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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 takes home an absurd 9 wins at The Game Awards, more than Baldur's Gate 3 in 2023
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For what it's worth most people are more mad that E33 won best indie and best debut indie. It's not an indie game, many people have said as much and it's completely unfair that they won in categories meant for small budget games by small teams. Totally deserved in other categories, but that does leave a bad taste in my mouth.The category is misnamed. It should be best single A game from an independent studio. *Technically* Sandfall is an independant studio. A very well privately funded independant studio founded by industry veterans supported by a great publisher. But no-one is arguing that other games published by Kepler Interactive aren't independant. And with 30-ish full-time employees Sandfall's scale is that of an SME, not an Ubisoft/EA/Sony. The award doesn't feel right because this middleweight AA category was completely abdandoned the previous decade (which legacy studios are now paying a heavy price for), and "indie" came to mean "single A" because if the material conditions of being an independant company. At the same time though technological advancements enabled small teams to take on larger and larger projects. "Indie" does not mean what it used to, and Clair Obscur is trailblazing this AA renewal. Award shows simply need to adapt and start restricting entry based on team size or something.
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Which is weird, since that game wasn't even marketed. I literally hadn't even heard of it till it started winning shit left and rightThat's one area where you can see it is indie despite the large development cost. They were published by Kepler Interactive and for some markets Bandai Namco. Neither of which have Ubisoft or EA's marketing budget which normally makes up something like half of the development budget of a game. They did have *some* marketing. I know a lot of French streamers were paid to play the game on launch. But yeah not "in your face for 6 months in front of every YouTube video and inside every happy meal box" like a new assassin's creed or something.
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I went over to Reddit so I could keep track if the game awards because I didn't have time to actually watch it. Holy shit the hate E33 is getting is completely ridiculous, as Reddit does. Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead. As someone that has enjoyed all of these games, the salt is absolutely bonkers. Most of the ones complaining are basically saying "I never played it but I heard they did [blank] so they don't deserve [blank] award." I just don't get why they need to shit on other people and the games they like just because their game didn't win. They were all great games and all deserve praise in their own ways. In two weeks none of us will give a shit anymore and will probably be complaining that "RV There Yet" wins "Most Innovative Gameplay" award on Steam. I mean, a flippin' gacha game won the "Players Voice" Award and people are spending their time shitting on objectively good games.Gamers make me embarrassed to enjoy video games
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I went over to Reddit so I could keep track if the game awards because I didn't have time to actually watch it. Holy shit the hate E33 is getting is completely ridiculous, as Reddit does. Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead. As someone that has enjoyed all of these games, the salt is absolutely bonkers. Most of the ones complaining are basically saying "I never played it but I heard they did [blank] so they don't deserve [blank] award." I just don't get why they need to shit on other people and the games they like just because their game didn't win. They were all great games and all deserve praise in their own ways. In two weeks none of us will give a shit anymore and will probably be complaining that "RV There Yet" wins "Most Innovative Gameplay" award on Steam. I mean, a flippin' gacha game won the "Players Voice" Award and people are spending their time shitting on objectively good games.I think a lot of it was just getting sick of E33 discussion. I remember when Hundred Line released this year some time after E33 and on Steam forums (which, to be fair, is as bad as most gaming forums), while people were, er, "discussing" the game, plenty of valid complaints were topped off with "just play E33 instead, it's cheaper and much better" Like, I don't even disagree, HL was disappointing, but why are you bringing it up, it's apples and oranges. It was also the first I heard of E33 personally so it wasn't a good first impression, even if the devs are sweet and actually gave a shout out to HL.
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> I guess I’m confused because I didn’t know that “low budget” was now synonymous with “indie.” There aren't any hard rules of what an indie game is, and TGA don't set any because they don't take their jobs seriously, but it's usually accepted that indie = small teams, small budget. Otherwise, technically games like Cyberpunk 2077 are "indie" because they're self-published, while games published by Devolver Digital are technically not indie because they have a publisher despite the games being made on a tiny budget and occasionally created by only one person. Expedition 33 had a huge budget compared to other games in its category, and much more developers. They had mo-cap, they had popular voice actors, and they had tons of contract workers overseas. It's not fair to put it up against games that didn't have any of that. E33 is what the industry refers to as a AA game. Mid-sized budget, mid-sized team. As opposed to AAA, massive budgets with massive teams. > What about No Man's Sky No Man's Sky (on release) is *way* smaller in scope than E33. It was made by around a dozen developers only, and they actually self-published it which makes it much more "indie".>and TGA don't set any because they don't take their jobs seriously Jesus fucking Christ people, we are talking about video games. Get a grip.
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A bit overhyped I think. Yes, I haven't played it through yet. Yes, it is indeed a good game (even though I don't like JRPGs). The soundtrack is absolutely fantastic. Bit I don't think it's better than BG3 and I'm sad, that KCD2 didn't win anything because in most, if not all, categories it was paired up with COE33.I agree it's a wonderful game and it deserves recognition, but I also agree it's not as good as BG3. The thing is, that doesn't detract from any of it's awards this year because it was only competing with the games that came out in 2025, not the ones that came out in 2023. Had BG3 and Clair Obscura come out at the same time, I think the split in awards would have been very different.
