The Game Awards Reveals Its 2025 Game of the Year Nominees

The Game Awards are back on 11 December 2025, live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and streaming worldwide – including for UK viewers at 12:30am GMT on 12 December.

This year’s ceremony is already historic. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a French-made RPG, leads the pack with a record 12 nominations across Game of the Year, narrative, art, music, RPG and more – the most any game has ever received at the show.

For Xbox players, there’s another headline: a deep bench of Xbox first-party and Game Pass titles is up for trophies, and almost all of them are playable right now.

The Game Awards 2025 Xbox nominations: what’s on the list?

The official nominees confirm that Xbox’s name is all over this year’s ballot, both in first-party releases and in third-party hits available on the platform.

From the core categories alone:

• Game of the Year includes Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Donkey Kong Bananza, Hades II, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 – all playable on Xbox, with Clair Obscur and several others on Game Pass.

• Xbox-aligned titles also appear in Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Score & Music, Best RPG, Best Action, Best Action/Adventure, Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie, Innovation in Accessibility, Best Multiplayer and more.

On top of the games, ‘A Minecraft Movie’ is nominated for Best Adaptation, giving Xbox a presence on the film side of the show too.

It’s a snapshot of where Xbox sits in the 2025 landscape: part blockbuster publisher, part home for prestige indie and AA experiments.

Xbox first-party nominees you can play right now

Xbox’s own studios have multiple games in the running, and Microsoft is leaning into the fact that you can load up almost all of them immediately.

Here are some of the key first-party contenders:

• Avowed – Nominated for Best RPG, Obsidian’s fantasy role-playing game expands the Pillars of Eternity universe with a tighter, more action-driven campaign. It’s available on Xbox consoles, PC and via Game Pass.

• DOOM: The Dark Ages – Up for Best Action Game and Innovation in Accessibility, id Software’s latest entry pushes its medieval-tinged gunplay while adding more granular difficulty and accessibility options.

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – Nominated for Best Performance (Troy Baker) and Best Action/Adventure Game, MachineGames’ pulpy treasure hunt lets you embody Indy himself, fedora, whip and all.

• Ninja Gaiden 4 – A contender for Best Action Game, this reboot continues the series’ reputation for demanding combat – and gives Xbox a high-skill, old-school action showpiece.

• The Outer Worlds 2 – Nominated for Best RPG, Obsidian’s satirical sci-fi sequel doubles down on player choice and branching factions.

• South of Midnight – Up in categories including Innovation in Accessibility and Games for Impact, Compulsion Games’ Southern-Gothic adventure is also playable with Game Pass.

All of these titles are either published by Xbox Game Studios or Bethesda, and the Xbox Wire breakdown confirms that they’re available on Xbox Series X|S, PC and, in most cases, through Xbox Game Pass.

Third-party Game Awards favourites on Xbox and Game Pass

The nominations also highlight how many of 2025’s critical darlings either launched on Xbox or came straight into Game Pass.

A few stand-outs:

• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – The night’s towering favourite with 12 nominations, including Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best RPG, Best Score & Music, Best Audio Design, Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie, and three separate Best Performance nods. It’s playable on Xbox and via Game Pass, meaning UK players can sample the frontrunner before the ceremony.

• Hades II and Hollow Knight: Silksong – Both up for Game of the Year and multiple craft categories such as art, music and indie, and both available on Xbox .

• Blue Prince and Ball x Pit – Indie favourites nominated for Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie, highlighted by Xbox as Play Anywhere titles with Game Pass availability.

• Battlefield 6, ARC Raiders, Elden Ring: Nightreign – Big multiplayer and action nominees that sit in categories such as Best Action Game and Best Multiplayer Game, all playable on Xbox.

• Despelote, Wanderstop, South of Midnight – Story-driven titles featured in Games for Impact, spotlighting how Xbox platforms are hosting games that tackle social and emotional themes alongside pure spectacle.

For Xbox Game Pass subscribers, the takeaway is simple: a large slice of the ballot is included in the monthly sub, from massive RPGs to small, experimental indies.

How to watch – and why it matters for Xbox players

The Game Awards 2025 will stream free on YouTube, Twitch, X, Facebook Live and, for the first time, Amazon Prime Video, which is also hosting a dedicated Game Awards hub with offers and extras.

• Date: 11 December 2025 (LA) / 12 December 2025 in the UK

• UK time: 12:30am GMT live start

• Place: Peacock Theater, Los Angeles .

Voting is already open on the official Game Awards site. Winners are decided by a mix of jury votes (90%) and public voting (10%), so Xbox players who’ve actually spent time with these games – especially via Game Pass – have a real say in the outcome.

For Xbox, this year’s nominations are more than a marketing beat. They’re proof that the ecosystem now covers almost every flavour of gaming: prestige indie, sprawling RPG, fast-paced shooters, sports, experimental narrative and big-screen adaptations.

And for players, it’s an unusually low-friction year: instead of watching trailers for games you might play one day, you can spend the weeks before 11 December jumping between the nominees yourself – then sit up with a coffee at 12:30am, UK time, with your own favourites picked out before Geoff Keighley even opens the envelope.