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11:36am on Wednesday, 10th December, 2025:
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The longlist of the games that are up for BAFTA's Best Game award is now out. There are 64 games in the running for at least one award (whatever "in the running" means), and ten that could win Best Game. The ten are:
ARC Raiders
Blue Prince
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Dispatch
Ghost of Yotei
Hades II
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Split Fiction
I voted for two of those (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Dispatch). I won't say what the other three I voted for are, because you might have worked on one, but two of them aren't up for any awards at all.
As a guideline as to the merit of these nominations, here are the Steam ratings for these games as given by English-language players (rather than all players), ordered by overall rating then number of reviews:
Dispatch overwhelmingly positive 81k+
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 overwhelmingly positive 80k+
Hades II overwhelmingly positive 56k+
Split Fiction overwhelmingly positive 19k+
Hollow Knight: Silksong very positive 126k+
ARC Raiders very positive 101k+
Blue Prince very positive 10k+
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle very positive 6k+
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach [not on Steam, PS5 only]
Ghost of Yotei [not on Steam, PS5 only]
From this, I assume that a good many BAFTA voters didn't actually play all the games for which they voted; Indiana Jones and the Great Circle stands out as something of an anomaly. I couldn't vote for DS2 or GoY because I don't have a Playstation, so I didn't; I know they're highly-rated on Metacritic, but (like Steam) Metacritic doesn't get a vote. I guess some people don't have PCs, so only voted for the console games they could play. That would explain the disparity.
As with movies, games that are released when the electoral college is making its decision will score higher, but unlike movies, games aren't released in the hope of winning an award and thereby boosting sales. Hollow Knight: Silksong might have been getting award-friendly publicity by releasing when it did, but it wasn't released then in a cynical attempt to win any awards.
The US Game Awards have a shortlist of six games up for Game of the Year. Here they are with their Steam ratings:
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 overwhelmingly positive 80k+
Hades II overwhelmingly positive 56k+
Hollow Knight: Silksong very positive 126k+
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II very positive 52k
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach [not on Steam]
Donkey Kong Bananza [not on Steam, Switch only]
I don't know how much of this is down to lobbying or not, because I don't vote in the US awards, but I can say I wasn't lobbied at all for the BAFTA votes. I think more US voters use consoles than in the UK, which would explain how Kingdom Come: Deliverance II made the final six.
It'll be interesting to see who wins, anyway.
I abstained from the music category as I don't feel qualified to vote on it, but given that the soundtrack for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 topped the Billboard classical chart for ten weeks, I think it's safe to say that if it doesn't win the music BAFTA there's something seriously wrong.
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Copyright © 2025 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).