The Game Awards 2025: Not Since Napoleon have the French won this much.

 

What a pretty damn fun spectacle and celebration of gaming for the year. With exciting reveals, great performances, and a surprising (but not surprising) sweep of the awards, it was worth the FOUR HOUR watch.

                SO many things happened it’s difficult to go over all of it with any sort of brevity, so I just want to talk about some things that stood out for me.

                Mega Man Dual Override. Holy shit, I was so surprised and ecstatic about this announcement, especially after Capcom announcing they wanted to bring the Blue Bomber more to the forefront of their company presence, in similar fashion to Monster Hunter and Resident Evil. I just thought they meant they might do another animated series, or more merch. INSTEAD, WE GET A WHOLE GAME TO LOOK FORWARD TO.

                There are moments in life you’re given hope, and we should all reach out and hold onto it when it shows up.  This announcement was that. Seeing that revealed live was damned amazing.

                Maximillian Dude and Suzi Hunter getting bullied by the Tall Lady in survival training. That was just funny.

                We’ll never get to, or want to, know what happened in Bora Bora but we’re all sure Geoff fucked that pig. Someone green is sure to Kermit Sewerslide after that.

                Stupid Never Dies falls into that category of all my friends saying “Hey, you like that.” And you know what, they were right. Seemingly themed in a way crafted for me, it reminded me a lot of games such as Lollipop Chainsaw, Splatterhouse, Hi-Fi Rush, and Wanted Dead in that Janky B-movie fun that I earnestly love.

It looks fun as all hell just in the concept of Zombie beat-em-up with a musical punch.

Speaking of also B-movie/zombie/horror/awesome related things, JOHN CARPENTER’S TOXIC COMMANDO FINALLY GOT A RELEASE DATE. After all that time of silence we got this trailer with lots of gameplay and zombie mutant death all propped up by fast paced John Carpenter music. March 12, 2026, is when I’ll be hitting my friends to make them play it with me.

The mystery of the Statue was finally answered (after people dug and found out through trademark filings just days before) revealing that it was for Larian Studio’s Divinity. The trailer didn’t shy from the darker subject matter with new gods filling voids from where old ones had been killed. With wickermen, sacrifices, flagellation, and even a blood orgy… and that was before shit hit the fan on what I was just surprised they showed on stage.

Games like TankRat and SCREAMER caught my attention as things to bully my friends into playing when they come out.

Pragmata’s new trailer showed off the gameplay, and shadowd-ropped a new demo that I’ll be playing this weekend… after lots of Mega Man.

Exodus, there’s no other way to say this, but this looks heavily like Mass Effect with a different skin. The similarities are too on the nose. Not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, but I want to know what their favorite shop on the Not-Citadel is.

What timing on the announcement for Control: Resonant right after I play through Alan Wake 2 and want to embark on my whole Remedyverse journey into the other games.

In a Grim Dark Future, Total War comes to the 40k Universe. Something that EVERYONE Agrees should have happened sooner. The question will be do I Praise the Emperor, or WAAAGH?

Not that I need to say MUCH on Resident Evil: Requiem, but they confirmed Leon’s involvement after MUCH fan speculation, and he spin kicked a zombie. Good times.

Somehow not one, but two games stood out not because they looked good, but their trailers were presented as the most “Video Game” Video Games to ever exist. Bad Robot’s and Sony Interactive’s 4 Loop, where JJ Abrams and Mike Booth stood on stage and presented a game that really didn’t say much, or show much, it just. This was a Video Game.

The second game to accomplish this was amazing in only that it was the big reveal at the end of the program (Somehow not the statue mystery, or even Mega Man), Highguard, whose name I had to look at several times just to make sure I’m remembering it correctly. From ex-Titanfall/Apex Legends devs, this Scifi/High Fantasy Hero Shooter(?) Battle Royale(?) encompassed a feeling of a game you’d see someone playing in a tv show or movie, while also making myself and others I’ve spoken to wonder what Overwatch has been up to.

The musical performances were striking in how well they captured the games they represented, the REPEATED wins for Clair Obscur meant the audience got to hear that beautiful theme again…and again… and again……. And again. As well as the performance itself, showing how passionate the musicians were to be there playing these songs. Especially flute guy, who amazed us all with his PVC pipe… flute.

 Evanescence playing Afterlife (From the Devil May Cry Netflix series, also announcing Season 2) was fun, and had a lot of people I know excited.

The Street Fighter movie character reveals. This will not be a good movie, but this will definitely be a fun movie. Gonna hit ya (hit ya) with the punk tactics.

It was a lot to take in at the time, but damn if I didn't come out with a lot to have fun with. 

 The awards themselves

1.      Innovation and Accessibility Award: Doom: The Dark Ages. I guess fighting hell itself is for everyone after all.

2.      Best Esports Game (presented by gain): Counter strike 2.

3.      Best Esports athlete: Chovy

4.      Best Esports Team: Team Vitality

5.      Best Indie Game: Clair Obscure: Expedition 33. Should get used to this right here.

6.      Best mobile game: Umamusume: Pretty Derby. Horse Girls get into people’s blood.

7.      Best Adaptation: The Last of us Season 2

8.      Geoffery and Elijah Right presenting for Best Action Game: Hades 2 … somehow against Ninja Gaiden 4 and Doom: The Dark Ages.

9.      Best performance: Jennifer English. This was the start of Clair Obscur’s sweep and was presented by the sassy vampire from Baldur’s Gate 3 (Neil Newbon) and the Tall Lady that everyone eerily lusted after from Resident Evil Village (Maggie Robertson).

10.  Games for Impact, presented by That Game Company’s Jenovah Chen:  South of Midnight, a game I still want to play.

11. Best Ongoing Game category: No Man’s Sky, Presented by the cast of the New Street Fighter movie.

12. Best Audio Design: Battlefield 6

13.  Content Creator of the year: Moistcr1tikal

14.  Best Fighting Game: Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Well Deserved.

15.  Most Anticipated Game: Grand Theft Auto VI

16. Game Changer award: Girls Met Games winners Paper Trails. Presented by the bane of my existence that I long since forgot about, Felicia Day. I have my reasons.

17. Best Acton Adventure Game: Hollow Knight: Silksong. Good for them to get one award.

18. Best Art Direction: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

19. Best Sim/Strategy Game: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles

20. Best Debut Indie Game: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. This will continue.

21. Best sports/ Racing: Mario Kart World

22. Best Community Support: Baldur’s Gate 3

23. Best VR/AR Game: The Midnight Walk

24. Best Role-Playing Game: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

25. Players’ Voice: Wurthering Waves… how?

26. Best Multiplayer Game award: Arc Raiders

27. Best Game Direction Award (Presented by Todd): Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that’s 8 for 9

28. 2025 Game of the Year is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. To the shock of NOBODY.

The Point is the French haven’t won this much since Napoleon last Frenched his way across Europe.

                Something that had me befuddled with was the amount of salt and hate I was seeing from people, not even just people mad about Clair Obscur winning so many awards.  Sure, there were people hostile about that,  but even more so were people not just “Upset” for what was shown but being downright miserable about it. It shocked me that out of everything there, there wasn’t something for people to celebrate with for this hobby. Hell, I saw people being downright hateful about video games that made no sense. (Saw someone call it KKKLair Obscur for some reason). Just something I want to think about going forward.

 

Honestly, to hell with the miserites though. HOLY SHIT MEGA MAN. AHHHH. EXCITED.