Obviously Team Cherry opted not to go to the Game Awards because they knew E33 would win, but now watching TGC Silksong is barely seen in any promotional videos and only mentioned in nominated categories. Not showing it in any videos except 1 half second clip is weird but alright. But winning its 1 award and having Geoff say " there it won something" came off as super condescending. Im not going to argue clair winning music, indi title, and GOTY. But I just get not very positive vibes.
You want the real answer these devs are workaholics. If they ain't working on the game they ain't pitching in.
I think they said working on the game is very fun for them, so yeah I'd assume they'd be eager to continue development on Silksong DLC.
Team cherry doesn’t need sales or anything, the 3 of them are multimillionaires(unless I’m drastically underestimating the budget) at this point by doing what they love. So they don’t see a need to contribute, they don’t have an audience to pander to and they have content to make
surely a significant amount of the budget of a video game goes towards salaries
I think Team Cherry just doesn't add much to TGA. They clearly said they have better things to do and if they have something to share is gonna be by themselves, not giving any extra sauce to TGA. And TGA must be like "they don't care about us so why should we care about them?"
That's only a conspiracy theory of course and quite silly ngl but it's more fun that way
he meant that as a "see, you should have came, you expected to win nothing but actually won something" to team cherry. it sounded bad but that's not what he meant
Yeah team cherry can definitely understand what he meant but without that context I can see how people could misinterpret. It's just better in general to not assume negative intent
This is the internet brother, that's literally how it goes every time lol
People are reading too much into this.
Everyone's gonna forget about this in minus 3 seconds.
bro WTF are you taking about?? everyone aren't just gonna-
"They see your beauty, so frail and fine..."
No. Next question!
Why are we assuming that TC didn't go to TGA because they knew E33 would win? It's much easier to assume that they didn't go because they live in Australia and that plane flight is very long.
I think you're viewing things through a tinted lens. Geoff's comment can just as easily be interpreted as him taking a jab at how he knows that people are expecting it to win things and how Silksong haunted all of his shows for about 5 years with people demanding to see it constantly. I think from previous comments like at Gamescom it's pretty clear that Geoff is a Silksong fan, not a hater
Agreed. As someone who sometimes has things featured at awards shows, I don’t go because:
Travel is expensive, time-consuming and polluting
I can’t stand big events with lots of people, and these sorts of events are particularly bad
Awards are effectively meaningless for the most part
If I were in TC’s position, I would absolutely not have gone
(2) is probably the most likely reason for team cherry. they're known for staying low profile after all
If you win an award, they tell you in advance. The fact that they weren't going to show up should've told us that they weren't winning GOTY.
they probably didnt go because they didnt expect to win much and the event was boring as shit
I mean, the new Divinity and the new Knights of the Old Republic look badass.
Sure, but TGA isn’t the value add there - if TGA didn’t exist they’d find somewhere else to air those trailers.
TGA aren’t even respected within the industry. Everyone knows it’s an advert fest.
DICE, BAFTA and Peabody are prestigious. TGA always favors widely-palatable games.
I’m a gamedev and I’ve heard people say at talks that they won’t say what they think about Geoff Keighley in public because if they did they’d be blacklisted from the ceremony kind of thing. Nobody likes TGA or its host, he’s just a corporate shill who’s more interested in making companies look good than actually making a gaming equivalent to the Oscars or whatever
Do you know of anywhere I can read more about this? It’s stuff I’ve definitely thought of before so I’d love do be able to learn more from an industry POV if that kind of info is available online
I still don't consider Exp 33 to be classified as indie with its big budget to hire Hollywood actors and those UI designs and graphics
I kinda agree with this. 10m budget is small compared to most AAA now days, but I bet Silksong was way smaller than that.
Silksong is weird to gauge tbf because it’s literally just like 4 people who were willing to drive themselves broke just to make a product they love, so they’re budget is just whatever money they have to live off of, then Larkin, testers, localization, and whatever else has to be payed for. So it’s more of a question of how much did they spend on just like, living and making a game out of that money.
