Lifestyle
Gen Z wants to quit vaping. Can a new wave of trendy products help?
When model Josephine Lee, known online as Princess Gollum, arrived in Studio City for a skincare brand photo shoot in November 2021, she had all her signature accessories in tow. An eerie-chic partially shaved head, spooky colored contacts and a green, matcha-flavored vape in the grasp of her long fingernails.
Despite a recent health scare and an order from her doctor to stop vaping, everytime the camera was down, the candy colored device was back in her mouth. On set, she confided in Julie Schott about her desire to quit. Los Angeles-based Schott, who is the owner of Starface, the wildly popular pimple patch brand Lee was shooting for, immediately felt her business brain buzzing. She’s made her career destigmatizing clinical products like acne treatments to the morning after pill through millennial and Gen-Z friendly marketing. By the end of the photo shoot, Schott and Lee were inspired to reinvigorate the nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) industry.
Others have followed suit. A rush of aesthetically minded products with Instagram-approved branding have flooded the NRT market over the last few years, including companies with nicotine replacement products like BLIP and Jones and nicotine-free devices like Luvv and Ripple. They have a new audience in mind: vapers.
In 2021, 4.5% percent of all Americans over 18 used vapes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while 10% percent of high schoolers vaped, according to a 2023 study. As younger nicotine consumers confront the health downsides of their habits, these companies are advertising photogenic solutions that dress up versions of an old formula by catering to both young vapers’ consumption habits and style.
Lozenges, gum, flavored toothpicks and nicotine-free vapes aimed at helping a younger generation quit vaping.
(Jessica Miller/For The Times)
When Nicorette was invented in Sweden in the late 1970s, it was the first NRT available to smokers who wanted to quit. As popularity increased, their product range expanded from chewing gum to include the five other antismoking products approved by the Food and Drug Administration: lozenges, patches, inhalers and nasal sprays. Look on any drug store shelf today and you’ll find a handful of brands in the space selling five products with nearly the same ingredients, but with different names and branding. But while NRTs have helped millions of cigarette smokers cut down on the habit, until recently, they’ve looked drab and medicinal, something Schott and Lee believes intimidates younger generations of nicotine users from giving them a shot.
In August 2023, nearly two years after Schott and Lee’s connection at the photo shoot, BLIP was born. It set itself apart in the market with colorful packaging, futuristic fonts and Instagram and TikTok content featuring Princess Gollum and her internet famous fashion friends. Their tagline? “Die another way.”
“No one in this space was trying to do anything new,” said Lee, who alongside the brand’s third L.A.-based co-founder Alyson Lord, used BLIP lozenges and gum to successfully quit.
“When I spoke to my friends who wanted to quit vaping, the general consensus was that it was impossible. The ones who quit went back to cigarettes. I didn’t understand how to use the products that were out there [to quit],” said Lee.
Because traditional NRT products largely cater to consumers who are addicted to smoking cigarettes rather than vaping, it can be hard for vapers to know how to use them. Per the FDA’s regulations of NRT products, which has not yet approved any methods for specifically quitting vaping, dosing instructions on both legacy products like Nicorette and new brands must be based on how many cigarettes a user smokes per day. These instructions can make it harder for vape users — who, at best, may know how often they buy a new vape or cartridge, but not how often they pick up the device — to use NRTs to quit without additional information. (Reached for comment, FDA spokesperson Cherie Duvall-Jones said the government agency “recognizes that vaping is a common method of nicotine use,” and welcomes groups to engage with it to develop products that will help people quit the habit.)
“No one in this space was trying to do anything new.”
— Josephine Lee, model and co-founder of BLIP
BLIP’s lozenges and gum (both $17.99 for a 20-pack) contain the same FDA-regulated ingredients as legacy NRT products. The difference lies in the slick branding and educational language that targets vape users specifically. While the company’s packaging follows strict FDA guidelines by advising usage based on the number of cigarettes a consumer smokes per day, its online marketing efforts provide additional information geared toward vapers on how to best use NRTs to suit their needs. A free quiz on the BLIP website, for example, suggests treatment plans based on how frequently a customer vapes, and whether they prefer disposable vapes (like Elf Bars) or pod-based vapes (like JUUL).
