The Game Awards 2025 Sim / Strategy Nominees

The Game Awards 2025 nominees at a glance

1. FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles

Winner: Best Sim / Strategy at The Game Awards 2025

FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles is a tactical RPG built around turn-based battles on compact, layered maps.

Positioning determines which targets a unit can reach and how safely that unit can act. Elevation, movement range and unit facing make the battlefield itself part of the plan.

The job system provides long-term depth. Characters can develop through different roles, learn abilities and combine skills from more than one job.

This creates two connected strategy layers: assembling a flexible party before battle and adapting that party once combat begins.

The enhanced presentation makes information easier to follow while preserving the structure of the original tactical RPG.

It supports single-player, full controller support and Steam Family Sharing.

Choose it for carefully constructed encounters, party customization and story-led tactical progression.

2. The Alters

Best narrative management game

The Alters combines survival management with a story about alternate lives.

Jan Dolski creates alternative versions of himself, each shaped by a different decision in the character’s past. These alters have useful skills, but also individual needs, histories and opinions.

The mobile base requires resources, maintenance and a schedule that keeps important work moving before environmental danger catches up.

Adding a new alter is therefore not a simple production upgrade. The decision changes both the available workforce and the social balance inside the base.

Time pressure forces compromises between exploration, construction, safety and personal conflicts.

The Alters is single-player and has full controller support.

Choose it for management where people and relationships are as important as materials and machines.

3. Two Point Museum

Best approachable management sim

Two Point Museum turns exhibit curation into a readable management system.

Players design galleries, hire staff and arrange facilities around visitor needs. A visually impressive museum can still fail if guests cannot navigate it comfortably or staff cannot maintain its exhibits.

Expeditions provide new discoveries that can expand the collection. Those objects then need suitable displays, security and supporting information.

Different museum themes create new logistical demands rather than functioning only as decoration.

The humorous style makes problems easy to identify, but efficient layouts still require planning and revision.

Two Point Museum is single-player and has full controller support.

Choose it for a forgiving introduction to management games with enough interacting systems to reward careful design.

4. Jurassic World Evolution 3

Best park-management spectacle

Jurassic World Evolution 3 asks players to build and maintain prehistoric parks.

Habitats must support the needs of different species while keeping guests and staff safe. Enclosures, viewing areas, transport and emergency systems all compete for space and resources.

Juvenile dinosaurs add a generational element to park populations. Managing animals is therefore not limited to placing one finished specimen into an enclosure.

Weather, infrastructure failures and animal behavior can transform a stable park into a crisis.

Creative tools support visually ambitious parks, but management systems give those spaces practical consequences.

Jurassic World Evolution 3 is single-player and has full controller support.

Choose it for a management game where spectacle, animal welfare and risk control constantly overlap.

5. Tempest Rising

Best traditional RTS nominee

Tempest Rising most closely follows the classic real-time strategy formula in this category.

Players establish bases, gather resources, produce units and contest map control without waiting for turns.

Distinct factions create different units and technology paths, encouraging players to learn more than one economic and military rhythm.

Scouting matters because an unseen expansion or army transition can change the direction of a match.

Campaign missions provide structured scenarios, while multiplayer tests build orders and adaptation against human opponents.

It supports single-player and online PvP.

Choose it for base building, resource pressure and immediate battlefield decisions. It is the clearest nominee for players who associate strategy games with classic RTS design.

6. Sid Meier’s Civilization VII

Best empire-building nominee

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII operates at the largest strategic scale in the category.

Players guide a civilization through distinct historical ages, developing cities, diplomacy, culture, science and military power.

The turn-based format allows time to consider long-term consequences before committing to expansion or conflict.

Changing civilizations between ages alters available strengths and creates a campaign structure built around historical transitions.

Victory requires more than maintaining one army. Settlements, relationships and development priorities must support one another across a long campaign.

It supports single-player and online PvP with full controller support.

Choose it for broad 4X strategy and the experience of shaping an empire over centuries. Players who want shorter tactical encounters should choose FINAL FANTASY TACTICS instead.

Which nominee should you play first?

Choose according to the type of strategy you enjoy:

• Tactical battles and party builds: FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles
• Narrative survival management: The Alters
• Approachable business management: Two Point Museum
• Dinosaur parks and crisis control: Jurassic World Evolution 3
• Traditional real-time strategy: Tempest Rising
• Turn-based empire building: Sid Meier’s Civilization VII

FINAL FANTASY TACTICS is the strongest starting point for tactical-RPG players. Two Point Museum is the easiest management recommendation, while Tempest Rising offers the most direct route into conventional RTS play.

Why FINAL FANTASY TACTICS won

FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles brings several forms of strategy together without losing clarity.

Individual turns involve movement, range, elevation and target selection. Party preparation introduces jobs, equipment and ability combinations. The campaign then connects those systems to a story where each battle has a clear context.

The result is accessible at the level of one action but deep across an entire party build.

Its victory also shows how broad the award category is. The winner is a tactical RPG rather than a conventional simulation, city builder, RTS or 4X game.

Best nominee for beginners

Two Point Museum is the easiest general recommendation for newcomers. Its goals are visible, problems develop gradually and layouts can be revised without requiring fast unit control.

FINAL FANTASY TACTICS offers a more structured sequence of battles, but its job system creates more build complexity.

Jurassic World Evolution 3 is readable at first, although park emergencies introduce additional risk.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII and The Alters ask players to track many long-term consequences. Tempest Rising requires faster decisions because its economy and battles continue in real time.

Best nominee for tactical depth

FINAL FANTASY TACTICS provides the strongest small-scale tactical depth through positioning and party construction.

Tempest Rising offers a different kind of depth: economy, production, scouting and combat happen simultaneously.

Civilization VII moves in the opposite direction, expanding the scale from individual units to cities, diplomacy and historical ages.

Players who enjoy squad-based tactics can continue with games like XCOM. Broader empire-building recommendations appear in the best 4X games.

Best nominee for management systems

The Alters, Two Point Museum and Jurassic World Evolution 3 represent three very different management styles.

The Alters makes labor decisions personal because every worker is another version of the protagonist.

Two Point Museum focuses on layouts, staff and visitor satisfaction in a lighter setting.

Jurassic World Evolution 3 adds animal populations, habitats and emergency planning to park operations.

Choose The Alters for narrative pressure, Two Point Museum for approachable optimization or Jurassic World Evolution 3 for large facilities and unpredictable animals.

What the category shows about strategy games

The 2025 nominees demonstrate that strategy is defined by meaningful decisions rather than one camera angle or combat system.

FINAL FANTASY TACTICS concentrates on units and terrain. Civilization VII expands the decision space across centuries. Tempest Rising demands immediate reactions, while the management nominees produce pressure through resources, layouts and people.

All six games ask players to predict consequences, allocate limited resources and revise plans when circumstances change.

For more genre-wide recommendations, explore the best Paradox games.

How we picked them

We looked for PC games we price that were nominated in this category, then compared how each one handles its strategy or management systems and who it suits. The ranking reflects how well each game fits the theme and how approachable it is for different players.

Final ranking

1. FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles
2. The Alters
3. Two Point Museum
4. Jurassic World Evolution 3
5. Tempest Rising
6. Sid Meier’s Civilization VII

The official winner remains the clearest choice for tactical-RPG players. The Alters offers the most unusual management structure, while Two Point Museum provides the easiest route into the category.

Tempest Rising is the correct choice for classic RTS fans, Jurassic World Evolution 3 leads for park spectacle and Civilization VII provides the widest empire-building scale.

The category’s strength comes from that variety: six games built around planning, but six very different answers to what the player should be asked to manage.