2025 Golden Joystick Awards Reveals Stacked GOTY Shortlist

The Golden Joystick Awards are a handy early barometer for the frontrunners of 2025’s game of the year shortlist, and today, its organizers unveiled the 12 hopefuls in the running for its biggest award — and it feels like 2023 all over again.

There’s absolutely zero fat among its dozen nominees, to the point that you could see any one of them winning. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is perhaps the frontrunner, given its huge, thoroughly deserved fanbase. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was initially released at the worst time of year for award recognition (December 9), but its PS5 port put it back on the radar in April, for all the right reasons. Split Fiction, my own AAA GOTY so far (even if Expedition 33 is nearly on par), continued to redefine multiplayer experiences with a near-perfect narrative.

Once again, it’s another great year for indies. Four make the final list of 12 games: puzzle adventure Blue Prince, long-awaited roguelike sequel Hades II, and the universally adored Metroidvania comeback Hollow Knight: Silksong. Last but not least is the spectacular climbing/dying-with-friends simulator Peak, which has made me laugh more than anything else I’ve played in 2025. That said, it’s also one of the most enriching teamwork experiences I’ve had with friends, where diplomacy, careful planning, and a bit of luck are key to success.

Meanwhile, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, Silent Hill f, Donkey Kong Bananza, Ghost of Yōtei, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II round out the big dogs in the list, and each comes with its own horde of devoted followers who’ll undoubtedly flood the Golden Joysticks’ GOTY voting site over the coming days.

2025 Golden Joystick Awards Ultimate Game of the Year nominees in full

• Blue Prince
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
• Donkey Kong Bananza
• Ghost of Yōtei
• Hades II
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• Peak
• Silent Hill f
• Split Fiction

It’s refreshing to see such a bulletproof crop of games after a less competitive year for the Golden Joysticks’ GOTY frontrunners in 2024, which ultimately saw Black Myth: Wukong triumph after a massive public vote. It’s also arguably tighter than two years ago, when Baldur’s Gate 3 unsurprisingly won in a field still packed with bona fide modern classics like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Alan Wake 2, Resident Evil 4, Cocoon, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Hi-Fi Rush.

As usual, the public voting window for the Golden Joystick Awards’ Ultimate Game of the Year award is hilariously small: you’ve got until Friday, November 7 (4pm PST/7pm EST/12am GMT) to cast your vote. The awards themselves are hosted on Thursday, November 20, and streamed on YouTube, Twitch, Steam, Facebook, and X.

If the last five or six years of awards ceremonies, two things have become as inevitable as death and taxes: multiplayer games never take home the top prize — which effectively rules out Peak and Split Fiction — and Nintendo’s best and brightest just never seem to do well, which makes Donkey Kong Bananza a rank outsider. Still, you never know — the public vote really can surprise you. Vote for your Golden Joysticks GOTY at GamesRadar before it’s too late.