2025 was the year a debut studio won Game of the Year. These are the 8 games that mattered: the winner, the category winners, and the nominees that lost to it.
Main stories here run from 7h to 45h, so there is something whether you have a weekend or a season ahead of you. The Game of the Year winner leads, then the rest by what they won.
Each entry links to a full page with the complete playtime breakdown and where to play it.
| Game | Studio | Year | Main story | Completionist |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | Sandfall Interactive | 2025 | 30h | 70h |
| Arc Raiders | Embark Studios | 2025 | no end | no end |
| Battlefield 6 | Battlefield Studios | 2025 | 7h | no end |
| Death Stranding 2: On the Beach | Kojima Productions | 2025 | 35h | 85h |
| Donkey Kong Bananza | Nintendo | 2025 | 17h | 45h |
| Hades II | Supergiant Games | 2025 | 26h | 100h |
| Hollow Knight: Silksong | Team Cherry | 2025 | 35h | 70h |
| Kingdom Come: Deliverance II | Warhorse Studios | 2025 | 45h | 140h |
Turn-based battles with real-time parries, wrapped in painterly French fantasy.
A debut that plays like a veteran studio's fifth game. Its combat asks for reflexes on every enemy turn, its story asks for patience, and both pay off.
30h main story · 50h with extras · 70h to 100%
Tense scavenging runs where every other player is a question mark.
An extraction shooter built around machines that hunt you and strangers who might not. The panic of a bad exit is the whole appeal.
no finish line
Large-scale warfare that sounds and feels genuinely enormous.
Vehicles, collapsing buildings and squad chaos at scale. Play it with headphones: the audio design is the reason it won anything.
7h main story · no finish line
Hauling cargo across hostile terrain, somehow turned into meditation.
Kojima Productions doubles down on traversal, tone and total sincerity. Nothing else on this list is trying to do the same thing.
35h main story · 55h with extras · 85h to 100%
Punch through the terrain until the level itself gives up.
Destructible landscapes turn exploration into demolition. Loud, generous and built so a second player can join in without slowing anyone down.
17h main story · 25h with extras · 45h to 100%
Bigger, witchier and sharper than the original run.
A new protagonist, two surfaces to fight across and a spell-casting layer stacked on top of Supergiant's best-in-class combat. Nintendo-only at first, on PlayStation and Xbox since April 2026.
26h main story · 50h with extras · 100h to 100%
Faster, meaner and far larger than the knight's first outing.
Hornet moves with new urgency through a kingdom that punishes hesitation. Years in the making, and the scale shows in every direction you run.
35h main story · 50h with extras · 70h to 100%
Medieval life simulation where you can genuinely lose a sword fight.
A grounded RPG with no magic and a great deal of mud. It rewards preparation, patience and remembering to eat before riding across the map.
45h main story · 85h with extras · 140h to 100%