VGC | John – Video Game Canon

Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards

The 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards took place today in London and, as the last major awards ceremony of the year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had a chance to complete its victory lap with one more big win.

While the BAFTAs typically zig where other awards shows zag, they followed the crowd this year and awarded “Best Game” to Sandfall’s turn-based RPG. On its way to a sweep of all four major awards (after also winning the top prize at the GDC Awards, DICE Awards, and The Game Awards), Clair Obscur collected two other statuettes during today’s BAFTA Games Awards ceremony. Sandfall’s freshman effort unsurprisingly won “Best Debut” and Jennifer English’s performance as Maelle won the award for “Performer in a Leading Role”.

Clair Obscur is in pretty good company right now, as the only two other sweeps we’ve seen were in 2018-2019 (for God of War) and 2023-2024 (for Baldur’s Gate 3). But I know what you’re thinking… does the imminent arrival of Grand Theft Auto VI mean we’ll see another sweep next year? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

However, the BAFTA voting body also put out a call for a few other games at the BAFTA Games Awards today. That includes a trio of statuettes for Ad Hoc’s Dispatch (“Animation”, “Audio Achievement”, and “Performer in a Supporting Role” for Jeffrey Wright) and a pair for Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei (“Technical Achievement” and “Music”).

A replay of the 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards ceremony can be found after the break, along with the rest of the winners and all the nominees. As always, the extended Longlist can also be found on the British Academy’s website.

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Boss Fight Books Gets a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”

The Boss Fight Books series will be getting a bit of an aesthetic refresh with its next book, Age of Empires: How Ensemble Studios Made History.

The iconic stock images have been retired in favor of fully-illustrated covers from “real, human artists.” As you can see, the publisher will also be adding subtitles to all future books in the series, as well as employing a bigger title font.

But don’t worry, the design on the spines will remain the same. So all your previous Boss Fight Books purchases will continue to line up nicely with all of your future Boss Fight Books.

Age of Empires will be written by Richard Moss (who previously authored The Secret History of Mac Gaming and A Tale of Two Halves: The History of Football Video Games), and it’ll feature interviews with more than 25 people who helped bring the strategy game to life (including the Goodman brothers, the Rippy brothers, Ed Fries, and many more).

“Tony came in one day, out of the blue, and said to everybody in the room, ‘Hey, would any of you rather be programming games than databases?'”

Upon its release in 1997, the real-time strategy game Age of Empires turned heads with its varied campaigns, competitive online play, “Hollywood” approach to history, and its bright and colorful aesthetic.

Helmed by brothers Tony and Rick Goodman, Age of Empires was a game about bringing thousands of years of human history to life—and making it fun and accessible. Over the course of its three-year development, the game shifted from an ancient-world twist on SimCity to a historical real-time strategy game, but through all its iterations Age never strayed from that core vision.

Based on interviews with 29 former Ensemble and Microsoft executives and staff, documentarian Richard Moss tells the story of how a scrappy team of first-time developers partnered with the biggest tech company in the world on a game that would test the brothers’ relationship like nothing before.

Boss Fight Books is currently accepting pre-orders for Age of Empires: How Ensemble Studios Made History through Kickstarter. The book will be published in ebook format this June, with the paperback to follow in July.

GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today

Chris Crawford opened the doors to the very first Computer Game Developers Conference after welcoming two dozen other developers into his living room in 1988. The annual gathering has grown considerably in the years since (including being rechristened the Game Developers Conference in 1999), though Crawford bowed out of organizing the event in 1994.

UBM TechWeb, a company that specialized in trade shows and conferences, took over organizing the Game Developers Conference in the 1990s and they launched the Game Developers Choice Awards (GDC Awards) in 2001. Informa Tech, a British publishing company, took over as the organizer of the Game Developers Conference in 2020.

The GDC Awards are awarded every Spring at the Game Developers Conference, and both the nominees and the winners are selected by a group of “leading game creators from all parts of the industry.” Membership in this panel, which is known as the International Choice Awards Network, is available by invitation-only.

Before the creation of the GDC Awards, the Game Developers Conference hosted the Spotlight Awards from 1997 through 1999.

