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Game of the Year
Earlier this week, the official nominations for The Game Awards 2025 were unveiled. The biggest category is always Game of the Year, with six games up for the coveted award. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has to be the frontrunner at this point since the RPG has 12 nominations in total. That makes it the most-nominated game ever at The Game Awards.
But the competition is stiff. In fact, it’s not the highest-scored game from the list at GameSpot. Hades 2 holds that distinction as the only nominated title with a 10/10 review score. There’s another indie sequel that’s critically acclaimed, too–Hollow Knight: Silksong. Both wouldn’t be surprising to see get the nod next month at The Game Awards.
Meanwhile, the other three games seem more like dark-horse candidates to nab Game of the Year. It feels as if every year there’s one Nintendo game nominated, with Donkey Kong Bananza taking that honor currently. Then there’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, with the latter holding the distinction as the lowest-scoring game of the nominees at GameSpot.
Below, we’ve compiled passages from GameSpot’s reviews for each title, with a link to the full text. The games are also organized from highest-scoring to lowest, starting with Hades 2. However, keep in mind that The Game Awards is voted on by a wide assortment of publications and people.