Grammy Nominees for Best Video Game Soundtrack Revealed

PlayStation Studios' stacking the field

by Khayl Adam Mon, 8am

Marking the third year that The Grammy Awards has recognised developers with its Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media award, the nominees for 2025 have been revealed. PlayStation Studios-developed games have secured two of the five top spots; not too shabby at all!

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla from Insomniac and Sony Santa Monica, respectively, represent the PlayStation contingent (thanks, VGC). Last year's award went to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Outlaws could secure it for the IP for a second year running. Incredibly, as this latest marks the third anniversary of the award, Ragnarok composer Bear McCreary has been nominated every year so far: first for Call of Duty: Vanguard, then for Ragnarok, and now for add-on mode, Valhalla, which might be pushing things a bit.

The list of nominated games (released in the last calendar year, confusing, we know) is as follows:

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – Pinar Toprak, composer
God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla – Bear McCreary, composer
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – John Paesano, composer
Star Wars Outlaws – Wilbert Roget, II, composer
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord – Winifred Phillips, composer

Which of the nominees do you think will win the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media? Are there any notable absences from the list? Let us know in the comments section below.

[source videogameschronicle.com]

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.

1
DonJorginho
Mon, 8:23am

Metaphor and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth have been snubbed here.

2
DrClayman
Mon, 8:27am

No Stellar Blade?!?! Are they deaf?

3
TheArt
Mon, 9:19am

Metaphor Refantazio should be there unless it's not part of the calendar year. Most Grammy Nominations of should I say niche categories always look out of touch anyway. It's like they're only updated on Pop, Rock, Country.

4
AndyKazama
Mon, 9:20am

For me? Stellar Blade.

5
Vivisapprentice
Mon, 9:44am

2 for Massive Entertainment as well. And then some random game I've never heard of

6
Oram77
Mon, 9:49am

No Stellar Blade on there, therefore this list is redundant, in my honest opinion it's the best OST in recent years!

7
Splat
Mon, 10:28am

I can't even take this serious without Rebirth.

8
somnambulance
Mon, 10:35am

This is just a plain bad list, but it’s Grammy’s. No Rebirth makes this an obvious joke.

Although that one song from Balatro that basically makes up the whole soundtrack is definitely the best new song in gaming this year. Man, what a track.

9
gollumb82
Mon, 10:44am

Uh, where’s Astro Bot? Follow me into the storm? Helllo? Ugh.

10
BIG3
Mon, 11:10am

I dont think Stellar Blade can be nominated this year. Next year it should definetly be nominated and definetly win.

11
DonkeyFantasy
Mon, 11:32am

Gotta say FF7 Rebirth too. Absolutely criminal its not on the list.

12
Titntin
Mon, 11:43am

@B_Lindz

What a daft comment. One is PC only and three of the others are multi-plat. You didnt even think before you spewed your negativity and hate did you?

I think there are clearly some missing from this list that I would suggest are better soundtracks.
However, from this list, I'd like to see Avatar win as I like what they did. It might just be 'recency bias' however as I'm playing it atm!

13
Matroska
Mon, 12:18pm

Rebirth obviously has great music but for me it's arguably not the same thing since the original compositions happened in the 90s for the PS1 FFVII. I mean, if you don't look at it that way, SE could release a game each year with some FFVII music in and every year it should win awards. Just keep releasing slightly different versions of Theatrhythm, a game with dozens of the best pieces of videogame music ever.

14
Drago201
Mon, 12:23pm

@DonJorginho final fantasy yes metaphor did not make the cutoff

15
Drago201
Mon, 12:23pm

@TheArt the cutoff date was August 30th

16
AhmadSumadi
Mon, 1:31pm

@B_Lindz 5 games. 2 from Sony. lol OK…

17
AhmadSumadi
Mon, 1:32pm

@TheArt not part of the Grammy year.

This is like a Joker moment with how dumb this list is. Like, 3 of the 5 titles are from 2023, and 4 of the titles are the most boring picks you could have. Like there should be so many better picks here. I hope Wizardy wins because at least that's a neat niche pick and would be cool for it to get recognition

19
Starkei
Mon, 3:04pm

Who can make the most generic faux-Hollywood film score award. Nice.

20
Sakhasm
Mon, 4:12pm

What a joke of a list
As others have said my top 3: Stellar Blade, Metaphor Refantazio and FF7 Rebirth should be on this list. Cutoff of August 30th be damned.
Even Persona 3 Reload probably should make this list although I understand if they're not including remakes.

21
bahamuht
Mon, 5:34pm

You need to know a couple things about how the Recording Academy (who runs the grammy's) works.
It's made up of US artists, songwriters, and engineers. They are the ones who submit initial nominations and then vote for the winner. Whomever gets the top number of nominees sent in (there's no "list") gets the nomination.
I doubt many members are avid gamers, so indie's have little chance (unless there's buzz or they are actively campaigning).
And the biggest thing is....members tend to nominate themselves or projects they worked on or for ppl they know closely.

So a electronic soundtrack written, composed, performed and mixed by 1 Korean artist (and probably not a voting member)
VS:
A score composed by a known composer, played by 60 piece orchestra, recorded, mixed and edited by a dozen engineers. (All voting members)

Look, i love them both, but the system is just set up to always nominate the later. Sorry for the bursted bubble.

22
Cerny
Mon, 8:10pm

I guess the winner will be the PlayStation 5 Pro right 🤠

23
Nei
Yesterday, 12:30am

Yeah, the stellar blade ost is really good but I can see why it's not being selected over fully orchestrated scores @bahamuht

Metaphor Re: Fantazio didn't make the time cut but also is a bit of a mixed bag imho: it really wowed me at first and has some killer tracks (that battle theme!) but also has some pretty generic/not so special tracks that water down the experience.

FFVII Rebirth has insane quality and quantity but maybe wasn't considered because of its remake status or reuse of pre written music?

Still...the list is so unsatisfying.

24
GoatFace04
Yesterday, 2:40pm

Out of all of these I wouldn't even know which to vote for. Sony games have cinematic music which match scenes but it isn't fun to listen to afterwards. I can remember only like 2 songs of the entirety of GOW 2018

25
GoatFace04
Yesterday, 2:43pm

Also in the wise words of Kratos "WEAK AGAIN!"

26
gipsojo
Yesterday, 8:25pm

I am a VERY close reader, and all I can say is WHY ARE THERE NO GAMES RELEASED THIS YEAR?! They're missing Final Fantasy Rebirth, Stellar Blade, and Metaphor Re: Fantazio just for starters!