The tweak in messaging is working. In BLIP’s first year, across 79 CVS stores, 59% of BLIP buyers were purchasing NRT products for the first time. According to Schott, last month, the brand expanded its availability to 3,500 retail CVS stores. Schott said she hopes to get BLIP products where people are vaping or struggling to resist, like airports, nightclubs and, most recently, New York Fashion Week.
The brand’s sleeper hit? Toothpicks with fruity vape-like flavors like strawberry and blue raspberry that contain no NRT ingredients at all ($17.99 for a pack of three flavors). The brand recommends using them in tandem with NRTs to satiate the hand-to-mouth habit of vaping. After Doja Cat was spotted with one at this year’s Grammys, the brand says they saw a 1,200% sales boost.
Josephine Lee partnered with Julie Schott to create BLIP, a company that makes colorful, edgy nicotine replacement therapy products.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Timothy Flach, a 33-year-old hairstylist in Hollywood used BLIP to quit vaping. Flach smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 15 years before switching to vaping all day. He had never tried quitting nicotine entirely, but he knew he didn’t want to carry a vape around his own wedding this past March. Using BLIP gum and lozenges, he successfully quit a year before the big day.
“BLIP tastes better than the other [NRT brand] gums, which I used when I would run out of BLIP and needed support,” he said. “It’s very eye-catching and cool. I like seeing people that I have admired for years like Cobra Snake and Doja Cat using it, too.”
Los Angeles model and actor Aaliyah Ei, 27, quit smoking in 2020 but quickly turned to vaping. Schott said she hopes to get BLIP products everywhere people are vaping or struggling to resist, like airports, nightclubs and, most recently, New York Fashion Week.
“BLIP was the first to educate me that I was using the gum wrong,” said Ei. She learned about the ‘park’ method from BLIP’s instructions, in which one ‘parks’ the chewing gum in their gums to ensure the ingredients absorb fully. She brings BLIP toothpicks with her on nights out.
“They’re a huge vibe and when I’m out, people are so interested in them,” she said.
While BLIP is bright, flashy and associated with nightlife, Jones is its understated, aspirational GOOP-like foil. Jones was founded in November 2023 by Los Angeles-born childhood friends Hilary Dubin and Caroline Huber. The two twenty-somethings, now based in New York City, developed vaping addictions while working in tech and politics, respectively. Their brand sells only one product: NRT lozenges — often referred to by the brand as mints — that come in an embossed, mint green tin ($69 for 81).
Jones founders Caroline Huber, left, and Hilary Dubin.
(Quit with Jones)
Like BLIP, Jones lozenges use the same FDA-approved ingredients as Nicorette, but hope to reach consumers who are looking for a more subtle, feel-good solution to their addiction. The brand’s packaging also offers usage instructions based on cigarette use in accordance with FDA guidelines. But they’re also operating in a vape-forward gray area, tailoring their social media posts to focus on lesser-known side effects of vaping, like reduced sense of taste and smell. The company also has a free app that uses AI to create custom quit plans for users and provide support from a community of “quitters” — a word used heavily in their branding.
“Our target is the health-conscious customer,” said Dubin. “A lot of the other companies in this space are leaning into this kind of negative or cheeky messaging or their brand is a bit intimidating.”
Both founders used Nicorette when trying to quit, but had the same issues understanding the dosing instructions and felt embarrassed carrying the product with them.
“It felt so backwards,” Dubin said. “I would vape openly or I’d have a cigarette at a party, but I would hide my Nicorette in my bag because it was in this ugly pill bottle. So for Jones, the tin was No. 1.”
“I would hide my Nicorette in my bag because it was in this ugly pill bottle.”
— Hilary Dubin, co-founder of Jones
Jones mini nicotine lozenges, which the brand refers to as “mints,” come with a discrete tin.
(Jessica Miller/For The Times)
This was a selling point for 30-year-old interior designer Kelly Maguire in Brooklyn. Maguire used Jones mints in tandem with their app and an audio book about quitting to successfully give up her years-long vaping habit.
“I chose Jones because the branding was chic and pretty non-descriptive,” Maguire said “I didn’t want to have to talk about the fact I was quitting and other NRT products were pretty obvious.”
Since launching, the brand has received 12,000 orders on its website and its app has been downloaded 16,000 times, according to Dubin, the product is available in two New York City boutiques and has hosted pop up events with Gen-Z editorial platform Byline. They hope to expand to more online and in person retailers.
