[From the industry] Develop:Star Awards 2025 entry is now open

This is a press release posted in addition to our usual editorial content.

Entry for this year’s Develop:Star Awards is now open. Hosted during Develop:Brighton 2025, the awards will take place on Wednesday 9 July –  at the Brighton Dome.

Entries can be submitted across 17 categories until midday Wednesday 4 April 2025. Further details on the submissions process are available on the Develop:Brighton website.

This year’s Develop:Star Awards will see the introduction of three new awards: Best EDI Initiative, Best Marketing Campaign and Best In-Game Accessibility. 

In addition to these, we’ve reviewed and streamlined the existing categories. More detail on this year’s category and criteria list is below.

“The Develop:Star Awards 2025 will bring the game developer community together to celebrate the achievements of exceptional games from the past year. We’ve made some changes to the categories people can enter to better reflect the changing industry and are excited to create our best awards ceremony to date” says Andy Lane, Managing Director at Tandem Events.

Returning awards from 2024 include Best Studio, Best Game Design, Tomorrow’s Star and Supporting Star. The Develop Star Award will also return for 2025, which once again honours outstanding achievements and contributions to the industry from an individual or studio.

The qualifying period for all submissions is from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025. Shortlisted entries will be announced in the week commencing 12 May 2025. Only significant game updates and DLC will also be considered for game categories.

Develop:Star Awards 2025 Categories:

• Best Studio

• Recognising a studio with eleven or more full-time employees that has achieved exceptional critical and commercial success during the qualifying period – 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025.

• Best Game

• • • Recognising the game on any platform that stands out above all others, excelling in all aspects of game development to achieve creative, commercial and critical success.

• Best Small Studio

• • • Recognising a studio with ten or fewer employees that has achieved exceptional critical and commercial success during the qualifying period – 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025.

• Best Game Design

• • • Recognising a team that has achieved exceptional game design that exhibits innovation, creativity and technical achievement in a specific game.

• Best Mobile Game

• • • Recognising the stand-out game available on mobile phone or tablet devices that has excelled in all aspects of game development to achieve creative, commercial and critical success. 

• Best Audio

• • • Recognising a team that has demonstrated distinction in the use of sound and/or music to improve or enhance the player experience for a specific game.

• Best Original IP

• • • Recognising a team that has achieved exceptional creative, commercial and critical results with a brand-new intellectual property.

• Best Visual Art

• • • Recognising a team that has demonstrated exceptional achievement in visual art and animation in a specific game.

• Best Narrative

• • • Recognising a team that has demonstrated exceptional achievement in storytelling to create an outstanding player experience – through innovative or ground-breaking writing.

• Best In-Game Accessibility – NEW

• • • Recognising outstanding achievement in the development and application of accessibility features that are wide-ranging, impactful and show exceptional craft. 

• Best Technical Innovation

• • • Recognising an exceptional technical innovation across video game software, hardware and engines, that demonstrates a fresh approach, unique thinking and/or addresses a particular need in the market.

• Best EDI Initiative – NEW

• • • Recognising an exceptional initiative that has had a positive impact on equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) within a video game company or the wider industry.

• Tomorrow’s Star

• • • Recognising outstanding new and emerging talent within the games industry. 

• Best Marketing Campaign – NEW

• • • Recognising an exceptional marketing campaign for a video game or video game hardware that has demonstrated outstanding results during the qualifying period.

• Supporting Star 

• • • Recognising the outstanding work of a company supporting the game development community, including providers of creative and audio-visual assets, QA and localisation, law, accountancy and production, but not recruitment.

• Talent & Recruitment Star

• • • Recognising an in-house team or external company or agency for exceptional work in the fields of talent acquisition, retention and development.

• Publishing Star

• • Recognising an organisation that has shown outstanding support helping developers get their game published. This can include via funding, discoverability, research or anything else that helped secure a successful route to market for new games.

The Develop:Star Awards 2024 saw Larian Studios take home the award for Best Game for Baldur’s Gate 3, in addition to the awards for Best Studio and Best Narrative. Additionally, Alan Wake 2 picked up awards for Best Visual Art and Best Audio. The award for Best Small Studio went to inkle, while Publishing Star went to Kepler Interactive. 

In addition to the 17 categories, the 2025 ceremony will be headlined by the Develop Star Award. Previous winners included last year’s recipient Sports Interactive, Guerilla Games, Team17’s founder and CEO Debbie Bestwick MBE, and Arkane Lyon Studio & Co-Creative Director Dinga Bakaba.

Submitted entries will be judged by a panel of industry experts, who will whittle them down into the final shortlist. These will be announced in May ahead of an industry vote to determine the winners in each category.  

Entry is free for all categories and entrants can enter as many categories as they’d like. Entrants are welcome to submit for themselves, their companies or on behalf of others.

For more information on The Develop:Star Awards and how to submit nominations, please visit: https://www.developconference.com/awards