The British Academy of Film and Television Arts, also known as BAFTA, is preparing for its 21st annual Game Awards ceremony on April 8. Ahead of the event, the nominations have been officially unveiled. 41 games are nominated across 17 categories, with the likes of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, Thank Goodness You’re Here!, Still Wakes The Deep, and Astro Bot all up for multiple awards.
Game Rant recently spoke with BAFTA CEO Jane Millichip and Chair of the Game Awards committee Tara Saunders to discuss the 2025 BAFTA Game Awards nominations. They spoke about how the list is narrowed down, how important it is to recognize smaller-budget games alongside triple-A ones, and some of their favorite things about the awards. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
How the BAFTA Game Award Nominations Are Shortlisted
Q: The long list for this year’s BAFTA Game Awards included 58 games, and it’s now been narrowed down to 41. Could you talk a little bit about the process of how that happened?
Saunders: All entries are grouped together into their entered categories and get judged by game voting members, and we’ve got a membership of 1300 game members. There’s a cutoff point for those games, which is in November. Then what happens is that the top 10 in each category get long listed, and then that long list is what was publicly announced last year. This year, Game Design and Technical Achievement categories were voted on by specialist craft chapters. That was a new thing for this year, and that just shows that our membership has grown. In what we would class as round two, all long-listed entries in, for example, Best Game and British Game categories are judged by games voting members to determine mixed nominations in each category.
In round three, nominated entries in the Best Game and British Game categories are judged by the entire games voting members to determine the winner in each category. Outside of that, we take the long lists for all categories other than Best Game and British Game, and we progress those to jury consideration. The games committee puts together specialist juries each year, looking at specific expertise in various areas. They are really robust conversations, and actually, off the back of those meetings, we determined the nominations and the winners. It’s a very robust process. The juries leave those meetings not knowing the winner either. It’s blind-voted.
Q: Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is the game that has received the most nominations with 11. What are your thoughts on that?
Millichip: Well, Hellblade 2 is a very high-quality game. It appears in a great number of categories, including Game Beyond Entertainment, which really shows it to be a thoughtful game, as well as a visually stunning game. I think it’s the depth and breadth of the thinking that went into the design of it. We’re not allowed to have favorites, of course, but I think the fact that it appears in such a wide variety of categories shows that it’s really speaking to all parts of the gaming community.
Indie Games Are Well Represented at This Year’s Awards
Q: Still Wakes the Deep and Thank Goodness You’re Here! are two smaller titles, but very well represented with nominations. How important do you think it is that games like this are recognized just as much as the bigger budget triple-A games?
Millichip: It’s really important at BAFTA that we see strong health in both small indie studios and the big studios. We need both in order for this sector to really thrive. You need the engine of the big studios to drive the momentum, but then we also need to create the space for smaller studios and designers. This year, 11 British studios are represented in the nominated games, from Brighton to Yorkshire. I think that embracing the full ecosystem is really important. I don’t think there are many modern art forms where you see such a variety of not just genres and creative endeavors, but you see such a range in the size of the studios represented. I think that’s really unusual, but I think it’s a healthy thing.
Another factor here, which is quite interesting, is that some of the new games, like Balatro and Thank Goodness You’re Here! are being played extensively by practitioners and professionals in the game industry. For us, that gives us the opportunity to platform those games to consumers. Those games that might not otherwise have got the kind of oxygen and publicity are getting it. The fact that our community is not just creating a great breadth of games, but they’re playing them, they are big engagers in the games themselves. They’re bringing oxygen and publicity to some of the smaller games. That helps us to platform them to a consumer who might not have thought of them, so it kind of feeds itself.
Comparing the 2025 BAFTA Game Award Nominations to Previous Years
Q: How would you say this year’s nominations compared to previous years? Are you seeing any kind of a trend developing here in terms of the industry constantly pushing the boundaries forward?
Millichip: I think it’s really hard to compare year-on-year. Last year was an exceptional year for games generally and for the awards. I was quite overwhelmed by how much this year’s awards were almost like taking a slice through the industry and showcasing a bit of everything.
Saunders: I don’t know if there are any trends. I think we are seeing maybe some indie titles really shining though. Whether there’s a trajectory in that, and whether we’ll continue to see that happen, especially given all the reshaping of the industry that we’ve seen over the last couple of years, we shall see. It could be that there’s a growing trend that we are seeing where, actually, there are great indie titles made by really talented people who have just decided they’re going to go and do their own thing.
Q: The ceremony is scheduled for April 8. Is there any insight you can give us into any new elements or changes planned for this year’s event compared to previous years?
Millichip: The breadth of the games on offer will be a real distinguishing characteristic for the Games Awards. I’ve been in this job for a couple of years now. This will be my third Games Awards. The thing that I find distinctive about the BAFTA Games Awards is just how much people still cheer when they lose. The amount of community spirit is amazing. Everybody really is there to celebrate the whole games industry, so I think that support is what I really look forward to with the Games Awards. I don’t expect anything different this year. I think it’ll be an absolute blinder.
Saunders: I think they are a real showcase of the industry as a whole. They’re a real beacon of light, I think, in terms of the recent darkness in the industry. I think it’s really important that we celebrate the teams and their achievements.
How BAFTA Ensures its Awards Stay Relevant Each Year
Q: Given how the gaming industry evolves so rapidly, how does BAFTA ensure that its award categories and judging criteria remain relevant each year?
Saunders: This is something that we review every year. I think you will if you look back over the award history, just how they’ve changed over the years, and actually post the awards each year, we sit down with the games committee, and we review: “are these awards still relevant to where the industry is going, etc.” So there are always small things, whether it’s around criteria or even adding in or taking away awards or categories. We’ve done that in the past, and we will continue to do that.
Millichip: We try not to make changes for change’s sake, but across all three sectors every year, we review the awards. When you make small changes to level the playing field, to make it fairer, sometimes there is an unintended consequence somewhere. It’s really important that we just kind of really do assess any changes every year and see if there needs to be further adjustment, but only if absolutely necessary. It is through that review, though, that we’ve seen things like the Games Beyond Entertainment category come in or the Animation category that never used to be there. I think they were great additions to the awards, so it’s obviously really important that we keep an eye on things and review regularly.
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BAFTA Game Awards
- Location
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United Kingdom
- Dates
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Annual