Like, Hollow Knight sold for around $15 at base and sold like 15 million copies, taking off Steam’s 30% it’d be around 10 per, so it’s probably somewhere below $150 million due to sales and what not. Not to mention their guidebook and stuff. That’s basically what Silksong was made off of. So it’s ‘budget’ could pretty easily be higher than 10 mil.
Or those could just be some even richer Aussies.
silksong not winning ost was just evil ngl
In most other years silksong would've had a chance but E33's OST is pretty outstanding, even ignoring all the hype
Have you played expedition 33? Have you heard its eight hours long soundtrack full of leitmotif, callbacks and foreshadowing?
HK and SS are near and dear to my heart, but I can confidently say that even though SS’s soundtrack is masterful and memorable, it is dwarfed by the oeuvre of Lorien Testard for Expedition 33.
Skarrsinger Karmelita’s theme is one of the greatest tracks on the OST, along with Choral Chambers and Cogwork Core, but it doesn’t come close to the performance of Alice Duport-Percier on even background tracks in E33.
2025 really spoiled us for choice because in any given year, E33, Silksong and Hades II would have been easy picks for me for GOTY. This year, I had to make a choice and I believe E33 is the cleaner winner because it is so good in all aspects but the only edge it has over Silksong is mass market appeal.
I love both equally, but only E33 can be recommended to my casual gamer friends.
As somebody who loves a lot of different games, you gotta kinda close your eyes and shake your head when see the fanbase of a different game complain about getting robbed by e33.
I'm playing through Kingdom come 2, and I see fans upset that e33 got three noms for best actor.
And like, yeah, three is maybe excessive. Sure. But as great as kcd2 is, there's nothing in the game that holds a candle to the best acting in e33.
And that's not a reflection on the actors themselves. I'm sure that if you took the actors from kcd and put them in the ecosystem and artistic playground, with the direction and the overall atmosphere of e33 that they'd be just as capable of rising to the same level...
But like, no. Sorry guys. It doesn't compare.
E33 OST is great when it's great, but honestly, most of the soundtrack is just filler. If you look at the OST there's a lot of tracks that nobody really listens to because they're too long and boring. On the other hand silksong has every single track carefully designed to fit perfectly to the environment.
As much as I wanna glaze on Larkin's work in Silksong, e33 is far more than what you described it to be.
I love Silksong’s soundtrack. That being said, I still feel like the original Hollow Knight soundtrack hits harder (both in action themes and emotional ones). Silksong was more subdued and ambiant to my ears. Maybe the mark of a more mature composer, who didn’t want to impress as much and wanted to be more refined. The end result for me was a less memorable and hummable soundtrack, except for Widow and Bilewater maybe.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Silksong’s soundtrack. It just doesn’t have the same wide ranging, all-encompassing thoroughness of the E33 soundtrack.
I encourage you to watch Patti Rudisil on Youtube. She really dissects the music and shines a light on the genius thought that went into the OST
I thought the same thing at first but now I definitely prefer silksong over HK. The thing is, I wasn't like "this is the best music I've heard in my life ever" when playing HK for the first time. It was replaying it, putting +400 hours into it that made me realize how great the OST was.
Now I'm realizing the same thing with Silksong and even though Sealed Vessel & White palace are still unbeaten for me, SS OST is notably better on average.
You know what? It’s ok to disagree, it means we’re so spoiled for good music that we can’t choose.
It’s like if pizza, sushi, lasagna, ramen and Kobe beef were all invented in the same year. There’s no clear loser here. We’re all winners.
2025 was a tremendous year for gamers of all walks of life. We got some absolute masterpieces to pick from this year.
I'm gonna agree on everything here. I clearly am not E33's target audience and I'm not surprised. I replay games a lot and the more I replayed E33 the less I was interested in it. I can see why it's so loved though.
Idk why you feel the need to bring down E33 to praise Silksong
You can literally say the same for Silksong 's OST too
Daren Korb writes some absolute bangers. I wouldve been sad had he won instead of Christopher Larkin, but not disappointed. CE33 winning feels awful imo
Loved Hades I and Hades II soundtracks. I still hum the songs today.
