees, after a largely ecstatic critical reception — although the game’s difficulty probably handicaps it a little, and holds it back from unseating Clair Obscur. Silksong‘s arrival as a new indie favorite makes a nomination for Blue Prince very unlikely; The Game Awards has never nominated two indie games before, and the idiosyncratic puzzle game is perhaps too far outside genre norms, and too lacking in global reach, to make the cut. Metroid Prime 4‘s December release date makes it ineligible for The Game Awards, so it has dropped out of our Upcoming Titles section.
GOTY front-runners
1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Why it could win: A critically acclaimed role-playing game, strong on storytelling and performance, thematically resonant but also fun, with slick production values and shiny graphics — this is the stuff Game of the Year winners are made of. It’s an astonishing achievement from the relatively small debut team at Sandfall Interactive, which only adds to its cachet. The somewhat similar Metaphor: ReFantazio was very strong in 2024. Expedition 33 is looking hard to beat.
Weaknesses: While it’s a minor hit, enough people need to play Expedition 33 — especially among the critical community — to keep it in the conversation for more than six months. Game Pass will help, but is it really big enough to win?
Momentum (holding steady): Clair Obscur is a complete package, people are still playing and talking about it, and prediction markets are overwhelmingly betting on its success. It’s very secure in the top spot.
Read Polygon’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review here.
2. Hollow Knight: Silksong
Why it could win: Team Cherry’s long, long, long-awaited follow-up to its 2017 indie hit could well clean up at The Game Awards, in part because the original didn’t make much of an impression there and the jury will be keen to retrospectively reward it. Critics (mostly) adore it, it seems to have sold incredibly well, and its release was a real event that dominated the conversation for weeks (and at time of writing, hasn’t stopped).
Weaknesses: Silksong is very hard, which has divided some critics but is even more likely to divide the jury, which doesn’t just stop at those members of the media who had to push through and review it. Many players bounce off the game or feel infuriated by it, and the surrounding discourse has been a bit fractious.
Momentum (new entry): No other 2025 games have made as big a splash as Silksong, and it’s unlikely that any others will. The theater of its surprise release was perfectly stage-managed for impact, but the lack of early access for reviewers means its critical reputation may slide over time.
Read Polygon’s Hollow Knight: Silksong review here.
3. Donkey Kong Bananza
Why it could win: With a rating of 90 or more on both Metacritic and OpenCritic, Bananza has the necessary level of critical support to compete. That’s not surprising in a Nintendo platformer, which counts against it. But, with its destruction gameplay, resuscitation of Donkey Kong as a lead character, and status as the standard-bearer for a new console, it has more novelty value than your average Mario game, and makes for a more interesting story.
Weaknesses: Family-oriented platformers tend to underperform in Game of the Year, due to perceived immaturity and under-developed storylines. Astro Bot bucked that trend last year, but two wins in a row seems unlikely. Plus, Nintendo’s greatness is assumed and taken for granted.
Momentum (📉 from No. 2): Bananza may maintain momentum better than some other games as more people pick up Switch 2s — but the poorly received DK Island + Emerald Rush DLC has dented its reputation a little.
Read Polygon’s Donkey Kong Bananza review here.
4. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Why it could win: Hideo Kojima’s sequel to his divisive, prophetic 2019 sci-fi epic about hiking across the barren wasteland between bunkers of civilization is both grander and more palatable than the original. A technically astounding, absorbing, ambitious dad game, with rave reviews, published by Sony… it’s got all the features of a major GOTY contender, and it comes from the most famous video game auteur still working.
Weaknesses: Next to Clair Obscur’s underdog story, Death Stranding 2 feels like the establishment choice, despite its many oddities. And the closeness between Kojima and Keighley (who had a cameo in the first game) might make some jury members feel queasy about voting for it.
Momentum (📉 from No. 3): Death Stranding 2’s review ratings have cooled a little since launch. And it’s not clear that the game has meaningfully broken out from its existing fanbase.
Read Polygon’s Death Stranding 2 impressions here.