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>and TGA don't set any because they don't take their jobs seriously Jesus fucking Christ people, we are talking about video games. Get a grip.What a benign comment to respond so strongly to lmao
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I went over to Reddit so I could keep track if the game awards because I didn't have time to actually watch it. Holy shit the hate E33 is getting is completely ridiculous, as Reddit does. Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead. As someone that has enjoyed all of these games, the salt is absolutely bonkers. Most of the ones complaining are basically saying "I never played it but I heard they did [blank] so they don't deserve [blank] award." I just don't get why they need to shit on other people and the games they like just because their game didn't win. They were all great games and all deserve praise in their own ways. In two weeks none of us will give a shit anymore and will probably be complaining that "RV There Yet" wins "Most Innovative Gameplay" award on Steam. I mean, a flippin' gacha game won the "Players Voice" Award and people are spending their time shitting on objectively good games.The problem with the Internet is that it amplifies minority negative voices. Hundreds of thousands of people played that game and 100 pieces of shit get on reddit and be assholes and it gives all of their players bases a bad name. It's the same across anything. On the Internet a loud minority is going to piss in everyone's lemonade because they are trash humans. What makes it worse is algorithm based social media prioritize rage bait since it creates engagement. It's breaking all of our brains.
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I went over to Reddit so I could keep track if the game awards because I didn't have time to actually watch it. Holy shit the hate E33 is getting is completely ridiculous, as Reddit does. Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead. As someone that has enjoyed all of these games, the salt is absolutely bonkers. Most of the ones complaining are basically saying "I never played it but I heard they did [blank] so they don't deserve [blank] award." I just don't get why they need to shit on other people and the games they like just because their game didn't win. They were all great games and all deserve praise in their own ways. In two weeks none of us will give a shit anymore and will probably be complaining that "RV There Yet" wins "Most Innovative Gameplay" award on Steam. I mean, a flippin' gacha game won the "Players Voice" Award and people are spending their time shitting on objectively good games.
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A bit overhyped I think. Yes, I haven't played it through yet. Yes, it is indeed a good game (even though I don't like JRPGs). The soundtrack is absolutely fantastic. Bit I don't think it's better than BG3 and I'm sad, that KCD2 didn't win anything because in most, if not all, categories it was paired up with COE33.
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The only award I think it didn't deserve was Best RPG. But, on the other hand, it should have gotten Best Sound Design over BF6; so it still would have gotten 9 awards. Truly a masterpiece of a game. To those haters saying "But not even BG3 got that many awards!" it's not a fair comparison. BG3 is a slightly better game IMO, but Expedition 33 is a work of art on top of being an amazing game and appeals to a much wider audience. Which isn't to say games like BG3 aren't beautiful, but I think anyone would agree that E33 is on a whole other level.
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For what it's worth most people are more mad that E33 won best indie and best debut indie. It's not an indie game, many people have said as much and it's completely unfair that they won in categories meant for small budget games by small teams. Totally deserved in other categories, but that does leave a bad taste in my mouth.That one is dumb. I love E33 so much but you can tell this had a budget behind it. They need a “small team” game award or something like that or enforce requirements on indie categories.
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Baguette supremacy.
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If we could just keep this trend of having the game awards completely snuff the big studios, that'd be great."We've picked one game and we're giving every award to that game because it's the best game at everything and have you played the game yet? You should it's so good it's just the best at everything." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_Interactive > Kepler Interactive was founded in September 2021 at the initiative of former Ubisoft employee and French entrepreneur Alexis Garavayan, who had previously co-founded the video game investment fund Kowloon Nights. Self-described as a "super developer" publishing group, Kepler was born out of an alliance between seven independent studios to “pool their resources and knowledge”: Hedge Fund ass publisher. Come on, guys. The Gaming Awards have always just been sponsored content and you're getting hoodwinked because you don't recognize the sponsor this time around.
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I went over to Reddit so I could keep track if the game awards because I didn't have time to actually watch it. Holy shit the hate E33 is getting is completely ridiculous, as Reddit does. Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead. As someone that has enjoyed all of these games, the salt is absolutely bonkers. Most of the ones complaining are basically saying "I never played it but I heard they did [blank] so they don't deserve [blank] award." I just don't get why they need to shit on other people and the games they like just because their game didn't win. They were all great games and all deserve praise in their own ways. In two weeks none of us will give a shit anymore and will probably be complaining that "RV There Yet" wins "Most Innovative Gameplay" award on Steam. I mean, a flippin' gacha game won the "Players Voice" Award and people are spending their time shitting on objectively good games.> Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated for any award about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead. Nine awards is a lot. And this is [after they swept Golden Joystick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Obscur:_Expedition_33#Accolades). It's a fine game. It's just not the *only game*.
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"We've picked one game and we're giving every award to that game because it's the best game at everything and have you played the game yet? You should it's so good it's just the best at everything." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_Interactive > Kepler Interactive was founded in September 2021 at the initiative of former Ubisoft employee and French entrepreneur Alexis Garavayan, who had previously co-founded the video game investment fund Kowloon Nights. Self-described as a "super developer" publishing group, Kepler was born out of an alliance between seven independent studios to “pool their resources and knowledge”: Hedge Fund ass publisher. Come on, guys. The Gaming Awards have always just been sponsored content and you're getting hoodwinked because you don't recognize the sponsor this time around.
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Game awards are ridiculous, but I will _never_ forget Expedition 33. It deserves all the accolades it has earned and achieved.
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> Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated for any award about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead. Nine awards is a lot. And this is [after they swept Golden Joystick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Obscur:_Expedition_33#Accolades). It's a fine game. It's just not the *only game*.Yeah, it's not the only game, but it did a really good job in all the categories it won. I would've given best RPG to kcd2, but I don't think e33 is unreasonable. The only issue I have is sandfall shouldn't count as an independent game, they had a publisher and were backed by venture capital.
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I'm so happy for them, the emotions this game brought to me were absolutely unique, its approach on grief was so beautiful. And can't forget the music that I keep humming for the last months...Renoir's battle theme is the best song I have ever heard in a video game before. For a while, my YouTube algorithm was taken over of streamer reactions to hearing that song for the first time in game, because universally people were just stunned like "holy shit this is amazing".
