The winners of the 2025 Steam Awards are officially locked in, following community voting during the Steam Winter Sale. As with every year, these awards aren’t decided by critics or panels, but by players themselves.
That makes the Steam Awards especially useful as a snapshot of modern PC gaming habits. The results don’t just highlight which games were popular. They point to how people are playing, what kinds of experiences they’re sticking with, and which design approaches continue to resonate in a more flexible, platform-agnostic PC ecosystem.
Below is the full list of winners and finalists across every category.
2025 Steam Awards Winners and Finalists
Game of the Year Award
Winner: Hollow Knight: Silksong
Finalists:
- ARC Raiders
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Dispatch
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
VR Game of the Year Award
Winner: The Midnight Walk
Finalists:
Labor of Love Award
Winner: Baldur’s Gate 3
Finalists:
Best Game on Steam Deck Award
Winner: Hades II
Finalists:
Better With Friends Award
Winner: Peak
Finalists:
- Split Fiction
- R.E.P.O.
- Schedule I
- Peak
- Battlefield 6
Outstanding Visual Style Award
Winner: Silent Hill f
Finalists:
Most Innovative Gameplay Award
Winner: ARC Raiders
Finalists:
Best Game You Suck At Award
Winner: Hollow Knight: Silksong
Finalists:
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Where Winds Meet
- Path of Exile: The Last of the Druids
- Elden Ring: Nightreign
- Marvel Rivals
Best Soundtrack Award
Winner: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Finalists:
- Deltarune
- Rift of the NecroDancer
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Tokyo Xtreme Racer
Outstanding Story-Rich Game Award
Winner: Dispatch
Finalists:
- The Last of Us Part II Remastered
- Dying Light: The Beast
- Dispatch
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
- No, I’m Not a Human
Sit Back and Relax Award
Winner: RV There Yet?
Finalists:
Games That Fit the Way We Play Now
Looking at this year’s Steam Awards, it’s hard not to notice how closely the results match the way games fit into everyday play now. Not every game is something you sit down with for hours at the same setup. A lot of these picks work just as well when you’re jumping in for a bit, coming back later, or switching where you’re playing.
Games like Hades II make sense in that context. They’re easy to pick up, easy to return to, and they don’t fall apart if you’re playing on a different screen than usual. That kind of flexibility is becoming part of why certain games keep showing up long after launch.
That’s where cloud gaming fits in. The awards aren’t about how you access a game, but the types of experiences being rewarded line up well with on-demand play. Games you can dip into, progress at your own pace, and keep coming back to feel comfortable whether you’re playing locally, streaming, or bouncing between devices.
The Steam Awards aren’t trying to tell you what PC gaming should look like next. They reflect how it already feels. Play where it makes sense, come back when you want, and stick with the games that fit into your life instead of demanding everything from it.
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