Opening Act
The Game Awards by Geoff Keighly have come and gone, and Expedition 33 swept half of them as expected because, after several years, they still haven’t realized that putting Game of the Year nominees in other categories is incredibly stupid. In any case, I wanted to do my own dumb little award show, mainly because the algorithms demand content, and I didn’t have any better ideas!
You can find a video version of this article on YouTube!
There won’t be any world premieres here. Sadly, I didn’t have the budget. On the bright side, you won’t be surprised by pigs eating vomit while the skin of some dude burns off. I really feel bad for anyone who happened to be eating during Larian’s reveal.
These awards fall into several very important categories that I made up on the spot while writing this award show. If a given game isn’t in the show, it’s probably because I didn’t actually play it. To save some bickering, let’s begin with the Gideon Hasn’t Played You Award, and look, we have a 5-way tie!
The Award goes to!
- Claire Obscur Expedition 33, because it obviously didn’t win enough awards.
- Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, because I still need to play the first one.
- Hollow Knight Silksong, because I came across rule 34 art of it, and some of you need therapy.
- Dispatch because I prefer video games to be games, not movies.
- Anything Nintendo, but that’s all I say in fear that Nintendo might file a patent on sarcastic game awards.
Congratulations to the winners. I may play some of you in the future, and some of you I definitely won’t. Now for the actual show.
Biggest Surprise
This award goes to Elden Ring Nightreign. Nightreign wins the biggest surprise award because I paid no attention to it until two days before it released, and it ended up being one of my favorite games of the year. I still haven’t actually gotten around to playing base Elden Ring, so I assumed Nightreign was just more of it, and I wasn’t going to bother.
Then I saw that Nightreign did two things very different compared to other souls games. It was a highly replayable run-based game in the same vein as a rogue-lite, and secondly, FromSoftware finally made a soulslike where you can actually play with your friends the whole time. Well, assuming they are all on the same platform, because even though it’s 2025, they opted against crossplay. Two steps forward, 1 step backwards, come on FromSoft, be better.
Nightreign tickles me in all the right places. I love replayable games, which makes rogue-lites one of my top genres. In Nightreign, matches last around an hour, and my build changes between matches. In something like base Elden Ring, I’d be more or less stuck with one playstyle all the way through its 100+ hour commitment.
You get all that fantastic fun soulslike combat and awesome boss fights distilled down into snack-sized bites. Adapting your build while you play as you plot a route around the map is also a ton of fun. It’s a game I’ve put a ton of time into, and I plan on putting in a bunch more. Nightreign wasn’t a surprise release, but for me it was, and my love for it was entirely unexpected.
Biggest Disappointment
The award goes to Death Stranding 2. Death Stranding 2 isn’t just one of my biggest disappointments of the year. It’s one of my biggest disappointments ever. It hurt me so much that reviewing it wasn’t enough. I had to put out an extra video justifying my soul-crushing disappointment. I loved the first Death Stranding, and I felt like I was being punished for being a fan.
Death Stranding 2 wasn’t designed for me, or for anyone who connected with the first game. It was made for the masses that derided it, that’s right, a game about pod babies, goopy ghosts, and delivering packages on foot was dumbed down for mass appeal. Essentially, Death Stranding 2 sanded down its entire gameplay loop. The whole game is about overcoming treacherous terrain using a variety of tools.
Death Stranding 2 gives you a ton of tools, but the map is designed so that there is a straightforward, flat, and unobstructed path between destinations. You never need those tools. You can just hold the thumbstick and walk or drive to any destination, no problem. It completely throws away its whole concept.
The first game was wrongly called a walking simulator, but the sequel unironically molded itself into that criticism. The engaging gameplay, the problem-solving, it’s all gone. That breaks my heart.
Runner Up
Battlefield 6 is a runner-up because I’m a longtime fan of the series, and well, there is a reason I haven’t reviewed it. That reason is, I can’t be arsed to play anymore of it to take footage or screenshots. It’s not a Battlefield game, it’s a TikTok reel in video game form, it’s Attention Deficient Disorder, the shooter, I’m allowed to say that, I have ADHD. Battlefield 6 isn’t Battlefield, it’s Call of Duty with vehicles.
