Two Gold, two Silver and one Bronze for a game that turned a public-safety campaign into an interactive experience.
The Final Exam received five trophies at The Clios in 2025: 2 Gold, 2 Silver and 1 Bronze. Webcore’s project record lists Gold in Digital/Mobile and PR, Silver in Direct and PR, and Bronze in Creative Use of Media. The project’s full award history is documented in Webcore’s case.
For Flutu, the Clio result is another useful example of game audio operating inside something larger than a conventional game release.
The project had to work as gameplay, communication and advocacy at the same time.
The 2025 Clio Result
The Final Exam received:
- 2x Gold: Digital/Mobile \| PR
- 2x Silver: Direct \| PR
- 1x Bronze: Creative Use of Media
Those categories tell you something about the project.
It was not evaluated only as a game.
It was evaluated as an interactive media idea, a public-relations tool and a creative use of technology.
That means every discipline had to support the same purpose.
Audio included.
The Game Uses Interaction to Carry the Message
The Final Exam was created for Change the Ref, with Energy BBDO Chicago leading the campaign and Webcore Games developing the game in partnership with DRUID Creative Gaming and Flutu Music.
The player is placed inside a school-shooting scenario and must find a way to survive while encountering information about gun-safety legislation.
Webcore’s case explains that the environment was built from real incident data and that alarms, environmental sounds and objects were carefully recreated to support the experience. It also credits Game Audio: Flutu Music. The full case is available here.
The audio challenge was not to make violence exciting.
It was to make the environment readable, tense and believable without turning the subject into entertainment.
Why Creative Use of Media Is Relevant to Game Audio
“Creative Use of Media” sounds like a marketing category.
But interactive audio lives inside media behavior.
A static campaign can decide exactly when every sound happens.
A game cannot.
The player controls pace.
They can move toward or away from danger.
They can stop.
They can turn around.
They can miss information.
So the audio system has to preserve the message under unpredictable behavior.
That is where game-audio production becomes part of the medium itself.
Sound is not only attached to the campaign.
It helps define how the campaign is experienced.
PR Recognition Changes the Way You Think About Clarity
The project also received Gold and Silver recognition in PR-related categories.
For an interactive campaign, that means the idea needs to remain legible outside the immediate moment of play.
The game has a message.
The mechanic has a message.
The environment has a message.
The sound cannot pull in another direction.
This creates a useful production rule.
When the creative concept carries a real-world argument, audio direction should know what that argument is before deciding what “good” sounds like.
Otherwise the team can create something technically impressive and strategically wrong.
Sensitive Themes Need a Different Audio Vocabulary
A conventional action title may reward exaggeration.
More impact.
More aggression.
More spectacle.
A project about real school shootings has different limits.
A weapon sound can become too exciting.
Music can become too cinematic.
A dramatic hit can accidentally frame a moment like entertainment.
So the audio team needs another vocabulary.
Distance.
Uncertainty.
Absence.
Environmental information.
Human-scale detail.
Silence.
The question becomes less “How do we make this moment hit harder?”
More “What should the player understand and feel here?”
That is a different job.
Awards Are Evidence, Not the Creative Brief
It is easy to reverse the logic after a project wins.
Now everything looks deliberate because the final result has trophies around it.
Production was still production.
Dependencies moved.
Creative decisions needed review.
Implementation had to work.
Teams had to communicate.
The subject required judgment.
The awards are evidence that the finished system resonated with juries across different disciplines.
They are not a recipe.
The Clio Page Should Stay About Clio
The Final Exam also received recognition at Cannes Lions, The One Show, D&AD and LIA.
Those results deserve their own records.
This page owns the 2025 Clio result and what those categories say about the interactive campaign.
For Cannes, see Cannes Lions Awards: The Final Exam Wins 2 Gold and 5 Bronze Lions.
For The One Show, see The One Show Awards: Final Exam Wins Big.
The official Clio winner database also carries The Final Exam’s continuing award record.
What Producers Can Learn From the Result
If an interactive project sits between games, campaigning, education or branded experience, do not brief the audio team as a separate craft department.
Give them the purpose.
Give them the player journey.
Give them the boundaries.
Give them the parts of the experience that cannot feel entertaining, exaggerated or ambiguous.
Then let sound design, implementation and mix support the actual intent.
That is how audio becomes part of the idea rather than decoration around it.
Next Step
If your project uses game mechanics to communicate something beyond entertainment, the audio brief should begin with what the player needs to understand, not with a list of assets.
Explore Flutu’s game-audio work or send us the project context if you want to discuss sound direction and implementation for an interactive campaign or serious game.