All the “Game of the Year” winners from the GDC Awards and the Spotlight Awards can be found here…

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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Wins “Game of the Year” at 2025-2026 GDC Awards

It looks like Kepler Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has gone trois pour trois as the French RPG won “Game of the Year” at last night’s Game Developers Choice Awards. In addition to their big win, the development team also took the stage to collect a handful of other statuettes, including “Best Audio”, “Best Debut”, “Best Narrative”, and “Best Visual Art”.

Thankfully, there were a few awards left over for a few other games. Tonda Ros’s Blue Prince won multiple awards (“Best Design” and “Innovation Award”), and the rest of the evening’s slate was given to Kojima Productions’s Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (“Best Technology”), Jenny Jiao Hsia’s Consume Me (“Social Impact Award”), and TearyHand Studio’s And Roger (“Audience Award”).

This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Don Daglow, a developer whose career began in 1971 with the release of the very first Baseball simulation and then just kept going with more baseball sims (including Tony La Russa Baseball) and the original Neverwinter Nights.

The 2025-2026 GDC Awards were once again hosted by writer Sam Maggs, and you can watch a replay of the ceremony (along with a complete list of winners, nominees, and honorable mentions) after the break.

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Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026

The World Video Game Hall of Fame has announced the games that will be competing for induction as part of their Class of 2026, and with five returning finalists, this year’s theme seems to be second chances.

So which games will get another chance to earn a plaque on the wall at the Strong Museum of Play’s World Video Game Hall of Fame? Rovio’s Angry Birds, Electronic Arts’s FIFA International Soccer, and Konami’s Frogger will all be going through the voting process for a third time, while NanaOn-Sha’s PaRappa the Rapper and Konami’s Tokimeki Memorial are both getting their second shot at induction.

That leaves seven newcomers to the process and they’re pretty impressive bunch. Konami’s Silent Hill could probably be considered something of a frontrunner after the excellent showing of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill F in recent years. But the Hall of Fame will also consider Enix’s Dragon Quest (released in North America as Dragon Warrior) for the first time, as well as Bethesda’s oft-re-released The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Namco’s Galaga, Riot’s League of Legends, Capcom’s Mega Man, and Jagex’s RuneScape.

The vote now goes to the Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee, but the public will also get two chances to have their say in the final inductees.

As always, the Player’s Choice Ballot will be available until March 13th, giving the three games that receive the most votes equal standing with the ballots from the rest of the committee members. And for the first time this year, the World Video Game Hall of Fame is taking a road trip to the Game Developers Conference, where attendees will have the opportunity to vote for the games they’d like to appear on another public ballot.

The World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 will be announced on Thursday, May 7, at 10:30 AM (Eastern Time). And if you’re unfamiliar with any of this year’s finalists, you can learn more about them after the break.

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DICE Awards: All the Winners from 1997 to Today

The DICE Awards have been awarded by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences as part of the DICE Summit (Design Innovate Communicate Entertain) since 1998. The ceremony is held each Winter, honoring games released during the previous calendar year.

The nominees are chosen annually by a select group of Academy members known as Peer Panelists. In their attempt to harvest a wide-ranging set of opinions each year, the AIAS reaches out to industry experts from all corners of the game industry, including art, design, engineering, animation, performance, and production.

For the final vote, the entire Academy votes for the four major awards (“Game of the Year”, “Mobile Game of the Year”, “Online Game of the Year”, and “Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game”), while voting on creative/technical categories is limited to developers within that field (“Game Design & Production”, “Art, Animation & Programming”, and “Audio Design & Music”).

From 1998 through 2012, the ceremony was known as the Interactive Achievement Awards, though the public would often refer to the event as the DICE Awards because of its connection to the DICE Summit. After more than a decade, the AIAS officially adopted the ceremony’s current name in 2013.

All the “Game of the Year” winners from the DICE Awards can be found here…

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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Has Another Big Night and Wins “Game of the Year” at the 2025-2026 DICE Awards

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Ghost of Yotei were nominated for eight awards ahead of the 2025-2026 DICE Awards ceremony. However, when it came time to hand out the statuettes, Sandfall Interactive’s RPG continued its awards season dominance in Las Vegas.