The game is all about running and dying within 3 seconds of spawning because the developers seem to think that if you go longer than that without being dazzled by an explosion, you might wander off into traffic. The slower-paced, methodical gameplay is gone. It’s just chaos, but chaos without a purpose other than being chaos. The chaos is unrefined, unstructured, like detonating dynamite in the kitchen. Sure, utensils go flying, and plates shatter, but for no purpose other than to blow up the kitchen. The world didn’t need another Call of Duty, and it got one.
Second Biggest Disappointment
As it turns out, 2025 was a disappointing year for me, which means a second award. This one goes to Monster Hunter Wilds! Monster Hunter Wilds got the Death Stranding 2 treatment and streamlined itself to death for that all-mighty mass appeal dollar. Monster Hunter Wilds is incredibly easy to the point of being mind-numbingly dull. I even came up with house rules to make it harder, and they didn’t work because the game is that easy.
I’m not talking out of my butt either. The Monster Hunter Wilds director admitted this and has since asked veterans to return and try again since they have released more challenging updates. But for me, it’s too little too late. Adding a couple of challenging monsters post-release doesn’t erase the fact that the entire $70 game I already bought is still watered down.
You would have to overhaul the entire game to win me back. You don’t get to throw long-time fans aside like trash and then try to offer us a scrap of meat and expect us to jump for joy. Screw you, Capcom!
Most Anticipated
The winner for this award is Total War: Warhammer 40k. I’m a huge fan of the fantasy Total Warhammer. There’s nothing really like Total War out there. The blend of turn-based empire building and real-time battles is pretty unique. But there’s more than that. The real-time large-scale battles not only look cool, but they also function differently than almost any other game.
You aren’t just smashing stat blocks against each other. The animations of the individual units in each platoon actually matter. Arrows deal damage to where they hit, each projectile is a physical entity. When a big monster disrupts a group of infantry, that matters. Individuals in a group have to be able to physically attack to do damage. It makes the combat more dynamic and makes a unit’s true capabilities more than its stat page.
Furthermore, Total Warhammer has deep, deep replayability, and if you have deep pockets for the massive amount of DLC, its replay value is endless.
To see the 40k universe realized in that system is something I have been hoping for years. While there isn’t a ton of information on it yet, the mere fact that it exists makes it the game I’m most excited for.
Runner Up
Menace is a new game made by Overhype Studios, the folks who made Battle Brothers. Menace is the studio’s take on an X-COM-style game, and if you’ve played Battle Brothers, you probably understand why that’s exciting. You use soldiers in turn-based combat, but also have access to vehicles and mechs. Battle Brothers is such a great game that Menace almost took the top spot for my most anticipated game.
The only thing holding it back is the fact that it’s going to be released in early access. These days, I prefer to get the full experience right away when I buy a game, so the early access release dampens my enthusiasm a bit. Regardless, I’ll be eyeing Menace closely.
Least Anticipated
Annnnd the least anticipated award goes to the potential impending doom of the gaming industry due to the skyrocketing price of RAM. If you have been living under a rock, AI Data Centers are swallowing up RAM production, causing prices to skyrocket. This makes building or upgrading PCs even more expensive, but it will also affect console prices eventually.
Not to sound dramatic, but this is very, very bad. It has the potential to completely crash the entire industry, as it may make affording the means to continue playing games prohibitively expensive. Heck, even dev costs can go up, because guess what developers use to develop games? That’s right! Computers!
An entire entertainment medium may be irreparably damaged, and what do we get in return? Soulless AI art, rising unemployment, and chatbots that feed you incorrect information! Hooray!
I hate this timeline.
Worst Ongoing
I was going to do a best ongoing award, but it would just go to No Man’s Sky, and it has won enough of those. Instead, here’s The Worst Ongoing Game Award goes to Helldivers 2! Here is a not-so-fun little fact. When Helldivers 2 was first released, I was mentally in a rough spot, and I had really started to feel that the game industry was throwing me aside. I didn’t feel like they made the type of games I really enjoyed anymore.
