The 2025 Steam Awards Are Now Accepting Nominations

Steam users have until December 1 to cast their ballots for the 2025 Steam Awards across 11 categories, such as Game of the Year, Best Game on Steam Deck, and Best Visual Style. Steam will then announce the finalists for each of the 2025 Steam Award categories on December 18, during the annual Steam Winter Sale, and the award winners will be announced on January 3, 2026.

Some of the categories that Steam users can vote for include evergreen categories like Game of the Year and Best Soundtrack, with RPGs like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Digimon Story: Time Stranger among the nominees. However, categories like VR Game of the Year are more stringent in determining eligible nominees. Except for the Labor of Love award, each game that can be nominated for the 2025 Steam Awards must have been released on Valve’s platform within the past year. Ergo, despite releasing in February 2024 as a timed exclusive for the PS5, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is eligible for this year’s Steam Awards since it launched on Valve’s storefront in January 2025.

Steam users now have an opportunity to decide which PC games are considered among the best that Valve’s storefront has to offer. Voting for the Steam Awards is now open for preliminary nominations until Monday, December 1, at 1:00 PM Eastern. The full slate of finalists for each of the 11 Steam Award categories will be revealed on Thursday, December 18, at 1:00 PM Eastern, once the Steam Winter Sale goes live. The winners will be announced on Saturday, January 3, 2026. Some Steam-specific categories that players can choose from include the Best Game on Steam Deck award, which includes games that have been verified to work on Valve’s popular Steam Deck handheld system, such as Hades 2, Ninja Gaiden 4, and Hollow Knight: Silksong.

Another select category that Steam users can vote for is the Better With Friends Award, which focuses on multiplayer titles that launched within the past year, including paid titles like REPO and ARC Raiders and free-to-play games such as Where Winds Meet and Marvel Rivals. By comparison, the Labor of Love Award is for games that have been out for over a year, with fan-favorites like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Final Fantasy 14 among the long list of eligible titles.

With recent releases like Dispatch also eligible for consideration, Steam Award voters will have no shortage of games to pick from in each category. It remains to be seen which Steam titles will make it to the finalist round on December 18.