Six Gold, four Silver and three Bronze Pencils, plus recognition that reached directly into sound design and experiential music.
The Final Exam received 6 Gold, 4 Silver and 3 Bronze Pencils at The One Show 2025, along with 12 Merit awards. Webcore’s project record lists Gold recognition across Gaming, Use of Gaming as a Tool, Gaming for Good, Games, Innovation and PR for Good. The full award history is documented in the project case.
The One Show result is especially relevant to Flutu because the official award record also includes Merit recognition in Craft / Sound Design and Experiential Music & Sound, with Flutu Music named among the credited companies. The One Show’s project results are available here.
That makes this page the clearest place to talk about the project’s audio recognition specifically.
The One Show 2025 Results
The Final Exam received:
- 6x Gold: Gaming \| Use of Gaming as a Tool \| Gaming for Good \| Games \| Innovation \| PR for Good
- 4x Silver: Interactive & Mobile for Good \| Online Community Platform \| Experiential & Immersive for Good \| Branded Entertainment for Good
- 3x Bronze: Art Direction \| Storytelling \| Digital & Online
- 12x Merit, including recognition connected to Sound Design and Experiential Music & Sound
The project was created for Change the Ref through Energy BBDO Chicago, with Webcore Games, DRUID Creative Gaming and Flutu Music working across development, gaming and audio.
The category spread is wide.
That is useful.
It shows how many systems had to agree for the final experience to work.
The Sound Design Recognition Matters Because Audio Was Part of the Mechanic
The Final Exam is a survival game built around a school-shooting scenario.
The player has to navigate a space, understand danger and find information connected to real gun-safety legislation.
That means sound is functional before it is decorative.
Alarms orient the player.
Movement creates urgency.
Environmental detail makes the location believable.
Distance tells the player where danger may be.
Silence can be more disturbing than another dramatic layer.
The sound system is helping the player read the game.
That is why Craft / Sound Design recognition is meaningful.
The work is not only about how the assets sound in isolation.
It is about what they do in the experience.
Experiential Music & Sound Is a Different Kind of Audio Category
The One Show also recognized the project in Experiential Music & Sound.
That is a useful distinction.
Game audio is inherently experiential because it changes with position, timing, player action and system state.
The same corridor can sound different depending on what just happened.
The same event can be heard from another room.
The player can interrupt the intended sequence.
The mix has to survive all of it.
So experiential audio production needs a different mindset from linear sound.
You are not designing one playback.
You are designing a set of possible behaviors.
The Game Needed a Sonic Language That Did Not Glorify Violence
One of the hardest parts of the project was the subject itself.
The language of shooters is familiar.
Weapons feel powerful.
Impacts feel satisfying.
Music pushes adrenaline.
For The Final Exam, that language could undermine the entire purpose.
The player is not there to win a firefight.
They are trying to survive one.
That changes the brief.
Audio needs to create urgency without excitement.
Fear without spectacle.
Information without turning the environment into a HUD made of sound.
This is where sound direction becomes judgment.
Not every “better” sound is better for the project.
The One Show Categories Reveal the Full Production Problem
Gaming.
Innovation.
PR.
Experiential.
Storytelling.
Sound design.
Those categories are connected.
The project could not win in Gaming if the mechanic failed.
It could not work in PR if the message disappeared.
It could not work in Experiential if the player did not believe the environment.
It could not work in Sound Design if audio was treated as a final polish pass.
The result is one system.
That is also how the production needs to be managed.
Audio Credits Matter in Cross-Disciplinary Work
Large campaigns often compress game production into one headline.
Agency.
Client.
Game.
Awards.
The detailed credits are useful because they show how many specialists sit under that surface.
The official One Show results list Energy BBDO Chicago, Webcore Games, Flutu Music and Druid Creative Gaming together across The Final Exam entries.
That matters to us because external development is often invisible when it works well.
The project feels coherent.
The audience does not care which company implemented which system.
That is the point.
The One Show Page Should Own the Audio-Award Angle
The Final Exam received recognition across several award programs, and repeating the same project summary on every page would create five interchangeable articles.
This page owns The One Show result, with emphasis on the categories tied directly to sound design and experiential music & sound.
For the Cannes result, see Cannes Lions Awards: The Final Exam Wins 2 Gold and 5 Bronze Lions.
For the Clio result, see Clio Awards: The Final Exam Wins 5 Trophies in 2025.
For the production case behind the Cannes recognition, Award-Winning Game Audio: What The Final Exam’s Cannes Recognition Says About the Work takes the process angle instead.
What Producers Can Take From This
If audio is expected to carry part of an interactive idea, bring the audio team into the idea early.
Not when the game is finished.
Not when the trailer needs a mix.
Early enough to understand what the player must hear, what the environment must communicate, what should remain quiet and how the system will behave inside the build.
The craft category is the visible result.
The process comes first.
Next Step
If your project sits between games, interactive marketing and experiential production, audio needs to be designed around player behavior rather than delivered as a linear asset package.
Explore Flutu’s game-audio work or send us the project context if you want to discuss sound direction, technical audio and implementation inside an interactive experience.
