As any major awards ceremony approaches, there is always a need to add new categories to celebrate unsung works and fill the hearts of followers with niche passions. It might even work: The next Oscars will feature a Best Casting award for the first time, and the long-awaited Stunt Design award will debut in 2028. The organizers think so Game rewards We will have to forgive if we overwhelm them with such pleas. (Though we may have to wait a while—it took 35 years of lobbying by the film stunt community to get the Academy to give up the Stunt Design award.)
My colleague Claire Lewis has already made this point. for the horror games category. This will be the rule. So it would be board gameswhich is a private matter for Austin Manchester. But Claire and Austin will have to forgive me if I try to push ahead of them in line, because like all closed-minded fanatics, I have an ironclad argument for why my demand is the most urgent and important of all. The requirement is this: we need a category for puzzles.
Classifying art into genres is not a science; it is very subjective and will always start with arguments and end with unclear definitions. There's a reason the Academy doesn't do this. But this is a necessary evil in the world of video games, which are so diverse that they can barely be called a single art form. In order for the full range of achievements in video games to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to have a chance to be represented, genre categories are necessary.
The Game Awards have genre categories: Action, Action/Adventure, RPG, Fighting, Simulation/Strategy, and Sports/Racing. Between themselves, these six categories actually cover a lot of territory, and there's room for most games (as well as broader categories like multiplayer and persistent gaming) within them. As for Claire, most horror games easily fit into the Action or Action/Adventure genres. There is a path to representation there, although it is unlikely and fraught with competition.
Not so with puzzles. There is simply nowhere to put them. Let's take a look at three of the best games of 2025, all very different: architectural puzzles Blue Princepulsating block matching Lumins ariseand cute sociological logic puzzles Is this seat taken? Where could they go between these six categories? Nowhere, that's where. Blue Prince was nominated in the categories “Best Independent Game” and “Best Debut Indie”; the other two were unlucky.
There are dozens of great puzzle games released every year that don't compete in The Game Awards unless they're in categories like Mobile Games, VR/AR Games, or extremely competitive indie racing games. Talos Principle was not nominated for anything in 2014. Wilmot Warehouse in 2019 or Unboxing in 2021. Baba is it you made his way to Indy, Grindstone And Threes! to mobile, Tetris effect in VR/AR. You really need to be on the hunt for a puzzle game submission at The Game Awards.
These are often small games, but the art of the puzzle game makes a huge difference. candy Crush Saga is one of the most popular games in the world, existing for more than ten years. Tetris perhaps competes with Mining craft for the title of best-selling game of all time; it also lays claim to being the best game of all time. Puzzle games are at the core of the art of video games and are in harmony with almost every other genre. Sincerely, it's not a sophisticated but a dead-end niche that talks only to itself, like fighting games – a genre no doubt important, but one that struggles to fill a field of five nominees every year.
Puzzle games won't have this problem. You can fill a field of five with fun, varied, and worthy games every year with ease—or rather, with difficulty, because you'll have to leave out so many good games. And once again, these are games that would otherwise have no place at The Game Awards (especially when the Mobile category filled with garbage). Puzzle creators work at the limits of video game design, creating some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like movie stuntmen, they deserve recognition. Let's not make them wait 35 years.