Meanwhile, some vape users are also turning to nicotine-free vapes from brands like Luvv and Ripple to reduce or quit vaping while satiating their oral fixation and love for fruity flavors. Both products attempt to tap into wellness-centric branding. Luvv advertises “vitamins and naturally occurring compounds” in a berry mint flavored vape with B-12 and a citrus flavored vape infused with caffeine. Ripple calls their vapes “aromatic diffusers” and notes they are vegan and cruelty free.
While the FDA has yet to approve any methods for quitting vaping — companies like BLIP and Jones have succeeded in competing with vaping on one crucial aspect: a certain cool factor. This generation of vapers wants quitting to be as photogenic, chic and flavorful as vaping itself. And in the thick of a larger self-care and wellness movement, these new NRT products are just one more stylish supporting accessory in conversations (and TikToks) around one’s self-improvement journey.
Krampuses take part in the annual Krampuslauf or “Krampus Run” on the evening of the Feast of St. Nicholas in the Austrian city of Salzburg. The tradition is centuries-old in the eastern parts of the European Alps.
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SALZBURG, Austria — As you approach Salzburg’s Max Aicher Stadium on the eve of the feast of St. Nicholas, you’d be forgiven if you thought that, from a distance, there appeared to be a Chewbacca convention underway. As you got closer, though, you’d realize the few hundred mostly men dressed in furry brown costumes were not from a galaxy, far, far away, but had instead assembled for a far more traditional, Earth-bound reason: to play, en masse, the alpine character of Krampus, the monstrous horned devilish figure who, according to custom in this part of Europe, accompanies St. Nicholas as he visits children and assesses their behavior from the past year. While St. Nick rewards the good boys and girls, his hairy, demonic sidekick punishes the bad children.
“It’s basically a good cop, bad cop arrangement,” says Alexander Hueter, self-proclaimed Überkrampus of Salzburg’s annual Krampus Run, an event when hundreds of Krampuses are let loose throughout the old town of Salzburg, where they terrorize children, adults, and anyone within the range of a swat from their birch branch switches they carry.
Members of Krampus clubs throughout Austria and the German state of Bavaria gather at a local soccer stadium to change into their Krampus costumes.
Rob Schmitz/NPR
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When asked to explain why people in this part of Europe take part in this centuries-old tradition, Hueter skips the centuries of Roman, Pagan and early Christian history that, together, morphed into the legend of the Krampus figure and instead cuts straight to the chase: entertainment.
“If St. Nicholas comes to town on his own, it’s nice,” says Hueter with a polite smile, “but there’s no excitement. No tension. I mean, St. Nick is all well and good, but at the end of the day, people want to see something darker. They want to see Krampus.”
And if it’s Krampus they want, it’s Krampus they’ll get, says Roy Huber, who’s come across the border from the German state of Bavaria to take part in this year’s Krampus Run. “The rest of the year, I feel like a civilian,” Huber says with a serious face, “but when the winter comes, you have the feeling under your skin. You are ready to act like a Krampus.”
Huber stands dressed in a coffee-colored yak and goat hair costume holding his mask which has a scar along the left side of its face, two horns sticking out of the scalp, and a beautifully waxed mustache that makes his monstrous avatar look like a Krampus-like version of the 1970s Major League Baseball closer Rollie Fingers.
Roy Huber, from Bavaria, holds his Krampus mask prior to the Krampus Run. “When the winter comes, you get the feeling to be Krampus,” he says.
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Behind Huber stands a Krampus with a red face and several horns that make up a mohawk. Benny Sieger is the man behind this punk version of a Krampus, and he says children are especially scared of his get-up.
“Very scared,” he says, “but if I act like a sensitive Krampus, it can go well. In fact, our hometown Krampus club hosts an event called ‘Cuddle a Krampus’ to ensure that we are not so scary.”
Sieger, though, says he shows no mercy for young adults, especially young men, who he says “are basically asking to be hit” if they come to a Krampus run. He shows off a long switch made up of birch tree branches that smarts like a bee sting when hit with it.
Normally Nicklaus Bliemslieder would be one of those young adults asking for it at the Krampus run — he’s 19 years old — but his mother boasts of how her son gamed the system by playing a Krampus for 14 years straight since he was 5 years old.
