Game of the Year 2025 predictions: The front-runners and challengers to come

The 11th Game Awards, scheduled for Dec. 11, will come at the end of a watershed year for gaming that will see the launches of Nintendo Switch 2 and (in theory) Grand Theft Auto 6. Both of those releases will likely loom large over the Game of the Year competition at the leading awards ceremony for the game industry — the Oscars of gaming, as it were. But they are not the whole story. Even the first few months of 2025 have seen a number of surprisingly strong GOTY contenders come to light.

The Game Awards’ voting body is composed of a wide range of international games media (Polygon included), with a 10% contribution from fan voting. There are a number of strong indicators for what will perform well in the Game of the Year category. A high Metacritic rating (preferably over 90) is a must; role-playing games and action-adventures are strongly favored, as are games with strong narrative elements; indie and multiplayer games struggle harder for recognition than AAA single-player adventures. We used these metrics to correctly predict last year’s winner, Astro Bot. (We also got four of the six nominees right, and correctly called 14 other categories.) 

Below, you’ll find our predictions for the most likely nominees, of which there are six each year, for Game of the Year 2025. Unlike the film industry, where most titles are known quantities well in advance, you never really know what kind of impact a video game will have, or how good it will be, until it’s out. With that in mind, this list only includes games that are already out. We’ll update these rankings throughout the year as new games are released. We’ll also list some likely upcoming contenders, and in future updates, we’ll predict some of the 2025 GOTY race’s dark horses, too.

GOTY front-runners

1. Split Fiction

Why it could win: Critical consensus is still the most reliable indicator of success at The Game Awards, and as the only game released so far this year with a rating over 90 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic, Hazelight’s co-op adventure is the clear front-runner in this regard. It’s got a legacy advantage, too: Hazelight’s previous game, It Takes Two, won GOTY in 2021, and since then has amassed a massive popular following. As a story-led action-adventure, Split Fiction also belongs to a genre that the Game Awards jury has been known to favor in the past.

Weaknesses: Perhaps It Takes Two’s win will count against it if jury members are looking for something different to reward. Also, while It Takes Two’s intensely personal story about divorce was unquestionably a strength, Split Fiction has been praised more for its design than its abstract and overworked tale of writers adrift in virtual reality.

2. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Why it could win: This could be this year’s Black Myth: Wukong: an ambitious hit game from a developer operating outside the gaming establishment, delivering on core gamers’ ardent desire for massive solo adventures made without compromise. Deliverance 2 is a realistic medieval RPG with strong storytelling, and critics really liked it (its Metascore is 88). Another similar game might be the 2015 GOTY winner, The Witcher 3. This is right in The Game Awards’ sweet spot. 

Weaknesses: Black Myth: Wukong didn’t win GOTY — much to its producer’s chagrin. Just like Black Myth’s Game Science, Kingdom Come developer Warhorse is considered politically radioactive by some, after founder Daniel Vávra made pro-Gamergate comments in 2015. Perhaps more to the point, the game is a challenging time sink that isn’t that broadly played among journalists and jurors, despite respectable sales.

3. Monster Hunter Wilds

Why it could win: Monster Hunter’s steady climb from co-op curio, through handheld sensation, to AAA champion climaxed with the huge sales and glowing reviews of Wilds. It’s slick, it’s gorgeous, and it’s sanded off Monster Hunter’s rough edges. (As a rule, the Game Awards jury isn’t keen on rough edges.)

Weaknesses: Although Wilds gestures toward a more conventional RPG storytelling style than previous Monster Hunters, this is still a deeply systemic game in which the equipment grind matters way more than players’ personal investment in the characters, and that’s not The Game Awards’ favorite look for a GOTY winner.

4. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Why it could win: It only missed the deadline for the 2024 awards by a week or two, but MachineGames’ take on the indelible movie hero was swiftly acclaimed for all the things the jury likes to see: strong, performance-led storytelling, polished tech, high production values, a good mix of action and more cerebral play, and Troy Baker. It would almost certainly have been nominated for a GOTY 2024, and April’s PlayStation 5 release will be a big help in keeping Great Circle in the conversation all the way up until the 2025 nomination process begins.

Weaknesses: PS5 release notwithstanding, 12 months is an awfully long time to stay relevant in the race. The Game Awards do not typically reward licensed games. And the mid-80s Metacritic and OpenCritic scores are good, but indicate the critical consensus on this game is a little softer than it first appeared.

5. Avowed

Why it could win: Obsidian Games’ traditional fantasy RPG is an interesting case. Its initial critical reception was on the soft side, but it has had a long tail and strong word of mouth, as players found its dependable, old-fashioned qualities — satisfying combat, excellent writing, and moreish loot — tough to turn away from. Genre-wise, as an undemanding and strongly narrative-focused RPG, it’s in a Game Awards sweet spot. Avowed is definitely undervalued, and though it will probably get pushed out of the likely nominees over the course of the year, it’s the definition of a dark horse.

Weaknesses: It would be very, very surprising for a game with a mere 80 Metascore to get nominated for Game of the Year. Surprising, but not unprecedented: Black Myth: Wukong managed it with an 81 Metascore last year.

6. Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Why it could win: It might not be enough to save Ubisoft, but the whole gaming community heaved a sigh of relief when the first major Assassin’s Creed in four and a half years turned out to be good. This is AAA open-world gaming done right, with lavish production values and memorable characters.

Weaknesses: For whatever reason, the Game Awards jury is not that keen on Assassin’s Creed. 2018’s Odyssey is the only game in the series to score a Game of the Year nomination, and though it was nominated in four categories, it won none. Perhaps, like Call of Duty, the series’ heavily commercialized ubiquity is seen as a disqualifier by the judges. Shadows’ 81 Metascore is certainly too low to buck that trend.

Upcoming titles

Grant Theft Auto 6: It’s been such a long time since there was a mainline Grand Theft Auto game that The Game Awards weren’t around when GTA 5 was released. It’s hard to see anything beating Rockstar’s behemoth — if, and it’s a big if, it makes its 2025 release date.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond: Nintendo may well have multiple GOTY contenders in Switch 2’s release year, but the only one we know about for sure is Retro Studios’ very long-awaited return to the first-person sci-fi adventures of Samus.

Hades 2: Assuming it emerges from early access this year, Supergiant’s roguelike sequel will likely be leading the indie contenders for the year — out to avenge the original game’s perceived snub at the 2020 awards. (It’s eligible regardless, but the jury prefers not to nominate early access games.)

Death Stranding 2: Hideo Kojima is a Game Awards favorite and the original Death Stranding contended strongly in 2019, although it ultimately lost to Sekiro. Death Stranding was divisive at the time, but in the years since, multiple rereleases have helped players get their heads around this singular vision, and with PlayStation’s full muscle behind it, the sequel is sure to make a big splash.

Ghost of Yōtei: No publisher has a better record at the Game Awards than Sony, and its other contender this year is this open-world samurai adventure — again, a sequel to a game (Ghost of Tsushima) whose reputation has only grown over time. If nothing else, this more rarefied, bespoke-feeling release will probably edge out the similarly themed Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

South of Midnight: The Game Awards jury is sure to love the culturally specific, character-forward storytelling of Compulsion Games’ occult adventure in the Deep South, which likely stands in for a delayed Fable (and potentially replaces Indiana Jones) as Xbox Game Studios’ most likely contender. But its gameplay is an unknown quantity, and Compulsion’s record is a little patchy.