When Helldivers 2 released, it brought my faith back. In a sea of generic slop that catered to the lowest common denominator, there was Helldivers 2. Just like the first Helldivers, Helldivers 2 was a very challenging game that focused on intense teamwork to succeed. You couldn’t succeed on higher difficulties alone, and you had to play smart. Heck Arrowheads’ company motto was “A Game for Everyone is a Game for No one.”
I have great memories of myself and other players covering each other. One person would hold back a tide of giant bugs while the rocket guy blew off a Chargers’ Leg armor, while a third person let loose with a machine gun into the now exposed fleshy leg. There was an amazing level of teamwork that arose organically through necessity in order to succeed, and it felt amazing.
That’s all gone now. Over time, a whiny online community and spineless dev team reworked the game into a cookie-cutter horde shooter and lone wolf fantasy. Teamwork is non-existent because it’s no longer required at all. Any semblance of tactics is gone. It’s just point and shoot with overpowered weaponry now. I’ve never had the rug pulled from under me in a game so badly.
Literally, one of the devs mentioned on a stream that they can’t just add greater difficulties because “Some players want a chill experience and also to play on the highest difficulty”. That’s…that’s an oxymoron, and it’s what Arrowhead is catering to. I hope they ripped that motto down from their offices.
Honestly, any fans who enjoyed the game’s original vision should be refunded. Helldivers 2 isn’t the game that was advertised or the one we bought. It’s an entirely different game now.
Blast from the Past Awards
I’m not the type of person who only seeks out and plays the hottest new thing. Heck, one of the biggest qualities I look for in a game is high replay value. I don’t consume video games to move on to the next one. I look for sandbox experiences I can play and explore over and over again. So here are a number of games that are getting the Blast from the Past awards, because they may not have come out this year, but I keep playing them.
Age of Wonders 4
Age of Wonders 4 is an incredible turn-based 4X game and one of the most customizable ones out there, especially if you opt to buy the growing number of DLCs. It’s definitely a game I keep coming back to. I haven’t had much time to dig deep into its two most recent DLCs, but I fully intend to.
Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries
Mercenaries is a giant sandbox mech game as opposed to the linear story structure of Clans. I initially hated that clans existed, but the developer has been supporting both with new content and DLC, so I’m happy. Mercenaries just gives me that endless replayability alongside its awesome mech stomping action that I adore.
Total War: Warhammer 3
I already said a decent amount about this game, but it’s one I keep coming back to, and I don’t see that stopping until the 40k Total War game releases. The recent DLC and overhaul of Norsca and High Elves has me hooked in deep, waging Total War. Once I’m done writing this award show, I’ll probably be playing it.
Curious Expedition 2
As many of you know, I also cover board games, and Curious Expedition 2 is like one large, deep board game video game hybrid that’s purely single player. It has that organic storytelling component that I’m always on about, every adventure is its own story that develops from the gameplay mechanics, and I can’t get enough of it.
Wild Bastards
Wild Bastards is a really unique shooter rogue-lite that didn’t get anywhere near enough love. Calling it a shooter is a disservice; however, it’s a strategy shooter. Strategy and on-the-fly tactics carry you through the game as much as a quick trigger finger.
Remnant 2
Remnant 2 is, in my opinion, one of the best games to release this generation. It’s a soulslike shooter with some of the best-feeling combat I’ve played. Furthermore, the replay value is off the charts. After several playthroughs and over 150 hours, I still come across stuff I haven’t seen before. It has some of the best slow-burning character building I’ve ever played as well.
Oxygen Not Included
Oxygen Not Included is a game I appreciate because it’s unrepentantly complex. If you want to play this colony sim, you have to figure out how to deal with the weights of different gases, liquid physics, and all kinds of complex subsystems. It’s addictive, and a game that makes you feel really smart when you come up with a clever solution.