“I was never scared of being a Krampus,” he says, “but I was scared of the Krampus. The first time I put the mask on, I wasn’t scared anymore.”
Blieslieder, Siger, Huber and dozens of other Krampuses pile onto a row of city buses that will take them to Salzburg’s old town, singing soccer songs on the way to rile themselves up. In the town center, they put their masks on, the bus doors swing open, and dozens of Krampuses empty into the streets of downtown Salzburg, lunging at shoppers, swatting them with switches, their cowbells a-clanging. At the front of the procession dressed in a white and gold robe is St. Nicholas, holding a staff, handing out candy with a serene smile, and blissfully oblivious of the cacophony of blood-curdling chaos behind him.
After a city bus drops off more than 200 Krampuses at the entrance to the old town of Salzburg, the Krampuses start to put their masks on and get into character.
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Salzburg resident Rene Watziker watches the Krampuses go by, his 4 1/2 year-old son Valentin perched on his shoulders, his head buried into the back of his father’s neck, and his oversized mittens covering his eyes in terror. As Valentin shakes in fear, his father tries to coax him out of it — unsuccessfully.
“He’s too scared of the Krampuses,” says Watziker, laughing. “This is great, though, because this is my childhood memory, too. I want him to have the same good memories of his childhood. He’s going to look at the video I’m shooting and then he’ll be very proud he came.”
Salzburg resident Rene Watziker watches the Krampuses go by, but his four-and-a-half year-old son Valentin perched is too scared to look at them.
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Further down the pedestrian street, Krampuses hit onlookers with handfuls of branches and smear tar on people’s faces. Onlooker Sabeine Gruber, here with her 13-year-old daughter, manages to crack a smile at the spectacle, but she says the Krampus Run has gotten tamer with time. She points to the stickers on the backs of these Krampuses exhibiting numbers in case you want to complain that a particular Krampus hit you too hard.
“When I was a child,” says Gruber, “this was far worse. You were beaten so hard that you woke up the next day with blue welts on your legs. These days the Krampus run is more like a petting zoo.”
Esme Nicholson contributed reporting.
‘Selling the OC’ Tyler Stanaland
Backs Out of Alex Hall’s Podcast …
Out of Respect for New Relationship
Published
Alex Hall from “Selling the OC” extended the olive branch to ex-boyfriend and costar Tyler Stanaland by inviting him on her podcast … but it turned out Tyler canceled last minute out of respect for his blossoming new relationship.
Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ … Alex tried to hash it out with Tyler one-on-one for all to see … but we’re told he got cold feet at the last minute in light of his new relationship with Hannah Morrissey.
Here’s the sitch … Alex asked Tyler to be on her podcast ‘Pretty Dirty’ before Season 4 of “Selling the OC” aired, and we’re told her pitch to him was to sit down publicly and have a conversation about what their “relationship” entails.
If you’re not familiar with the real estate reality drama … Alex and Tyler’s relationship had a lot of muckiness about what really went on between them during the series — and Alex wanted to break it down once and for all, considering fans online have been wondering where their relationship stands today.
Our sources tell us Tyler loved the idea and was down for the appearance with her at first … adding Tyler even said he was excited and thought it would be fun.
However, things took a turn once the latest season aired — and Tyler rescinded his agreement. Alex followed up to lock in a date, and he responded saying after careful consideration, he opted out … because he wants to focus on his current relationship … adding he wanted to keep his chapter with Alex in the past.
Sources say Alex wasn’t surprised he pulled out of his appearance — this is how he rolls — but she respected his decision to back out, and the two haven’t spoken since.
This news comes after Tyler’s shocking elopement with Hannah. Tyler announced his marriage to her just 6 weeks after the news of their engagement.
We’ve reached out to both Tyler and Alex for comment … so far, no word back.
Performers onstage at The Game Awards 2025 at the Peacock Theater on December 11, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
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The first minutes of The Game Awards set the mold for the next three hours. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won best independent game during the preshow, beating out acclaimed sequels like Hades 2 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Moments after, the main stage opened with operatic singers and a full orchestra (plus the obligatory electric guitar!) belting out music from the game.
