The Game Awards 2025 delivered exactly what the industry needed to close out the year: a surprise-packed, legitimately stacked show where a little-known French RPG blew past the biggest franchises in gaming history. Between a record-breaking Game of the Year run, the reveal of Larian’s massive new Divinity, two unexpected Tomb Raider projects, and a “spiritual successor” to Knights of the Old Republic, this was one of the most consequential TGAs in years.
Here’s what actually mattered—and why people won’t stop talking about this show.
A French RPG Just Steamrolled The Game Awards
The undisputed star of the night was
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, an atmospheric, “aggressively French” RPG from Sandfall Interactive that demolished records.
According to Engadget’s recap,
Clair Obscur not only won
Game of the Year, but also
Best Game Direction,
Best Narrative,
Best RPG,
Best Art Direction,
Best Score and Music,
Best Indie Game, and
Best Debut Indie Game, making it the most awarded title in the 12-year history of The Game Awards.
It beat out heavyweights across multiple categories, signaling a few big shifts:
-
Indies are no longer underdogs in headline categories like GOTY and Direction.
- The industry’s taste is swinging hard toward
stylish, narrative-heavy, mechanically inventive experiences.
- Big-budget polish is no longer enough—being emotionally distinct and artistically bold is now table stakes.
Jennifer English also took home
Best Performance for her work in
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, further cementing the game’s status as the night’s dominant force.
The Biggest Winners: A Snapshot of Where Gaming Is Right Now
Beyond
Clair Obscur, the awards paint a pretty clear picture of where the medium is heading.
Some key category wins:
-
Best Action Game: Hades II-
Best Action/Adventure: Hollow Knight: Silksong-
Best Indie: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33-
Best Ongoing Game: No Man’s Sky-
Best Community Support: Baldur’s Gate 3-
Best Multiplayer: Arc Raiders-
Best Sports/Racing: Mario Kart World-
Best Fighting Game: Fatal Fury: City of the WolvesEsports and mobile also saw some notable wins:
-
Best Esports Game: Counter-Strike 2-
Best Esports Athlete: Chovy
-
Best Esports Team: Team Vitality
-
Best Mobile Game: Umamusume: Pretty DerbyMeanwhile,
Grand Theft Auto VI was named
Most Anticipated Game, confirming what everyone already knew: the hype dial is glued to maximum.
“This Is Our Biggest Game Ever”: Larian’s New Divinity Blows Up the Stage
One of the most buzzed-about reveals:
Larian Studios is officially returning to its roots with a new game simply titled
Divinity.
PC Gamer reports that Geoff Keighley himself described it as Larian’s *
“biggest game ever,” even bigger than Baldur’s Gate 3
. The debut trailer leaned hard into unsettling imagery and body horror, with a “hellstone” statue looming in a vast desert—teasing a darker, stranger tone than previous Divinity entries.
Key details so far:
- It is not Divinity: Original Sin 3
- It is not a remake of Divine Divinity
- It’s a new original entry in the Divinity
universe, billed as Larian’s next flagship RPG
- No release window yet—Larian is still playing the long game
After the studio publicly confirmed earlier this year it was done with Baldur’s Gate
and focused on its own IP, this reveal locks in exactly what fans suspected: Divinity is the future of Larian, not D&D.
Star Wars Gets a “Spiritual Successor” to KOTOR
The second “are we really doing this?” moment came from the galaxy far, far away.
A new game titled Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic was revealed as a “spiritual successor” to Knights of the Old Republic
, led by former KOTOR
and Mass Effect
director Casey Hudson at Arcanaut Studios.
According to PC Gamer’s breakdown:
- It’s a single-player, narrative-driven action RPG
- Choices will shape your path toward light or darkness
- The trailer features a crashed Sith capital ship, heavily nodding to classic KOTOR
lore
- Its exact spot in the Star Wars timeline is unclear, but it sits somewhere in the vast, unexplored centuries between KOTOR
and later eras
The “spiritual successor” wording suggests some canon gymnastics, but visually and thematically, this is the closest thing yet to a modern KOTOR 3
.
Tomb Raider Stuns With Two Games in One Night
Crystal Dynamics pulled off a rare double: two separate Tomb Raider games announced back-to-back on stage.
According to the official Tomb Raider site and the show recap:
- Tomb Raider: Catalyst – the long-awaited next chapter in Lara Croft’s story, continuing her modern saga.
- Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis – a fully reimagined version of Lara’s iconic debut adventure, developed by Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog.
The reveal effectively splits the franchise into two lanes:
- A forward-looking mainline story in Catalyst
- A nostalgia-driven, modernized origin retelling in Legacy of Atlantis
For long-time fans, this is the first time Lara’s future and past have been pushed this hard in parallel—and it signals that Embracer and Crystal Dynamics see the IP as a multi-track ecosystem, not just a single trilogy pipeline.
Horror and the Strange: Ontos, Control Resonant, and More
If you like your games weird, existential, and a little terrifying, The Game Awards 2025 was unusually generous.
PC Gamer highlights a few standout reveals:
- Ontos – a new “sci-fi thriller” from Frictional Games, pitched as a spiritual cousin to Soma
.
- It’s coming in 2026 and features actor Stellan Skarsgård.
- The trailer shows a half-exposed human head wired into machines, needles, and deeply unsettling imagery—classic Frictional psychological horror.
- Control: Resonant – Remedy’s follow-up to Control
, but with a twist.
- It’s now an open-world action-RPG set in Manhattan, not just a third-person shooter in The Oldest House.
- The lead is Dylan Faden, not Jesse, and the city folds in on itself in full Inception
style.
- Remedy describes it as unleashing Dylan’s powers to survive a “reality-bending cosmic threat,” with a transforming weapon that can become a massive hammer among other forms.
This shift—big-name studios embracing stranger, more surreal directions—tracks with the critical success of games like Alan Wake 2
and now Clair Obscur
. Weird is winning.
Strategy, Shooters, and the Big Franchise Plays
Underneath the prestige and narrative talk, the show still delivered plenty of pure spectacle and franchise muscle.
Highlights from the trailer and announcement blitz:
- Total War: Warhammer 40,000 – Creative Assembly finally mashes up Total War* with the Warhammer 40K universe, a dream crossover for strategy fans.
-
Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred – Blizzard’s next major story beat, bringing Mephisto’s arc to the forefront.
-
Hitman: World of Assassination – IO Interactive teased what’s next for Agent 47’s evolving live platform.
-
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve – another high-octane aerial combat entry from Bandai Namco.
-
Arc Raiders – not just present but also taking home
Best Multiplayer.
-
Escape From Duckov – a comedic twist on extraction shooters, getting a new seasonal map on December 18, 2025, as highlighted by Epic’s TGA roundup.
Nintendo and other big IPs also flexed:
-
Mario Kart World – winner of
Best Sports/Racing.
- A
Super Mario Galaxy movie trailer debuted
Sources
1. The biggest announcements from TGAs 2025
2. Two Thrilling Tomb Raider Adventures Unveiled at The Game ...
3. Everything announced and all the winners at The Game ...
4. The Game Awards - December 11, 2025
5. Most Anticipated Game | Winners
6. The Game Awards 2025: Your guide to the biggest night of ...