5. Split Fiction
Why it could win: Critical consensus is still the most reliable indicator of success at The Game Awards, and with a rating over 90 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic, Hazelight’s co-op adventure is a clear front-runner in this regard. It’s got a legacy advantage, too: Hazelight’s previous game, It Takes Two, won GOTY in 2021, and since then has amassed a massive popular following. As a story-led action-adventure, Split Fiction also belongs to a genre that the Game Awards jury has been known to favor in the past.
Weaknesses: Perhaps It Takes Two’s win will count against it if jury members are looking for something different to reward. Also, while It Takes Two’s intensely personal story about divorce was unquestionably a strength, Split Fiction has been praised more for its design than its abstract and overworked tale of writers adrift in virtual reality.
Momentum (holding steady): Split Fiction has been in the race a long time now and conversation has died away, but don’t undervalue its popularity with normies and the uniqueness of its co-op framework.
Read Polygon’s Split Fiction review here.
6. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Why it could win: This could be this year’s Black Myth: Wukong: an ambitious hit game from a developer operating outside the gaming establishment, delivering on core gamers’ ardent desire for massive solo adventures made without compromise. Deliverance 2 is a realistic medieval RPG with strong storytelling, and critics really liked it. Another similar game might be the 2015 GOTY winner, The Witcher 3. This is right in The Game Awards’ sweet spot.
Weaknesses: Black Myth: Wukong didn’t win GOTY — much to its producer’s chagrin. Just like Black Myth’s Game Science, Kingdom Come developer Warhorse is considered politically radioactive by some, after founder Daniel Vávra made pro-Gamergate comments in 2015. Perhaps more to the point, the game is a challenging time sink that isn’t that broadly played among journalists and jurors, despite respectable sales.
Momentum (holding steady): As the earliest entrant in the race, Deliverance 2 has naturally slowed down. But it’s a hardcore fan favorite and its vocal followers will be sure to keep it front of mind.
Read Polygon’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 review here.
Dark horses
Avowed: Obsidian Games’ traditional fantasy RPG had a slightly soft critical reception but a long tail and strong word of mouth, as players found its dependable, old-fashioned qualities tough to turn away from. With strong writing in a favored genre, it’s the definition of a Game Awards dark horse.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: It’s incredible that MachineGames’ Indy game has stayed in contention at all — it was released a couple days before The Game Awards 2024 took place — but it remains a sentimental fave with many critics, in part because of the improbability of the game turning out so well. New DLC The Order of Giants might help the jury remember it, though it didn’t make a big splash.
Despelote: This Ecuadorian slice-of-life indie game about soccer and childhood is a minor critical sensation, with raves from some key reviewers. But it will need some virality to grow its cultural footprint enough to compete, and even then it seems unlikely to get past indie favorite Blue Prince.
Monster Hunter Wilds: Capcom’s latest in the monster-hunting RPG series launched to acclaim and huge sales early in the year, making it an early favorite. But time (and its community) haven’t been very kind, and many people would now rate it behind 2018’s World.
Blue Prince: This inscrutable indie puzzle game is a strong favorite with critics and its small fanbase, and was quite viral in games media circles, but maybe lacks enough localization to make enough of an impact with The Game Awards’ jurty.
Upcoming titles
Hades 2: Supergiant’s roguelike will go head-to-head with another indie mega-sequel, Silksong, for The Game Awards’ traditional sole indie game nomination. Or will they make history and both get in? Hades 2 has been in early access for a while and critics already know they love it, but that might also make it too much of a known quantity to make a true splash.
Keeper: We don’t know that much about Double Fine’s next game, due in October; it’s about a sentient lighthouse with a bird friend and has no dialogue. But based purely on artwork and vibes (plus Psychonauts 2’s nomination) it seems like a possible contender.
Ghost of Yōtei: No publisher has a better record at the Game Awards than Sony, and besides Death Stranding 2, its other contender this year is this open-world samurai adventure — another sequel to a game (Ghost of Tsushima) whose reputation has only grown over time. If nothing else, this more rarefied, bespoke-feeling release will edge out the similarly themed Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
