The big one. As it says, the Gamer Malaya and Gamer Matters Game Of The Year 2025 award. The game we collectively believe to be the best released this year.
And here we are at the end of the awards feature. Every year, the collective team at Gamer Malaya and Gamer Matters come down and build the ultimate list, a ranked Top 10 Games with numero uno being Game Of The Year.
Past winners: Metaphor: ReFantazio (2024), Armored Core VI: Fires Of Rubicon (2023), Need For Speed Unbound (2022), Psychonauts 2 (2021), Yakuza: Like A Dragon (2020), Control (2019), Monster Hunter World (2018), Nier Automata (2017)
Game Of The Year Nominees
- Blue Prince
- Borderlands 4
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Death Stranding 2
- Ghost of Yōtei
- Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
- Split Fiction
- Tokyo Xtreme Racer (2025)
- Umamusume: Pretty Derby
- Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
How The Winner Is Decided (Deliberations Summary)
This has to be one of most interesting GOTY deliberations we had to date. For one, we have one game managed to stay in the top 10 due to an irrational, yet fervent, passion of one member of the team for their comfort game of choice. Borderlands 4, despite the odds, managed to sneak in a cheeky #10, but no further.
Deciding the top 4 was quick, as the all four are award winners. Skate Story, the only award winner left out from the Top 10 list, came in too hot to really solidify its case to be here. But 2025 really is the year where the cream of the crop had rose to the top. Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Ghost of Yōtei and Umamusume: Pretty Derby were moved to the top of the list almost immediately after.
Tokyo Xtreme Racer (2025) has been nominated for four awards, including here in this category. It’s just happy to be here, we’re all happy to put here, but it just doesn’t have enough juice to reach far. The initial proposal was to put in on #9 on the list, but with some bargaining and negotiation it slowly made its way up but no more than #6.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers had great support during this part of the deliberation. Despite missing in every other award category, the case of this being the best soulslike of 2025, through its great implementation of parry-based combat and rewarding yet treacherous exploration, makes it land at #7. Not much case and arguments to be had with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, our favourite kart racer this year, land at comfy #9.
In another world, Death Stranding 2 could’ve gone higher, but with the strongest Hideo Kojima fan yet to play this latest epic, there’s not much support for it to go any higher than #8.
Seemingly by default, Split Fiction became “best of the rest.” With this being a co-op game, naturally there’s at least two person here in support of the blockbuster co-op game to go high up here, the highest among the non-award winners in the top-10 list buoyed by its anti-plagiarism story and the sheer spectacle of being just about every kind of video game in one.
The toughest part of the deliberation is the top 3. Very early on we settled that Ghost Of Yōtei can’t go any higher. It either has to be the innovative indie game, the critical darling RPG, or the horse girl racing game.
In the most interesting of twists, despite a solid rally to convince the whole team in support of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, it failed. One of the team members have essentially experienced the intimate story beats from last year’s 1000 X Resist, and as such was just not feeling it being GOTY. It could only muster a #3 on the list.
This then puts the list into a rather peculiar position. It’s between Blue Prince or Umamusume: Pretty Derby. One the objectively amazing indie game, the other a free-to-play gacha game.
What’s more peculiar is that despite the strong ravings the team has for Blue Prince, there’s not enough support to put it as GOTY. There’s hesitance. There was no argument being put forth. But when it comes to talk about the horse girls, the room lights up with passion.
How can a free-to-play gacha game have gameplay this compelling? How are we now become interested in going to horse races? One member of the team literally went to Japan and visited a racecourse just to buy a horse plushie. It has taken over the horse racing world, introducing a new generation of fans into what is a niche sport these days.
As mentioned in the Best Meme Generator award, Umamusume: Pretty Derby is horse racing’s Drive To Survive.
If we were to back a horse for GOTY, as a collective, well, this is the horse we pick.
Game Of The Year 2025, Gamer Malaya And Gamer Matters’ Top 10 Games Of 2025 (Ranked)
- Umamusume: Pretty Derby
- Blue Prince
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Ghost of Yōtei
- Split Fiction
- Tokyo Xtreme Racer (2025)
- Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
- Death Stranding 2
- Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
- Borderlands 4
Congratulations to Umamusume: Pretty Derby, Game Of The Year 2025!
2026 may be the Year Of The Horse, but 2025 is the year of Umamusume: Pretty Derby.
This is a wild pick for sure. And with this, we’d also like to issue a few notes:
- As this is a live service game, this award is meant for Umamusume: Pretty Derby as it was playable throughout 2025. This award has a chance to age like milk should things change in the future, but it shouldn’t take away the experience we had during this moment of time.
- This is a gacha game, so spend responsibly.
- As the game will likely pique your interest in real horse racing, a sport famous for its betting aspects long before the current boom of sports betting, we’d like to remind again that please spend your money responsibly.
With that said, the fresh blend of visual novel and roguelike deckbuilding gameplay paired with an amazing racing presentation that tops off with compelling characters and storytelling is why we collectively agreed on crowning this GOTY. It’s a shining star that shows the power of video games can turn anything into a gamer’s next hyperfixation.
Check out the Gamer Malaya and Gamer Matters Game Of The Year Awards 2025 hub for full list of awards.