As it did at The Game Awards, Clair Obscur was named “Game of the Year” by DICE’s voting body of more than 30,000 industry professionals. The game’s developers also collected four additional awards, including “Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction”, “Outstanding Achievement in Story”, “Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction”, and “Role-Playing Game of the Year”.

But don’t worry, Sucker Punch didn’t go home empty-handed. Ghost of Yotei earned three awards at this year’s DICE Awards, including “Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition”, “Adventure Game of the Year”, and “Outstanding Achievement in Character” for Atsu.

Other big winners at the ceremony included Kojima Productions’s Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (“Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design” and “Outstanding Technical Achievement”) and Tonda Ros’s Blue Prince (“Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game” and “Outstanding Achievement in Game Design”).

The DICE Awards honored quite a few other games this year with their genre awards, including Hades II (“Action Game of the Year”), Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection (“Fighting Game of the Year”), Mario Kart World (“Racing Game of the Year”), and more.

A complete list of all the nominees and winners at the 2025-2026 DICE Awards can be found after the break. And you can also catch a replay of this year’s ceremony, which was once again hosted by Greg Miller and Stella Chung.

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2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress

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.

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The Game Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today

The Game Awards have been produced and hosted since 2014 by journalist Geoff Keighley. The annual ceremony is held each December and recognizes games released during the previous 12 months.

The nominees are selected by an international panel made up of more than 150 media outlets and influencers. This same jury, along with the aggregated results of an online fan vote, also determines the winners each year. The final ballot is weighted with 90% of the vote coming from the panel and the remaining 10% coming from the general public. Contrary to popular belief, Geoff Keighley has no say in selecting the nominees or the winners.

The Game Awards are a direct continuation of the Spike Video Game Awards, which Keighley produced for Spike TV from 2003 until 2013. After the cable channel declined to sponsor the show in 2014, he chose to move forward with The Game Awards as an independent production.

All the “Game of the Year” winners from The Game Awards and the Spike Video Game Awards can be found here…

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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Racks Up Nine Wins, Including “Game of the Year”, at the 2025 Game Awards

Geoff Keighley’s Trailer-Palooza, also known as The Game Awards, was shaping up to be a tad more anti-climactic in 2025 than ever before. Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 went into the ceremony with 13 nominations, the most of any game in Game Awards history. With most critics and commentators treating its victory as inevitable, we were probably going to have to look elsewhere for surprises. But then…

…the thing that everyone expected to happen actually happened.

Yes, the critics and commentators (the people who actually vote on the winners) turned out to be right. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won “Game of the Year” at the 2025 Game Awards. The throwback RPG also collected an additional eight trophies, including “Best Game Direction”, “Best Narrative”, “Best Art Direction”, “Best Score and Music”, “Best Role Playing Game”, and “Best Performance” for Jennifer English. And not to add more fuel to the fire over what qualifies as an independent game, but Clair Obscur also won both “Best Independent Game” and “Best Debut Indie Game”.

While the night definitely belonged to Clair Obscur and the team from Sandfall Interactive, a handful of other games also took home some Game Awards hardware, though each was limited to a single category. Battlefield 6 (“Best Audio Design”), ARC Raiders (“Best Multiplayer”), South of Midnight (“Games For Impact”), Doom: The Dark Ages (“Innovation in Accessibility”), Umamusume: Pretty Derby (“Best Mobile Game”), and The Midnight Walk (“Best VR/AR Game”) each scooped up a statuette.

Meanwhile, Hades II (“Best Action Game”), Hollow Knight: Silksong (“Best Action/Adventure Game”), Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (“Best Fighting Game”), Donkey Kong Bananza (“Best Family Game”), Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles (“Best Sim/Strategy Game”), and Mario Kart World (“Best Sports/Racing Game”) were victorious in the genre-specific categories.

And that pretty much does it for the 2025 Game Awards. I’m struggling to think of anything that didn’t go according to plan, and all I can come up with was that extra-weird trailer for the upcoming Street Fighter film adaptation and the reveal that Capcom dropped the numerals from the upcoming Mega Man 12 in favor of a subtitle.

A replay of the 2025 Game Awards ceremony can be found after the break, as well as a list of all the nominees and winners.

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