GDC Awards 2025 winners revealed
The 25th annual GDCA awards ceremony took place during the 2025 Game Developers Conference (GDC) today, and were held immediately after the Independent Game Festival (IGF) awards. Now that the event has concluded, we’ve got the full list of winners from this year’s ceremony.
The list of categories and winners is as follows:
- Best Debut: Balatro (LocalThunk / Playstack)
- Best Visual Art: Black Myth: Wukong (Game Science)
- Best Audio: Astro Bot (PlayStation Studios Team ASOBI / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
- Best Narrative: Metaphor: ReFantazio (Studio Zero / ATLUS)
- Social Impact Award: Life is Strange: Double Exposure (Deck Nine Games / Square Enix)
- Innovation Award: Balatro (LocalThunk / Playstack)
- Best Technology: Astro Bot (PlayStation Studios Team ASOBI / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
- Best Design: Balatro (LocalThunk / Playstack)
- Audience Award: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Square Enix)
- Game of the Year: Balatro (LocalThunk / Playstack)
- Pioneer Award: Lucas Pope
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Sam Lake
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the world’s largest professional game industry event with market-defining content for programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision makers, and others involved in the development of interactive games and immersive experiences. GDC brings together the global game development community year-round through events and digital media, including the GDC Networking Meet-ups, GDC Vault, GameDeveloper.com, Independent Games Festival and Summit, and the Game Developers Choice Awards.
