Every December, The Game Awards try to be everything at once: a celebration of the year’s best games, a stage for surprise reveals, and a reminder of just how massive (and occasionally chaotic) the gaming industry has become. TGA 2025 was no exception.
Between shiny trophies, long speeches, world premieres, and a few “wait, that was announced?!” moments, the gala once again blended awards with hype, trailers, and big industry news competing for attention.
So…was it actually fun this year? That depends on who you ask.
TGA has a habit of hitting different notes for different people. Some watch for the winners. Others for the reveals. Some just enjoy the spectacle (or the memes that follow).
Here are our impressions following The Game Awards 2025 gala: what worked, what didn’t, and which moments made us pause the stream to message each other, “Did you see that?!”
Monika Czaja: I’m still thinking about this year’s Game Awards. I expected a good show, but honestly, it turned out to be way better than I thought!
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from Sandfall Interactive just owned the night. That game didn’t just win a couple of awards. It basically walked on stage every few minutes to grab another trophy.
A French RPG sweeping categories like that? So wild! It really felt like everyone was talking about it by the end.
But then we get to the Player’s Voice award, and suddenly the whole pattern breaks. Expedition 33 wasn’t the winner there. Instead, Wuthering Waves took the crown. And look, I get that people love it, but I’m still not totally convinced it deserves that specific win. It felt a bit out of sync with the rest of the night. I don’t know, I’ve got mixed feelings.
ARC Raiders winning Best Multiplayer, though? That one made perfect sense. No surprises, no drama! It’s just a well‑earned victory. I guess most of us saw that coming, right?
And I was basically waiting throughout the whole show for any scrap of news about Tomb Raider. When the reveal finally happened, I was so relieved it looked A-MA-ZING!
The visuals, the tone, everything! Awesome!
And knowing that some Polish developers are working on it makes me even more excited. It’s always cool to see local talent involved in something this huge.
Still, even with all those big announcements, my favorite moment was the live conversation with LEGO Batman. That whole segment was hilarious and weird in the best way.
And the reveal about the new game? It gave me so much hope that the next LEGO game might be something really special.
Maybe even the best one they’ve ever made.
Who knows?
Bartosz “Resurrect” Wiktor: “Those who come after” will have a truly tough nut to crack if they want to achieve what Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 accomplished that night.
Winning 9 awards.
Incredible. And fully deserved.
Moving on to the fresh meat we got via announcements , the thing that surprised me the most and made my face turn into a Twitch PogU emote was Gang of Dragon.
If you’re a fan of the Yakuza series, you definitely know Toshihiro Nagoshi. The main director who ended his career at RGG Studio in 2021.
And the effects of that were clearly visible. The recent Like a Dragon games simply didn’t have the same depth or emotional weight as the entries created under Nagoshi’s leadership.
So, what now? When the ship sails away, you either stay on land or try to set sail yourself, right? And thankfully, this time we did set sail — into waters we know very well.
We got a trailer — just under two minutes long — for Gang of Dragon. And one thing is immediately clear: it absolutely drips with Yakuza DNA.
You know, the the controversial kind that isn’t afraid to show how brutal this world really is. Alcohol, weapons, intimidation, and tension you can genuinely feel.
Gang of Dragon delivers all of that in the trailer alone.
And then, at the very end, the iconic Kamurocho gate we all know.
Chef’s kiss.
We didn’t get a release date, and we don’t really know anything beyond what was shown in the trailer, but for me, the name attached to the project and that trailer alone were enough to earn my trust. I’d preorder this blind.
Unfortunately, all that’s left of my copium is…copium. I was really hoping that Square Enix would share anything related to Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3. That didn’t happen, sadly.
At least I have something to look forward to next year.
Right?
Luke Kyle: I don’t really care for the whole awards things, so I’m going to skip that and move on to the announcements.
Gotta say they’re pretty cool this time around. Two new Star Wars games, two new Tomb Raider games, and one new Ace Combat game. Nice!
Especially the latter’s interesting. I knew it was in development for some time now, but the fact that it’ll be released in 2026 — if there are no delays, of course — is quite a surprise.
My initial interest kind of waned once I saw those “advanced military airships” once again, though. C’mon guys, do something different!
Yeah, I understand that this semi-realistic modern air force thing has its limitations and that you can only do so much with it before it becomes a self-parody.
But we saw these in AC7. We saw these in Project Wingman.
How about trying something different this time around?
Moving on, I gotta say I’m pretty stoked for Star Wars: Galactic Racer. Fate of the Old Republic? That’s cool, though I’m disappointed that Star Wars Jedi 3 didn’t get an official reveal during the event.
Still, 2026 might be a good time for orchestral soundtracks, as long as the composers won’t do this whole electronic hybrid thing. Yuck.
