Country-Strike 2 has won the Best Esports Game award at the 2025 edition of the Game Awards. Valve’s tactical shooter beat out Dota 2, League of Legends, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and VALORANT, to be declared 2025’s top esports game.
The victory was announced during an extremely brief, sub one-minute announcement at The Game Awards, on Dec. 11, 2025, alongside the Best Esports Athlete and Best Esports Team awards.
During the 60-second segment, Counter-Strike 2 was tapped as the best esports title, while Gen.G midlaner Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon was announced as Best Esports Athlete. Team Vitality was announced as the Best Esports Team.
While the announcement was short, the victory of CS2 is a testament to the game’s staying power and quality in 2025. The title has had some pretty significant in-game updates (at least by Counter-Strike standards), with the AnimGraph2 animation overhaul, and additional tweaks to performance, stability.
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But, of course, it’s been the games calendar of incredible events in 2025 that have helped solidify it as a top esports game. The BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, StarLadder Budapest Major 2025, IEM Cologne, and others have helped ensure the game is one of the top esports titles in existence.
What’s more, with Team Vitality winning team of the year, likely for their dominant performance during BLAST events and beyond, it shows just how compelling CS2 is as a whole.
For Chovy and Gen.G, we’ve already discussed how they could be considered the best team in League of Legends in 2025, despite a disappointing finish to Worlds 2025.
The esports segment of Game Awards 2025 was voted on by esports journalists and professionals from across the industry. Members of the panel are anonymous, but can chose to disclose their identity. Jaxon.gg did not participate in the 2025 voting.
Stick with us for more CS2 esports news and guides.
Featured image credit: Valve
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