It all feels diagetic and naturally occurring to the world game. I especially love how they make it so the music you (the player) hear is awkshually being played by a real world (ingame) entity.
Honestly, in any other year, Hades II would’ve won game of the year like they did in 2020. They would have also won art direction and soundtrack.
Expedition 33 is just that much better in the sense that it has a very emotional impact and everything in the game just feels like the thought of one person (even though it’s not). This is the hallmark of great game and art direction. Directing a diverse team of artists, programmers and musicians to produce a game that feels like one continuous thought instead of a mish-mash of varying and competing themes
I respect Team Cherry's approach. And yep, TGC will punish you if you don't put over the importance of their silly awards. The condescending comment was revealing of their broader attitude towards compliance with their mission to build social value in their awards.
I don’t think there is a beef. I think that was a wry and humorous comment by Geoff, answering the Bloomberg interview with Team Cherry saying they won’t attend because they know Expedition 33 will take home all the trophies.
My understanding is Team Cherry is saying “hey our game is awesome, but we know it’s not for everyone and expedition 33 is out there and also very good, but palatable (meaning enjoyable by a wide range of individuals) so we figure this will win”.
Both are master classes in their own right, but Expedition 33 is more approachable by all kinds of gamers so it wins.
You’re being conspiratorial.
What's TGC? Do you mean TGA?
I respect their decision of not attending. The only category Silksong had a chance didn’t allowed the devs to speak. Silksong was barely showcased in the trailers, even if it got the main nominations. I wouldn’t have come just to please expectations, if the game it’s not clearly being given some importance. They already had the golden joystick awards that they did attend btw. What he said was just a comment. It doesn’t matter guys… I don’t know if it was passive agressive or what, I am bad at reading that. However, it doesn’t matter at all.
Geoff and its award doesn’t matter. Silksong and the love of the fans for the game it’s way better than any award.
they weren't at the Golden Joystick, too
I don’t know why I thought they were there! Is true! Thanks for correcting me.
We need a cope of the year award
He said that because the live chat has been saying it’s rigged, which it fundamentally is because of how the votes are actually tallied. E33 is a game journalists wet dream being a game that a toddler could beat while having pseudo sophisticated narrative so ofcourse it would be the favorite of the jury and as expected gamers don’t like that their voice is discarded as irrelevant
The players voice award went to a Gacha game, though.
Apparently the gacha game said "if we win we'll give you free stuff," so they pretty much bribed gamers.
It still shows that gamers will vote for the game they played this year. I doubt many players played more than two games on the roster of GOTY. Actually, i think less than 10% of people have played two or more GOTY nominated game. So for anyone else, theyd just vote for the one game they played
I mean would you rather people voted for a game they didn't play?
Gamers voice given too much weight you get winners like Genshin Impact or fucking the next Gacha bullshit.
Yeah E33 isnt exactly a marvel of game design. Its got good story and amazing music. Visually it doesn't really strike me, the french asthetic is cool but its just partical effects and floaty stones. They just made a slightly engaging turn-based rpg cause it has QTEs. Silksong is an absolute marvel in all categories except it doesn't have a groundbreaking story.
I think you are underselling E33. Campaign on hard was some of the most fun I've had in years.
On hard, Maelle still reaches the damage cap in Act 1 without ever grinding for exp. I took down many bosses without ever seeing their full moveset.
While E33 did a lot of things well, the complete lack of game balancing really took me out of the experience.
Did you play it day one or something, or follow a guide? I’m pretty sure they fixed the worst imbalances in the first week, and also the point of RPGs is to figure out strong builds.
I didn’t have that experience with E33 hard mode at all, in fact in parts I struggled more than I did in Silksong, and nobody would honestly claim it’s an easy game
No. Played it around a month in, completely blind.