Tomb Raiders? Could use a fun platformer, now that the Uncharted series is pretty much dormant (and there’s only so much you can do with it). Looks like the series will return to the roots, with more focus on platforming and puzzle solving than combat.
Anyway, I’d love to get a good 3D platformer in the vein of Uncharted, the reboot TR trilogy, or Star Wars Jedi. Very little combat, very little puzzle-solving, unless it’s platforming-related. Other than that, just climbing up, jumping across the chasms, swinging on ropes, etc. That sort of thing. I always enjoyed these segments in these games the most.
But I digress.
All in all, it was a pretty neat event. Can’t wait for more details on the games mentioned!
Dagmara Śliwa: I went in with the usual mixed feelings.
The Game Awards has long lived in that awkward space between sincere celebration and unabashed marketing.
This year, however, the balance felt slightly more considered, with the scales tipping (even if only modestly) towards the games and the people behind them.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wasn’t my personal favorite, but its sweep didn’t surprise me, either. In the lead-up, it was everywhere: media coverage, previews, comment sections and the momentum was hard to ignore.
Watching it rack up Game of the Year and a long list of other wins felt like the natural payoff to all that buzz.
Other games still had room to shine. Battlefield 6 snagging Best Audio Design was a genuine surprise, while Hades II earning Best Action Game felt deserved.
And Hollow Knight: Silksong finally getting its flowers in Action/Adventure was a long time coming.
I also wasn’t surprised to see ARC Raiders take Best Multiplayer home. After months of well-deserved hype, it felt like a natural choice.
Battlefield 6 was a solid offering in that space too, but it played things relatively safe and didn’t quite deliver any real surprises.
Geoff Keighley promised more room for the awards themselves, and for once, that didn’t feel like empty talk. The show was still long, still packed with trailers, but with more breathing room.
Fewer moments felt brutally rushed, and even when speeches were cut short, it didn’t completely overshadow the recognition.
Importantly, smaller games like 4Loop and Coven of the Chicken Foot managed to break through the noise, which is usually where TGA struggles the most.
Crow Fitzroy: Game award ceremonies, TGA especially, do not evoke any positive emotions in me at all, so I’ll just move on to reveals and trailers.
I think they were alright, I guess? A few trailers did catch and hold my attention in a positive manner, though.
I was the most happy to see more fresh gameplay from Phantom Blade Zero, a game which caught my eye a while ago.
It even got a release date this time, cementing its release on PC where it used to be somewhat wishy-washy! Unless the world burns, we’ll play Phantom Blade Zero in September 2026. Good.
I was surprised that the game reveal for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis got me excited.
I’d never played the old Tomb Raiders, but I was very much alive and processing information when they were new, so I guess I got some residual nostalgia microplastics in me, and seeing the apparent remake or reimagining triggered some happy non-memories.
Hopefully it’ll be fun to play when it launches.
Finally, the return of Star Wars Racer was nice to see. I remember spending many hours in the original Episode 1: Racer and it’s always been a shame it never lived to see a proper follow-up.
If I may nitpick just a little bit, It’s just a little bit of a letdown that it seems to be about regular speeders. The original, iconic chariot-like podracers were damn cool and full of personality the way speeders are not.
What else…
Orbitals looks lovely. Using the aesthetic of older anime is an inspired choice, and co-op adventures are a blast. It’s good that Hazelight aren’t the only ones filling the niche.
Sadly, it will be a Switch 2-exclusive, although it might mean it’ll have some gameplay design which can be specific to NS2, instead of opting for something that can work cross-platform.
About the last one I don’t have much to say. The vibes in Control: Resonant are interesting, partially because it seems to have some DMC in it, which usually is enough to at least grab my initial interest.
It being in the Remedy-verse is certainly a bonus.
That’s about it for the things I wanted to highlight.
Artur Socha: I’ll admit honestly that I didn’t watch TGA — I chose sleep instead — and seeing the results, I don’t feel tempted at all to watch the broadcast.
Clair Obscur swept, and I’m not surprised by that. The game didn’t speak to me, but the amount of positive opinions and enthusiasm suggested that this would be exactly the result.
On a positive note, I’m very happy about the announcement regarding the new Tomb Raider games.
The 2013 reboot was brilliant and I had an excellent time with almost the entire trilogy. Almost, because Shadow was IMO the weakest part, though it had its moments.
Meanwhile, I remember the “old” Tomb Raider with nostalgia, though back then those games were simply too difficult for me.
So, does the refreshed first game excite me? Yes, indeed! 🙂
I just hope there will again be the option to roam around Lara’s mansion freely and goof around locking the butler patiently carrying a tea tray behind us in the freezer.
Time will tell, and I can’t wait.