Game of the Year 2025 – Overall Winner

As we venture into the final hours of the year, and with some parts of the world are already sneaking into the next, it’s time to reveal our overall Game of the Year 2025 winner!

We’ve been doling out awards for a whole host of categories, from looking at our favourite visuals, audio, and narratives of the year, to breaking games out into their genres, including a new run-based Roguelike category. For the overall winner, the favourites and front runners would have been obvious to see from the off, but who comes out on top?

We’re highlighting the top three, as usual, but our winner is…

Ghost of Yotei has climbed to the top of the mountain to claim our Overall Game of the Year Award 2025, and for good reason. Sucker Punch’s follow up to Ghost of Tshushima is stronger in every way from the story, the combat, but most importantly the world. Ghost of Yotei’s open world of Ezo is one that is crafted so well that it invites you to explore, and you accept that invitation willingly.

Sucker Punch has crafted an environment where exploration is signalled by clues within the environment, like trees covered in flowers, and smoke on the horizon tapping into your curiosity. Ghost of Yotei’s world is made stronger by having a variety of environments to explore across its regions, each hiding its own dangers and secrets. The world itself is inhabited by interesting characters that weave in and out of Atsu’s story, be it through the mainline path, side missions, and even the bounty hunts that feed into the overall narrative.

As I said in my Ghost of Yōtei review, “This is a truly worthy successor to Ghost of Tsushima.” And the journey is not over with the Legends content coming in 2026 that will draw so many of us back to Ezo’s shores.

– Aran

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – Runner Up

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is just a beautiful game. It begins strong, with an irresistibly intriguing setup: in a fractured world where Paris sits upon one of few islands amidst the chaos an unravelling world, the Paintress, a giant with long hair covering her face, sits beside a monolith with the number 34 on it. She erases the number and replaces it with 33, and everyone of that age fades into oblivion. Another in a long line of expeditions readies itself to try and destroy her, including Gustave, whose long lost love just turned into smoke and flower petals. It’s just as strange and mysterious right up until the very end.

It’s not just story and setting, though. There’s also an intricate turn-based combat system that, when harnessed properly, can make you feel very powerful indeed. All of the characters play completely differently as well, each one a completely new playstyle to fiddle around with, but each as potentially strong as the other. On top of that, there’s a parry and dodge system, allowing you to pull victory from the jaws of defeat by ably parrying and countering if you’re good enough. Whilst it may be challenging to read the fiendishly deceptive attack animations, successfully countering a combo of six attacks is at least satisfying enough to be worth it. Clair Obscur is a remarkable achievement for such a small studio and remains one of biggest surprises and one of best games of the year.

– Gamoc

Hades 2 – Runner Up

One hundred and three. That’s the number of times I’ve commenced a run in Hades 2, either sending the magic-spell concocting Melinoë on a descent to the dark-depths of the underworld, or having her travel across the surface to clamber atop Mount Olympus. Just like the original Hades, the combat remains crisp, responsive and utterly beguiling; it’s a hectic action-packed thrill-ride of a game, yet you never lose the ability to tell what’s going on despite the onscreen fireworks. In fact, even with the many roguelite imitators over the intervening years, none of the emulators have been able to achieve this perfect balance of spectacle and nuance. It took the return of Supergiant Games to show the rest how it’s done.

What impresses even more, is how that, after some fifty hours into the game, it’s still introducing brilliant new mechanics, fascinating new characters and entirely new storylines to me. Talk about confidence, Supergiant Games saved a lot of the best stuff until tens of hours after the end credits rolled.

My final point as to why Hades 2 is well deserving a place on the GOTY podium; it offers an absolutely perfect interpretation of the larger-than-life icons of Ancient Greek mythology, exploring the volatile relationships between gods, heroes and monsters. It’s a masterclass in bringing new life to ancient mythology.

How do Supergiant Games do it?

– Ade

And that’s a wrap for our Game of the Year 2025 awards. Congratulations to our winners across the board – we will be keenly watching what comes next from all of these teams! 

Speaking of which, next up we have our Most Wanted lists, looking at the games we’re most excited to see through 2026.

Tags: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Game of the Year 2025, Ghost of Yotei, Hades 2