Hard mode made parrying fun, and I certainly died a lot, yet it didn’t reduce the damage the party inflicted on the enemy. Maelle’s Percée dealt 9999 consistently before I reached the second act. Much of Act 1 felt like glass cannon vs glass cannon.
After a 3-4 action setup, needing several team members and more than one turn, during which you need to keep her alive? What’s wrong with dealing a lot of damage in that situation?
iirc, I had a weapon that started Maelle in her Virtuose stance each battle. She was in the stance every 2–3 turns and annihilated just about everything.
Again, completely blind and zero grinding.
If you want a French aesthetic play Lies of P its a great soulslike
It has really interesting gameplay for like a few solid hours and then you get good at parrying and realize that if you aren't a senior citizen it's an RPG where you are functionally invincible, and then the parrying gets exhausting and you wish you could be playing a normal turn based game, oh and if you wanted to turn your brain off harder you have the most unbalanced skill system I've ever seen in a video game "Obviously it's balanced to let everyone equip every skill simultaneously"
E33 should have won Narrative and RPG 100%, and outside Troy Baker there is no performance that even holds a candle to Andy Serkis', but oh wait, he wasn't even nominated and I can see the argument for Soundtrack even though Silksong and Hades 2 both body it and the real SotY wasn't even included (Mario Kart World), but the fact it was even included in the indie categories is laughable and robbed Silksong AND Blue Prince of an award, and Silksong is absolutely a better game from a game design and gameplay perspective.
Listen to that parry cry and tell me Jennifer English phoned it in…
https://youtu.be/vtqlFHyWxpk?si=MPa79a1pHnhUZ_R6
Phoned it in? No, she's the strongest VA in the whole party, but Andy Serkis absolutely fucking bodied everyone in that game performance wise and Troy Baker did a literally perfect impression of Harrison Ford and did very well doing so too.
In saying she absolutely did not phone it in by the way. I loved her performance and I had a hard time deciding between her and Ben Starr when voting. Ben was stellar in FFXVI and as Verso.
I love the chemistry between them and the support Ben showed her when she won over him.
Charlie Cox was good too, but I feel like he was on a contract whereas Jennifer and Ben were on a mission.
I voted for Troy but I was just very peeved that Serkis wasn't even there and that Cox was despite the fact that I love him.
Honestly, Andy Serkis did a great job and Renoir wouldn’t be the same without his performance. Charlie Cox, same thing.
I think the difference comes from them fact that we spend so much time with Maëlle and Verso and their story beats are very much integral to the story.
At the end of the day it’s hard to pick a favourite child, but Ben and Jen are up and coming VAs and they really put their hearts and souls into it. They deserve to win.
Love to see their obvious affection and support for each other, even when the other wins in the same category. Wholesome 🖤
The turn based is more deep than QTE's. Its more about builds and synergy.... the parry/QTE's are just extra flavor that you can mod out if you dont like (which is completely understandable)
As a mario rpg fan, having interactive actions in combat is a huge plus for me.
Im not a turn based guy and I f*king love parries, theyre my favorite in any game that has them, so yea E33 having it was a giant plus, especially since they didnt make it too easy on expert mode
The Players' Vote consistently proves that the jury system is necessary for the Game Awards.
Also, games journalists actually play all of the games each year (or at least the outlet the juror represents does), the average gamer statistically plays a gun or ball game and then buys a new ball or gun game the next year.
Also, Hades II is the highest-rated game of the year on Metacritic according to games journalists. E33 still won despite that.
I actually AM going to argue against E33 winning Best Indie, since E33 got funding from Kepler and other companies, and by definition should be disqualified from this category.
Silksong actually got robbed from this one.
Team Cherry have a right in not going. The Game Awards kept making fun of the Hollow Knight community and kept treating it like a joke. It just feels like they’re disrespecting us and TC atp
Apologize for my ignorance, what is TGC and TC?
"obviously"? please go touch some grass. it's not that deep.
