Entertainment
You’ll never guess the Grammys video game winner that beat Star Wars and Spider-Man-Michael Beckwith-Entertainment – Metro
An important but extremely obscure role-playing remake has managed to beat the likes of God Of War and Spider-Man 2 at this year’s Grammys.
If you recognise what game this is from, you’re officially cool (Digital Eclipse)
An important but extremely obscure role-playing remake has managed to beat the likes of God Of War and Spider-Man 2 at this year’s Grammys.
While video game music had received nods at the Grammy Awards before, it was only in 2023 when a dedicated video game category was introduced, to properly acknowledge the contributions of gaming composers.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla composer Stephanie Economou took home the first win thanks to the Dawn Of Ragnarök expansion, with the 2024 award going to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor composers Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab.
But if you suspected the winner was decided on brand recognition over the actual music, this year proves that theory wrong, since despite several big name nominees, the award went to the most obscure game on the list.
The 2025 Grammys took place last night, with the nominees for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media including:
That’s two games each from Sony and Ubisoft, and yet they lost to the fifth game on the list: the 2024 remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds Of The Mad Overlord by Digital Eclipse.
The original Wizardy released in 1981 and while many younger gamers have likely never heard of it, this is the origin point of all modern role-playing video games, and its influences can be felt across the whole genre – in both the West and Japan.
The remake received an entirely new soundtrack courtesy of Winifred Phillips, a veteran of the industry whose work includes the original 2005 God Of War and the LittleBigPlanet games.
This isn’t the only award the Wizardy remake’s soundtrack has won, but it’s certainly the most prestigious. The soundtrack is freely available on Spotify, Bandcamp, and YouTube if you fancy giving it a listen.
If you’re wondering why the nominations list includes games from 2023, that’s because the Grammys only took into consideration releases from September 16, 2023 to August 30, 2024.
This explains why the nominees are very different compared to the games listed for best soundtrack at The Game Awards 2024 this past December. As a reminder, those games were:
Of those five, only Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (which won) and Stellar Blade launched within the eligibility period, but based on the nominees for 2023 and 2024, the Grammys don’t appear interested in games made outside the West.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has a bunch of awards already; it doesn’t need a Grammy too (Square Enix)
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