RECAP: Everything you missed from the 2025 Steam Awards

The votes are in for the 2025 Steam Awards — all 43 million of them — and Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight: Silksong has earned the coveted Game of the Year distinction. Silksong, the follow-up to Team Cherry’s 2017 cult Metroidvania Hollow Knight, edged out Sandfall Interactive and Kepler Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for the event’s big honor. The year’s other 2025 Game of the Year noms include bestselling multiplayer shooter ARC Raiders, episodic superhero hit Dispatch, and Middle Ages-set RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance II.

Hollow Knight: Silksong also secured the ‘Best Game You Suck At’ award, making it the only game to nab two awards this year.

Steam, the globally popular digital game platform from Valve, has held its annual end-of-year awards event since 2016. Unlike other notable industry events, however, the Steam Awards rely entirely on input from players. “The community has spoken,” reads the official 2025 Steam Awards announcement page. “Your votes throughout the Steam Winter Sale have chosen these games below as winners of the 2025 Steam Awards!”

Steam user-submitted nominations were accepted from November 24 to December 1. Valve announced the nominees on Sunday, December 18, with voting processes running from December 18, 2025, to January 3, 2026.

As the video game awards circuit unfolds, fans and folks within the industry share personalized “best-of” lists and vouch for their favorites. Check out Outrun Gaming’s ‘Best Indies‘ and ‘Best of 2025‘ lists, and take a look at all 2025 Steam Awards winners below: