PC players hand Silksong their Game of the Year gong over Expedition 33 as the 2025 Steam Awards winners are announced

The 2025 Steam Awards winners are confirmed by Valve, with Hollow Knight Silksong taking home the grand prize in the fan-voted contest.

It might have lost out at Geoff Keighley's Game Awards, but Hollow Knight Silksong has claimed the top spot on PC, taking home the Game of the Year prize in the 2025 Steam Awards. The annual contest is voted for by users, making it a good sample of what was enjoyed by the most people. Yes, it's a bit of a popularity contest at times, but with the Valve storefront still overwhelmingly the go-to place for PC gaming, it's useful to take a measure of the audience. While it couldn't add to its impressive GOTY win count here, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 still managed to sneak in a well-deserved prize for best soundtrack, so let's take a look at what won elsewhere.

As mentioned, the top prize went to Hollow Knight Silksong, which managed to beat out Expedition 33, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Arc Raiders, and Dispatch in the final vote. It was my personal pick as well, so I'm very happy; our own staff-voted gong here at PCGamesN went to Clair Obscur (a game I certainly have plenty of love for), but you can read my entry for Silksong if you want to see why it ended up number one in my heart. Team Cherry also picked up the 'Best Game You Suck At' award, making the Metroidvania the only game to snag two wins.

Perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising - while Valve didn't give us a direct top-to-bottom list of highest earners in its end-of-year sales report, Silksong managed to make it into the 'platinum' tier of the top 12 sellers, alongside Arc Raiders and KCD2. Expedition 33 and Dispatch both fell into the 'gold' slot, putting them a little further down among the second group of 12. Given Silksong's low price point of just $20 (with it currently only $16 in the Steam Winter Sale), that suggests it sold an awful lot of copies on PC.

Elsewhere, Baldur's Gate 3 picked up the 'Labor of Love' award for long-term support, beating out some strong heavy hitters in No Man's Sky, Rust, Helldivers 2, and Dota 2. NMS in particular has had one of its most impressive years yet, with the introduction of co-op ships completely transforming the game. However, with Larian rounding out its major updates in 2025 and moving over to work on a new Divinity game, it's likely to be the last year that BG3 would have had the chance to pick this one up. "This feels really good," CEO Swen Vincke wrote on social media, "Thank you!"

Hades 2 walked out as the 'Best Game on Steam Deck,' Dispatch swooped in as a late contender to grab 'Outstanding Story-Rich Game' (I'm pouring one out for KCD2 here, but it was a tough fight), and Expedition 33 earned itself the 'Best Soundtrack' award. In a year absolutely stacked with the lovingly dubbed 'friendslop,' Peak was a worthy winner for 'Better With Friends' - it's certainly the one I see myself coming back to most often in 2026.

Silent Hill f managed to claim a victory for 'Outstanding Visual Style,' which I'd agree with - it's one of the only games I've ever had to look away from because I felt physically unwell, and while that's an odd compliment to hand out, it's definitely what developer NeoBards was going for. Fellow atmospheric horror tale The Midnight Walk grabbed the prize for 'VR Game of the Year,' while cozy co-op driving game RV There Yet won the 'Sit Back and Relax' award.

Perhaps the most surprising winner in the awards was Arc Raiders, which took home 'Most Innovative Gameplay.' There's certainly a good argument for how Embark Studios managed to broaden the appeal of the extraction shooter to a much wider audience, but it also probably had the benefit of that massive player count to come out ahead of Mage Arena, a game where you cast spells with your voice, and the much-lauded Blue Prince (our own end-of-year number two). That said, perhaps it was just the one place people were able to give Arc Raiders its flowers.

All in all, it's another affirmation that 2025 was a year where smaller studios and unique, more ambitious creations won out over the traditional triple-A heavy hitters. Yes, Rockstar is running out of games to enter given how many wins it's claimed previously, at least until GTA 6 finally arrives. But it's great to see these distinctive names end the year on top, and acts as another reminder that PC is a wonderful place for even the smallest teams to thrive if they have a strong enough idea. Here's hoping for more of that in 2026 - I'm very much of the belief that many of my top ten in twelve months will be games none of us know about today.