Best Original Music Score of 2025 - Article
by Taneli Palola , posted on 20 January 2026 / 2,194 Views
2025 was a year filled with incredible original video game scores, from some of the biggest names in the industry to small indie outfits, it seemed like you couldn't go a week without coming across a new game with amazing music in it. Still, only a handful can make it to the final selection, leaving many exceptional soundtracks out of the running, but that happens every year, and all the remaining games certainly deserve their spot in the final five.
The Shortlist:
Mario Kart World
(Composers: Atsuko Asahi, Maasa Miyoshi, Takuhiro Honda, Yutaro Takakuwa)
Hollow Knight: Silksong
(Composer: Christopher Larkin)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
(Composers: Lorien Testard, Alice Duport-Percier)
Donkey Kong Bananza
(Composer: Naoto Kubo)
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
(Composers: Woodkid, Ludvig Forssell)
The Runner-Up:
Mario Kart World
The score for Mario Kart World feels almost like a celebration of the music of the whole series, as the game features over 200 rearranged versions of various tracks from earlier Mario Kart titles. Of course, that's not all the score consists of, as there are also numerous entirely new pieces composed specifically for this game, and they are genuinely some of the best pieces of music the franchise has ever seen. This also marked the first time in the series that Nintendo collaborated with composers from outside the company, and that clearly paid off handsomely judging by the quality of this score.
The Winner:
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
I can't help but feel that the winner of this award was a bit of a foregone conclusion this year. No other game in 2025 has placed quite as much emphasis on its musical presentation as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and the care that was put into the game's music over its five-year-development shows in all the small details; in the recurring leitmotifs for different characters and locations, in the mixing of different genres together, and in the sheer weight of the emotions the music elicits in the listener. The score is an absolute triumph, and will likely be remembered for a very long time to come.
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Listing the best OSTs this year without listing Deltarune is like listing the best basketball players ever without Michael Jordan. Gotta say that's the biggest snub I can remember seeing on the site.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP9mB1sVJz4
A shame it's so niche on here.
So many of my favorite soundtracks this year failed to even make the shortlist. Unbeatable, Deltarune, and Rift of the NecroDancer are understandable misses given how niche they are, but Hades II not at least being somewhere on this list is a crime against the gods. Seriously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQFEcBIf8z0
Death Stranding 2 and Silksong by far for me. E33 didn't move me for one bit with its music.
DK Bananza was snubbed.
Good choices in my opinion.
I can't be too upset with this— Clair Obscur definitely has one of the best gaming OSTs not just of the generation, but potentially of this millennium. However... MKWorld was snubbed.
The first few hours of E33 was like bliss for the ears when it came to battle music. Game was great, music was exceptional.
