The front-runner has won: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has taken home Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2025. The darling RPG won a total of 9 awards out of its record-breaking 13 nominations (though 3 were in the same category, Best Performance). Its other wins included Best Art Direction, Best Music, Best Performance (Jennifer English, with one of the best speeches of the night), Best RPG, and Best Debut Indie Game.
Clair Obscur became the winningest game in The Game Awards history, surpassing The Last of Us Part 2’s seven wins (from 11 noms) in 2020.
The developers at French indie studio Sandfall Interactive embraced their culture by wearing black-and-white striped shirts and red berets to the awards show. They were prepared to win big, releasing a Thank You trailer (above) alongside a free game update.
The update adds a highly-requested photo mode, new music tracks by Lorien Testard (who’s score won at The Game Awards), and a new area that dives into Verso’s backstory, “Verso’s Drafts.” Plus, new boss end-game boss battle challenges within the Endless Tower, and various performance improvements.
Other winners at The Game Awards include long-awaited sequel Hollow Knight: Silksong for Best Action/Adventure, Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Bananza for Best Family (called it!), and Arc Raiders for Best Multiplayer. The nearly decade-old No Man’s Sky won Best Ongoing Game for the first time since 2020, and 2023’s Game of the Year winner, Baldur’s Gate 3, won for Best Community Support.
Despite four nominations, one of our favorite games of the year, Split Fiction, didn’t win any of its categories. Death Stranding 2, which was nominated for an impressive seven categories, also didn’t win a single award.
The only really shocking award was from the 100% player voted Player’s Choice award, which went to free-to-play gacha game Wuthering Waves, which didn’t even win Best Mobile Game (that went to Umamusume: Pretty Derby).
The Game Awards 2025 streamed live on December 11. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, and rated M for Mature.