Clair Obscur was already the favorite to win the grand prize — but kicking off the show with the game front-and-center felt like an anointing. It triumphed in nearly every category it competed in, picking up nine awards in total. By the time it won “Game of the Year,” Clair Obscur had surpassed The Last of Us: Part 2 to become the most decorated game in the Awards history.
As predictable as the night became, the game it honored was anything but. Clair Obscur came from an independent French studio composed of developers who had worked for the French gaming behemoth Ubisoft. Instead of chasing trendy genres like battle royales or open-world action games, Clair Obscur drew inspiration from turn-based role-playing games like the classic Final Fantasy titles. It paired an intimate and existential story with a setting that was both whimsical and epic. And it cast motion-capture icon Andy Serkis alongside game actor veterans like Ben Starr and Jennifer English, who delivered the night’s most rousing speech when she accepted the award for best performance.
“I just want to say to every neurodivergent person watching in this room, because I know there’s probably quite a lot of you,” English said. “To all of you that feel like life is stuck on hard mode, this is for you, and thank you so much to the games community and industry for giving us, so many of us, a home.”
Jennifer English, also known for her leading role in 2023 Game of the Year winner Baldur’s Gate 3, accepts her best performance award onstage at the Peacock Theater on December 11, 2025.
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Clair Obscur’s victories fit with two themes of the night: the rise of independent studios and the internationalization of the awards themselves. Half of the “Game of the Year” nominees were indie games, even as the term has stretched to include titles with sizable budgets and publisher partnerships.
This semantic squishiness is a result of The Game Awards’ outsourced voting process, which polls over 150 international media outlets (including NPR) to determine a list of nominees. These outlets decide for themselves how to define categories like an “independent game” or “action adventure game.” After the shortlist is tallied, they’ll pick their favorites in each category, which are weighted against an open online voting system that makes up a 10th of the total score. As the jury has expanded outside of the U.S., which now only represents roughly 15% of outlets, award winners have become both more global and more mainstream.
Still, Clair Obscur’s ubiquity speaks volumes. Even as it swept other deserving indies aside, the game demonstrates the outsized impact a small team can have on the broader market. No longer seen as just a niche, prestige title, Clair Obscur rose to prominence thanks to strong word-of-mouth and its inclusion on the Xbox Game Pass Service, which allowed regular gamers and critics alike to try the game out without committing to a full purchase.
Guillaume Broche, Tom Guillermin, Nicholas Maxon-Framcombe, and François Meurisse accept the Game of the Year award for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
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Big companies still took home prizes, however. After being completely shut out last year, Nintendo earned a few awards for Switch 2 exclusives, with Donkey Kong Bananza winning best family and Mario Kart World winning best sports/racing. Grand Theft Auto 6 won most anticipated game for the second year in a row. Wuthering Waves, a Chinese game with a huge mobile audience, won the Players’ Voice award, the only category completely determined by public online votes.
Here are the full nominees and winners for the 2025 Game Awards (winners in bold):
Game of the year
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Donkey Kong Bananza (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhorse Studios/Deep Silver)
Best game direction
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Split Fiction (Hazelight Studios/EA)
Best narrative
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhorse Studios/Deep Silver)
Silent Hill f (NeoBards Entertainment/KONAMI)
Best art direction
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Best score and music, leveled up by Spotify
Christopher Larkin, Hollow Knight: Silksong
Lorien Testard, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Darren Korb, Hades II
Toma Otowa, Ghost of Yōtei
Woodkid and Ludvig Forssell, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Best audio design
Battlefield 6 (Battlefield Studios/EA)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Silent Hill f (NeoBards Entertainment/KONAMI)
Best performance
Ben Starr, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Charlie Cox, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Erika Ishii, Ghost of Yōtei
Jennifer English, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Konatsu Kato, Silent Hill f
Troy Baker, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Innovation in accessibility
Assassin’s Creed Shadows (Ubisoft)
Atomfall (Rebellion)
Doom: The Dark Ages (id Software/Bethesda Softworks)
EA Sports FC 26 (EA Canada/EA Romania/EA)
South of Midnight (Compulsion Games/Xbox Game Studios)
Games for impact
Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia/AP Thomson/Hexacutable)
Despelote (Julián Cordero/Sebastián Valbuena/Panic)
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Don’t Nod Montreal/Don’t Nod)
South of Midnight (Compulsion Games/Xbox Game Studios)
Wanderstop (Ivy Road/Annapurna Interactive)
Best ongoing
Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead Game Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Marvel Rivals (NetEase Games)
No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)
Best community support
Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)
Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead Game Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)
Best independent game
Absolum (Guard Crush Games/Supamonks/Dotemu)
Ball x Pit (Kenny Sun/Devolver Digital)
Blue Prince (Dogubomb/Raw Fury)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Best debut indie game
Blue Prince (Dogubomb/Raw Fury)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Despelote (Julián Cordero/Sebastián Valbuena/Panic)
Dispatch (AdHoc Studio)
Megabonk (Vedinad)
Best mobile game
Destiny: Rising (NetEase Games)
Persona 5: The Phantom X (Black Wings Game Studio/Sega)
Sonic Rumble (Rovio Entertainment/Sega)
Umamusume: Pretty Derby (Cygames Inc.)
