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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsThere is no single award-independent winner for “the best RPG of 2025.” Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won The Game Awards’ Best RPG and Game of the Year; the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences named Metaphor: ReFantazio its 2025 Role Playing Game of the Year. The right answer depends on which award—or which qualities you value.
Which RPG won The Game Awards’ 2025 award?
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won Best RPG at The Game Awards 2025. The category also included Avowed, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Monster Hunter Wilds, and The Outer Worlds 2. The same game won the event’s overall Game of the Year award. The Game Awards’ Best RPG results and its year-end announcement list its other wins, including Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Score and Music, Best Performance, Best Independent Game, and Best Debut Indie Game.
Which RPG won the Academy’s 2025 award?
Metaphor: ReFantazio won the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’ 2025 Role Playing Game of the Year. Its nominees were Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. The Academy’s category definition focuses on assuming one or more character roles and developing abilities, statistics, or traits in a persistent world. That scope is one reason award categories and their winners need not match. See the Academy’s category details.
Why did different organizations choose different games?
These are separate awards, decided under different organizations’ categories and processes—not a unified vote on one objectively best game. The Game Awards named Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 its genre winner, while the Academy selected Metaphor: ReFantazio for its RPG category. The Japan Game Awards also gave Metaphor: ReFantazio its 2025 Grand Award, but that is an overall award, not an RPG-specific prize. Its description cites the game’s fantasy setting and throne conflict after the king’s murder, as well as its story, battle system, music, interface, and play volume. The Japan Game Awards’ 2025 awarded games lists its platforms as Xbox Series X|S, Windows, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Steam.
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#1 Best Overall
Editorial awards offer another yardstick. RPGamer’s Best of 2025 awards, published January 31, 2026, separate picks into categories including turn-based, action, and strategy RPGs, alongside story, dialogue, and game of the year. That kind of breakdown is useful because “best” can mean different things to different players.
Does “of 2025” mean both games came out in 2025?
No. Metaphor: ReFantazio launched on October 11, 2024, according to ATLUS and the PlayStation Blog. Its 2025 honors are awards for that award cycle; they do not make it a 2025 release. The available award information does not establish one shared eligibility cutoff used by every organization, so the award year should not be treated as a release-year label.
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Which award winner should you choose?
Use the awards as recognition, then match the game to what you want from an RPG. The award results establish who won each organization’s prize, not which game every player will prefer.
- Start with the category: for The Game Awards’ 2025 Best RPG, choose Clair Obscur: Expedition 33; for the Academy’s Role Playing Game of the Year, choose Metaphor: ReFantazio.
- Consider what you want from the game: combat style, story and characters, RPG-system depth, pacing, and the time commitment are useful comparison points. These are personal decision criteria, not findings measured by the awards.
- Check platform access: confirm that the game is available for the system you own. The Japan Game Awards lists Metaphor: ReFantazio on Xbox Series X|S, Windows, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Steam.
- Read broader reviews for a personal-fit decision: awards are a useful signal of recognition, but an award list is not a firsthand review or a comprehensive ranking of every RPG released during the year.
Is Metaphor: ReFantazio a 2025 RPG?
It won awards in the 2025 cycle, including the Academy’s Role Playing Game of the Year, but its release date was October 11, 2024. Award year and release year are different.
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