Mount & Blade Bannerlord
Imagine being a foot soldier in Total War, and that’s what you get in Mount & Blade. It can be janky at times, but it captures the scale of a medieval battlefield better than any other game I’ve played. You command your troops, but you really are just one person out of hundreds in a battle, and it feels good to take part in. I’m excited to jump into its new DLC that includes ships and naval battles.
Rimworld
One of the greatest games ever made and the king of organic storytelling. Every colony is a story of successes and failures, love, death, tragedy, and coming back from the brink. Don’t be fooled by its simplistic graphics. It’s one of the deepest games around, and is fueled by an incredible modding community that further expands the types of stories you can tell in it.
Quickfire Awards
Here are some quickfire awards for brevity.
The Squid Games Award, because I swear I’ve already played them before. This award goes to Hades 2 and Ghost of Yotei!
Best Board Game Award, because I cover those, too.
This award goes to Gloomhaven 2nd Edition!
The almost great but not quite ongoing game award
This award goes to No Man’s Sky. Please, Shaun, add some friction to the game, some challenge! I beg of you!
The Dead on Arrival Award.
This award goes to Wildgate. I’m so sorry.
The Proof that RPGs desperately need to bring back level scaling award.
This award goes to Avowed!
The, no really, level scaling is great, and I’ll die on this hill award.
This award goes to me, Gideon, because I’m right.
The best YouTube Viewers/Blog Readers award.
And the award goes to…all of you, yes all 5 of you that will actually read this. Thank you so much for listening to me rant and yap. I appreciate you all.
Gideon’s Game of The Year 2025
Here it is, the star of the show. The best of the best, my game of the year of 2025.
The award goes to! Umamusume: Pretty Derby
I’m kidding. Seriously, though, I had no idea what this game was until I looked it up for this joke, and…why the heck does it look fun? I’m a 37-year-old man. I can’t have that on my Steam profile.
My real game of the year award goes to Arc Raiders. I’m so addicted to Arc Raiders that I’ve fallen behind on my content creation schedule, leading me to throw together a crappy award show to buy me time to put out something with actual substance.
Arc Raider just gets a lot right. The combat, the movement, it’s all fluid and feels really good. It has all the tension that a good extraction shooter should have, as every potential death has stakes to it. Yet, it’s also designed in such a way that the playerbase is organically encouraged to work together, not everyone is shoot on sight. There are some really interesting social dynamics at play on a level I’ve never really seen in a game before.
The sound design is incredible, and the way the Arcs move is realistic and physical. It’s nearly a masterpiece, so it’s a shame that it’s marred by horrendous AI voice-overs. Yeah, I broke a personal rule here and covered a game with generative AI.
But explaining myself here in a goofy award show that most folks aren’t going to see is pointless. So for now, I will say that I don’t like the inclusion of Gen AI in Arc Raiders at all.
I will also say that there’s a little bit more nuance to my stance than being 100% against AI, and that you have to be careful because those pushing Gen AI want you to deal in absolutes. It allows them to shove non-Gen AI technology under the same umbrella as Gen AI to obfuscate the issue and force you into untenable positions.
I’m still against Gen AI and also a hypocrite, we will leave it at that for now.
Barring that, Arc Raiders is one of the best multiplayer games I’ve played in years. Much like Helldivers 2 before it was butchered, Arc Raiders somewhat reignited my faith that games can still be made for me, and that those games can still be popular. What do I mean by that? Well, Arc Raiders isn’t trying to jam dopamine into your eyes with every second of gameplay.
It’s a slower-paced game. Heck, some rounds you may not even fire a shot! That’s nearly unheard of in today’s gaming climate. The slower pace doesn’t mean it’s boring, however. There is an ever-present tension due to the presence of other players that could be friend or foe. The Arc themselves are also lethal, and a wrong move near them could end in you going back to the lobby and losing your loot.
It’s such a nice change of pace from video games that are constantly designed to compete with short-form videos, which is a battle they can’t win.
And there we have it. That concludes The Gideon’s Game Awards 2025. I don’t have anything special to end the show with. I planned on showing clips of the game from next year’s Dead on Arrival award, but Geoff Keighly already beat me to it and ended his show with Highguard.
