Game Awards: "Clair Obscur – Expedition 33" is the best game of 2025
The favorite has prevailed: The turn-based tactical game "Clair Obscur – Expedition 33" won the main prize at the Game Awards 2025.
(Image: Sandfall Interactive)
No surprise: The turn-based tactical role-playing game "Clair Obscur – Expedition 33" was awarded best game of the year at the Game Awards 2025. "Clair Obscur" had entered the race as the clear favorite. The debut work of the French studio Sandfall Interactive was released in April and took the gaming world by storm.
With a mix of role-playing and turn-based tactics, a melancholic story, and a memorable soundtrack, "Clair Obscur" amazed not only critics but also players who had previously had little to do with the turn-based tactics genre. In October, the developers announced that "Clair Obscur" had sold over 5 million copies. This is a great success for the comparatively small studio from Montpellier.
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Numerous other awards for "Clair Obscur"
Among the other nominees for game of the year were the medieval role-playing game "Kingdom Come Deliverance 2", the Metroidvania "Hollow Knight: Silksong", and the roguelike action game "Hades 2". "Death Stranding 2" and "Donkey Kong Bananza" were also nominated. Nevertheless, it was considered more or less a foregone conclusion that "Clair Obscur" would win the main prize of the most important game awards.
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In addition to game of the year, "Clair Obscur" won numerous other categories. The awards for best art direction, best game direction, best narrative, and best soundtrack also went to Montpellier. Furthermore, "Clair Obscur" was awarded best RPG, best debut game, and best indie game – even though the game is not a true indie title by all plausible metrics. Jennifer English, the voice actress for the character Maelle and known to a role-playing game audience as "Shadowheart" from "Baldur's Gate 3", also won the award for best acting performance.
"No Man's Sky" awarded
"No Man's Sky" by Hello Games was awarded best "ongoing game", i.e., game with long-term support, which is still receiving major updates almost ten years after its release. "The Midnight Walk" is the best VR/AR game, while "Hades 2" was named the best action game. The best action adventure was "Hollow Knight: Silksong", "Mario Kart World" can call itself the best racing game.
The nominations for the Game Awards are first pre-selected by a jury of journalists, and the community gets to help decide the winners: the jury's vote counts for 90 percent, and the players' votes contribute 10 percent to the result. Last year, "Astro Bot" won the most important video game award.
(dahe)