I guess all the times Geoff mocked/teased Silksong to then show something completely different WERE in bad faith... lol
In reality we don't know if there's beef... But with what little we know of TC the probably just don't give much of a crap about TGA... Respect tbh
Anyway, I need to check E33 eventually
They knew that E33 a much more (this is not a good thing imo) accessible game in a more user friendly genre and it being the "indie darling" of the year they knew they just didn't see the need to show up to be steamrolled
That's my theory
"Indie" darling
Oh my god stop smelling your own farts people
I'm a soulslike player i fully believe harder games are better
my brother in christ soulslikes are mainstream games. you are not an oppressed minority you are literally the average gamer
The average gamer plays skyrim and call of duty
People who play skyrim dont play cod im not sure you understand what an average gamer looks like
Sports games shooter games and super super easy rpgs
Youd also know that there are two different sets of players here if you actually know what an average gamer looks like
I'm a Soulslike player too, this is a goofy attitude
I dont think the damage in skong should have changed i think summons are the easy route and that spirit ashes suck and if I could (i dont own a pc) I'd personally go and face pre nerf pcr just to see what's going on with it
Soulslikes and soulvanias shouldn't be dumbed down to appease non fans of the genre
is this a parody account
No this is not
Play an actual difficult game instead of ego stroking
OK give me a recommendation
Try dodonpachi or smth
Is there a way to access the og on modern hardware
MAME emulator works for most things on arcade cabinet.
Play Touhou 15 ig
I know there are harder danmaku games, but that's a fun one
try expedition 33 I heard it won indie game of the year
Id rather play ff13 considering what I've played of e33 that's all it felt like
but ff13 wasn't indie game of the year
not being a dickhead
Nah imma keep wanting a challenge
That's not why Silksong is better, it isn't even that hard.
i kinda doubt they would have showed up anyway, but certainly the unlikelihood of winning made it easier
That's what I figured, its just do strange to me that a frontrunner of GOTY is barely being shown At all during the show. Obviously E33 will dominate, but Silksong isnt exactly a slouch in the category. E33 is all over the show in promotional stuff and video packages. Silksong has a collective 10 seconds of screen time here. Plus Geoffs words really rub me the wrong way
Silksong wasn’t the front runner tho lol anybody should’ve been able to predict this was gonna be the expedition 33 show
It was always second in predictions, a very distant second but second means you're a frontrunner.
It wasn’t second in my predictions lol I figured they’d give it to hades II if it for some reason didn’t go to e33
Because silksong is an objectively difficult game and most people don't like to be challenged especially game journalists they want to get through games quickly and easy games allow that
nothing was shown from everybody lmao
Accessibility is bad? You can like difficult games but games that are easy are not bad because of it
Nobody is going to play hard games if theyre not shown the value of hard games which is why accessible games are important. They pipeline people deeper into genres and niches. I wouldnt be playing the RPGs I am today without first playing Baby's First RPG(TM) (Skyrim). Souls games have no difficulty sliders because the difficulty comes from what build and how many guides you use. This allows more accessible playstyles so that more people can play the game and appreciate all the other parts of the amazing game that then convince them that hard games are worth it. I agree with your silksong take tho Id rather they didnt nerf things for everyone because it hurts the feel for people who do like harder games. Anyway, a games difficulty doesnt determine its quality. There are many different factors that need to be combined into a cohesive whole in order to make perfection and if only one thing was the best then there wouldnt be a need to make or play anything else but thats not the case as people often have multiple favorites that are their favorite, likely for similar reasons, but because they do different things better and worse. The high horse is unnecessary and blatantly wrong. Sorry no one ever explained this to you. If every movie was a 3 hour space odyssey slog then I would never watch movies because not a single one caught my attention to show me the value of movies in order to move up to space odyssey. Even now I can appreciate something thats simply fun if it accomplishes what it sets out to do because I'm not able to be 100% focused 100% of the time because I have mortal needs and a life that causes me to get tired and need to relax. Or go take cocaine and melotonin and dig to the center of the earth because its hard or something idk you do you.
Team cherry were really sore losers and chose not to attend, and then actually won an award, Geoff was saying “see you should have come”