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"Long live friendslop": Peak devs didn't win anything at The Game Awards, but they "still had a PEAK year" - just don't "hit Bing Bong up rn"

News
By Anthony McGlynn published 12 December 2025

Bing Bong hasn't had a great 2025, all told

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Peak
(Image credit: Aggro Crab/Landfall)
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In any awards show, among the winners there must be plenty of losers. Sadly, at The Game Awards, comedy climbing game Peak was one of the losers, losing out on Best Multiplayer Game to Arc Raiders. The devs have been good sports about the opportunity, despite a dramatic post or two.

"He lost his marriage, then bbno$, and now the game award," co-publisher Aggro Crab dramatically tweeted with an image of mascot Bing Bong, "no one hit up Bing Bong right now." It truly has been a tough year for our green, tentacle-armed friend, going from one defeat to the next, and now he doesn’t even have a trophy to go with being in a hit game.

All jokes aside, the dev team has been clear that this has all been an amazing experience. "It's such an honor just to be nominated!" co-publisher Landfall Games posted on Twitter. "Peak being in the same category as big studios with such a small crew is an achievement in itself. Thank you everyone who voted for us, you're all peak."

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  • Peak screenshot showing small characters on a cliff edge with a tornado in the background Peak put friendslop on the map in 2025, but neither of its 2 studios expected it to blow up
  • Peak screenshot showing two characters holding umbrellas in the desert Peak lead knows you're a friendslop "hater," but remember "these games aren't trying to be Game of the Year"
  • Peak screenshot of pink and orange characters on a massive tree Peak devs have been "running on pure adrenaline" for months, so "the frequency of patches and updates will be slower"

No but seriously it’s such an honor just to be nominated! ❤️ PEAK being in the same category as big studios with such a small crew is an achievement in itself. Thank you everyone who voted for us, you’re all peak ❤️ pic.twitter.com/YshnJJd1qBDecember 12, 2025

Aggro Crab assisted in the pun-ishment in another, more sincere post. "Even though we didn't win best multiplayer, we still had a PEAK year," the company tweeted. "AND so did all the amazing indie games that dropped in 2025. Thank you for playing, long live friendslop."

That last term is the name given to the trend of daft, somewhat cozy co-op games in recent years. Obviously, Peak is one, then you have REPO, RV There Yet, Content Warning, and you could retroactively apply it to the likes of Fall Guys and Overcooked as well. Anything chaotic and hare-brained, basically.

Even though Peak didn't win, an indie dev stood toe-to-toe with a studio of ex-Battlefield creatives and it wasn't an obvious choice. That's definitely something to be proud of - peak, if you will.

Half-Life 3 hopefuls suffer yet another Game Awards, from a promising trailer that ended up being Control Resonant to a busier-than-usual Domino's branch: "The game was meant to be there."

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Anthony McGlynn
Anthony McGlynn
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Contributing Writer

Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.

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