Wuthering Waves (Kuro Games)
Best VR/AR
Alien: Rogue Incursion (Survios)
Arken Age (VitruviusVR)
Ghost Town (Fireproof Games)
Marvel’s Deadpool VR (Twisted Pixel Games/Oculus Studios)
The Midnight Walk (MoonHood/Fast Travel Games)
Best action
Battlefield 6 (Battlefield Studios/EA)
Doom: The Dark Ages (id Software/Bethesda Softworks)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Ninja Gaiden 4 (Platinum Games/Team Ninja/Xbox Game Studios)
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance (Lizardcube/Sega)
Best action/adventure
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (MachineGames/Bethesda Softworks)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Split Fiction (Hazelight Studios/EA)
Best RPG
Avowed (Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhorse Studios/Deep SIlver)
The Outer Worlds 2 (Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
Monster Hunter Wilds (Capcom)
Best fighting
2XKO (Riot Games)
Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (Capcom)
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (SNK Corporation)
Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection (Digital Eclipse/Atari)
Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio/Sega)
Best family
Donkey Kong Bananza (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
LEGO Party! (SMG Studio/Fictions)
LEGO Voyagers (Light Brick Studios/Annapurna Interactive)
Mario Kart World (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (Sonic Team/Sega)
Split Fiction (Hazelight Studios/EA)
Best Sim/Strategy
The Alters (11 Bit Studios)
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS – The Ivalice Chronicles (Square Enix)
Jurassic World Evolution 3 (Frontier Developments)
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII (Firaxis Games/2K)
Tempest Rising (Slipgate Ironworks/3D Realms)
Two Point Museum (Two Point Studios/Sega)
Best sports/racing
EA Sports FC 26 (EA Canada/EA Romania/EA)
F1 25 (Codemasters/EA)
Mario Kart World (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Rematch (Sloclap/Kepler Interactive)
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (Sonic Team/Sega)
Best multiplayer
Arc Raiders (Embark Studios)
Battlefield 6 (Electronic Arts)
Elden Ring Nightreign (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco Entertainment)
Peak (Aggro Crab/Landfall)
Split Fiction (Hazelight/EA)
Best adaptation
A Minecraft Movie (Legendary Pictures/Mojang/Warner Bros)
Devil May Cry (Studio Mir/Capcom/Netflix)
The Last of Us: Season 2 (HBO/PlayStation Productions)
Splinter Cell: Deathwatch (FOST Studio/Ubisoft/Netflix)
Until Dawn (Screen Gems/PlayStation Productions)
Most anticipated game
007 First Light (IO Interactive)
Grand Theft Auto VI (Rockstar Games)
Marvel’s Wolverine (Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Resident Evil Requiem (Capcom)
The Witcher IV (CD Projekt Red)
Content creator of the year
Caedrel
Kai Cenat
MoistCr1TiKaL
Sakura Miko
The Burnt Peanut
Best Esports game
Counter-Strike 2 (Valve)
DOTA 2 (Valve)
League of Legends (Riot)
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (Moonton)
Valorant (Riot)
Best Esports athlete
brawk – Brock Somerhalder (Valorant)
Chovy – Jeong Ji-hoon (League of Legends)
f0rsakeN – Jason Susanto (Valorant)
Kakeru – Kakeru Watanabe (Street Fighter)
MenaRD – Saul Leonardo (Street Fighter)
Zyw0o – Mathieu Herbaut (Counter-Strike 2)
Best Esports team
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