Sitting at 418 awards, Clair Obscur is only 17 awards shy of Elden Ring (435) from becoming the winngest GotY of all time (c.f. ResetEra GotY Tracker). This is in addition to retaining an >70% domination over all awards given this year.

If you want to witness this indie title dethrone Elden Ring in live-time, keep an eye out on the tracker. It is updated regularly.

I can’t think of many games more deserving of such prestige. This is easily one of the greatest games I have ever played. If you haven’t already, please do yourself a favor and consider giving this game a chance.

Not as well deserved as The Witcher 3 and I'm unsure about Elden Ring. Hmm.

My hot take (with clear bias towards jrpgs)..... Not even the tiniest bit mad, if it does it, its deserved.

Agreed.  Best turn based game in decades.  Only complaint i had was foliage pop in.

I'm going to sound like a true hater lol (I swear I'm not!). But its "relevant" compeition wasn't nearly as fierce as Baldur's Gate 3's or Elden Ring's.

The game probably deserves it, but it's a little annoying how many people hype it up like it's another TLoU1, BotW, God of War 2018 (which I don't like but it beat RDR2's ass), Elden Ring, or Baldur's Gate 3 moment. It's just not. The game scored in the low 90's and is being treated an objective 97 just because it dominated a strong year in gaming. Hades 2 is the better received game, but it's penalized by its indie 2Dness. Hades and Hollow Knight just aren't the type of games to win in these events. And Bananza, while solid, obviously wasn't on the same tier as Nintendo's best platformers reception-wise.

It's mostly dependent on competition ofc which wasn't super fierce though I'm suprised Silksong didn't nap a few more awards. If we're talking about how far a game is ahead of its competition then yeah it's possibly the easiest choice since The Witcher 3 in 2015, unless we were to count Persona 5's japanese release date of 2016 in which case I think that's the furthest a game has ever been ahead of the pack, a shame it came out in 2017 in the west (though realistically it would been snuffed anyways because western award shows didn't take anime looking games seriously back then).

Not to mention what is the actual relevance and readership of these 500-600 outlets.

The internet is more concentrated than ever in social media and Reddit. 

I disagree with those saying the competition wasn't fierce this year. I consider 2025 to be among the best year in gaming like 2007 and 2017.

I personally added 3 games to my Top 50 in 2025 (E33, Bananza and Hades 2) and probably Silksong once I finish it and I know many other games got high praises like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Death Stranding 2, Blue Prince, Split Fiction etc.

All of this makes Expedition 33's dominance even more incredible in my eyes and I do agree it's THAT good of a game.

I hope it does so the fat cats in the industry in hopes to see this game as an example as a new (or old) standard and to stop over-budgeting their games. I wouldn't be surprised if all future AAA games would be compared to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in terms of quality and budget altogether.

It's ridiculous that E33 was nominated for best indie game when they've probably paid hundreds of millions just to rig every single one of these award outlets! Or at least thats what twitter told me... (good for them, seems like a great game)