Game of the Year is the one award in games that everybody argues about and nobody ignores. This is every winner since the prize began: the Spike Video Game Awards ran it from 2003 to 2013, and The Game Awards has handed it out every December since 2014.
There are 23 winners here, spanning 22 years. Between them they come to roughly 630 hours of main story, so working through the lot is a multi-year project rather than a backlog. The quickest is The Walking Dead at about 10h; the longest is Baldur's Gate 3 at around 75h.
Listed newest first. Every title links to its own page with the full playtime breakdown, the platforms it is currently on, and where to buy it.
| Game | Studio | Year | Main story | Completionist |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | Sandfall Interactive | 2025 | 30h | 70h |
| Astro Bot | Team Asobi | 2024 | 11h | 20h |
| Baldur's Gate 3 | Larian Studios | 2023 | 75h | 145h |
| Elden Ring | FromSoftware | 2022 | 58h | 135h |
| It Takes Two | Hazelight | 2021 | 13h | 18h |
| The Last of Us Part II | Naughty Dog | 2020 | 24h | 36h |
| Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice | FromSoftware | 2019 | 29h | 70h |
| God of War | Santa Monica Studio | 2018 | 21h | 51h |
| The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild | Nintendo | 2017 | 50h | 190h |
| Overwatch | Blizzard Entertainment | 2016 | no end | no end |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | CD Projekt Red | 2015 | 52h | 175h |
| Dragon Age: Inquisition | BioWare | 2014 | 48h | 130h |
| Grand Theft Auto V | Rockstar North | 2013 | 31h | 83h |
| The Walking Dead | Telltale Games | 2012 | 10h | 14h |
| The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | Bethesda Game Studios | 2011 | 34h | 255h |
| Red Dead Redemption | Rockstar San Diego | 2010 | 19h | 50h |
| Uncharted 2: Among Thieves | Naughty Dog | 2009 | 10h | 20h |
| Grand Theft Auto IV | Rockstar North | 2008 | 28h | 80h |
| BioShock | Irrational Games | 2007 | 12h | 22h |
| The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion | Bethesda Game Studios | 2006 | 28h | 200h |
| Resident Evil 4 | Capcom | 2005 | 16h | 36h |
| Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas | Rockstar North | 2004 | 31h | 82h |
| Madden NFL 2004 | EA Tiburon | 2003 | no end | no end |
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%
Pure platforming joy with a grin on every single level.
Team Asobi turns the controller itself into an instrument. Short, inventive and relentlessly charming, with secrets tucked into almost every corner.
11h main story · 15h with extras · 20h to 100%
A tabletop campaign where almost every ridiculous plan actually works.
Larian tracks your choices with uncanny patience and lets the cast argue back. Turn-based combat stays readable even when you are shoving someone off a cliff for the third time.
75h main story · 100h with extras · 145h to 100%
Punishing combat set loose in a world that rewards reckless curiosity.
An open world built around secrets instead of checklists. Every horizon hides a boss, a dungeon or a quiet joke at your expense, and summoning a friend is always an option.
58h main story · 100h with extras · 135h to 100%
Co-op that invents a brand-new toy every ten minutes.
Two players, one bickering couple, and a design team that refuses to reuse a mechanic. You need a partner for it, and it is worth finding one.
13h main story · 15h with extras · 18h to 100%
Uncomfortable, superbly acted, and impossible to shake off.
Naughty Dog pushes performance capture and stealth tension to their limits. Expect to spend a week arguing about it with whoever else has finished it.
24h main story · 30h with extras · 36h to 100%
Deflect, do not dodge: the most satisfying swordfights in games.
A posture-breaking duel simulator in Sengoku Japan. It clicks the moment you stop treating it like every other FromSoftware game and start holding your ground.
29h main story · 44h with extras · 70h to 100%
A father, a son, an axe, and one unbroken camera shot.
