The New York Game Awards were held this weekend and that officially marks the start of the second half of the 2025-2026 awards season for video games.
We kicked things off with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 winning “Game of the Year” at The Game Awards and the Golden Joystick Awards… and that’s more or less where things have stood ever since. Sandfall Interactive’s turn-based RPG has continued to dominate the conversation ever since, winning “Game of the Year” honors from more than a dozen publications.
Though like most years, a handful of other games were able to collect at least one “Game of the Year” statuette of their own, including Blue Prince, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Despelote, Dispatch, Donkey Kong Bananza, Ghost of Yotei, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and Silent Hill F.
Links to these lists can be found below, and I will continue to add more in the weeks ahead, as well as monitor the results of the three remaining major ceremonies.
Blue Prince
★ Eurogamer
★ The Guardian
★ Polygon
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
★ DICE Awards
★ The Game Awards
★ Associated Press
★ Blunt Magazine
★ But Why Tho?
★ Cinelinx
★ Collider
★ Destructoid
★ Empire
★ Game Informer
★ Games Radar
★ GameSpot
★ Hardcore Gamer
★ IGN
★ Inverse
★ Kotaku
★ Maxim
★ The MinnMax Show
★ New York Game Awards
★ The Ringer
★ Rolling Stone
★ Slant Magazine
★ Stuff
★ TheGamer
★ Time
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
★ Gaming Bolt
★ GQ
★ Video Games Chronicle
Despelote
Dispatch
Donkey Kong Bananza
★ CNET
★ Golden Joystick Awards – Critic’s Choice
Ghost of Yotei
Hollow Knight: Silksong
★ NME
Silent Hill F
Wuthering Waves
★ The Game Awards – Player’s Voice
Unranked Lists
★ Ars Technica
★ British GQ
★ Engadget
★ Game Developer
★ Mashable
★ The New York Times
More “Game of the Year” lists from 2025 will be added as I find them (or as they happen), but here is a pretty good overview of what’s been honored by critics and players so far:
2025 GOTY Scoreboard (Expand)