Norse myth at eye level, with combat that lands like furniture falling down stairs. Santa Monica Studio reinvented its own series without losing the weight.
21h main story · 33h with extras · 51h to 100%
Climb anything, cook everything: the open world that made every other map feel small.
Nintendo hands you a ruined kingdom and almost no instructions. Physics, weather and chemistry turn improvisation into the real mechanic, so two players rarely solve anything the same way.
50h main story · 100h with extras · 190h to 100%
The hero shooter that made picking the right character the whole game.
Blizzard's 2016 phenomenon: a bright cast, a competitive scene built overnight, and a decade of imitators. The original was retired in 2022 and replaced by free-to-play Overwatch 2.
no finish line
Side quests written better than most games manage for their main story.
A monster hunter for hire on a war-scarred continent, where choices rarely split clean. The two expansions amount to a second great game bolted onto the first.
52h main story · 105h with extras · 175h to 100%
A fantasy war where your companions argue, flirt and occasionally walk out.
BioWare at its most sprawling: huge zones, a war table of decisions, and a cast that players still pick fights about a decade later. The first game ever to win at The Game Awards.
48h main story · 85h with extras · 130h to 100%
Three criminals, one enormous city, and a decade of online afterlife.
Rockstar's biggest single-player playground, still being sold and patched thirteen years later while everyone waits for the sixth one.
31h main story · 48h with extras · 83h to 100%
Choices that change who you are rather than where you end up.
Telltale turned episodic choice-driven adventure into a genre for a few years. Lee and Clementine carry it, and the ending still lands.
10h main story · 12h with extras · 14h to 100%
Fifteen years on, still the default answer to wanting somewhere to get lost.
Dragons, mountains and a modding scene that never stopped. Bethesda has re-released it so often it became a punchline, and people keep buying it anyway.
34h main story · 110h with extras · 255h to 100%
A western about the west ending, with Rockstar's best final act.
John Marston's hunt across a dying frontier. Stranded on old consoles for thirteen years, it finally reached PC in 2024 and phones in 2025.
19h main story · 33h with extras · 50h to 100%
The train sequence alone earned it every award it won.
Naughty Dog's blockbuster grammar arrived fully formed: set pieces that never stop moving, banter that lands, and a pace that refuses to sag.
10h main story · 12h with extras · 20h to 100%
Liberty City at its most grounded, grey and unexpectedly sad.
Niko Bellic's immigrant story traded San Andreas excess for weight, physics and regret. Still missing from modern PlayStation consoles, to nobody's satisfaction.
28h main story · 40h with extras · 80h to 100%
An underwater city built on a bad idea, and one unforgettable question.
Rapture is still the best-realised place in games, and its mid-game turn is studied for a reason. Go in knowing as little as possible.
12h main story · 16h with extras · 22h to 100%
Walk in any direction and fall straight into somebody else's problem.
Cyrodiil's guild questlines and the Dark Brotherhood still outclass most open worlds twenty years on. A 2025 Unreal Engine 5 remaster put it back on current hardware, Switch 2 included.
28h main story · 86h with extras · 200h to 100%
The over-the-shoulder camera that rewired action games for a decade.
Capcom dragged survival horror into the daylight and invented the modern third-person shooter almost by accident. The 2023 remake is excellent, but this is the one that changed everything.
16h main story · 21h with extras · 36h to 100%
Three cities, a jetpack, and the most absurdly generous map of its era.
Rockstar at its PS2 peak: gang politics, dense cities and a to-do list that still looks indulgent. What you can buy today is the Definitive Edition remaster, which is not universally loved.
31h main story · 48h with extras · 82h to 100%
The sports sim that somehow beat Vice City to the first ever Game of the Year.
Playmaker controls, a terrifying Michael Vick, and the only sports game ever to win Game of the Year. It beat Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, The Wind Waker and Knights of the Old Republic, and nobody has satisfactorily explained it since.
no finish line