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Nine wins from twelve nominations sounds less like an award show and more like running up the score in a blowout victory.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 just accomplished something unprecedented at The Game Awards, dominating the ceremony in a way that has the gaming community asking uncomfortable questions. Not about the game’s quality, which few dispute, but about whether the awards structure itself needs rethinking when a single title can vacuum up recognition across nearly every category it enters.
Let’s dig into what this sweep actually means and whether it signals problems worth addressing.
The numbers tell an overwhelming story
The Belgian studio Sandfall Interactive walked into The Game Awards as the most-nominated game in the show’s history. They walked out having converted 75% of those nominations into wins. That’s not just dominant. That’s the kind of performance that makes competitors wonder why they even showed up.
Clair Obscur’s award haul:
| Category | Result |
|---|---|
| Game of the Year | Won |
| Best Narrative | Won |
| Best Game Direction | Won |
| Best Art Direction | Won |
| Best Score and Music | Won |
| Best RPG | Won |
| Best Debut Indie Game | Won |
| Best Independent Game | Won |
| Best Performance | Won |
Nine trophies. One studio. One game. History made.
Does winning change how we see the game?
Here’s the thing: Expedition 33 remains the same experience regardless of how many statues it collected. The turn-based combat still demands attention. The melancholy story about mortality still hits emotional beats. The French artistic influences still permeate every frame.
Award sweeps don’t retroactively improve games any more than losing would diminish them. Hollow Knight: Silksong would still be brilliant if it had won nothing. Expedition 33 would still be impressive if it had won half as many awards.
The music remains stunning. The art direction still commands attention. The atmosphere still envelops players in its peculiar beauty. Whether someone personally connects with every element or finds certain aspects lacking, the game’s overall achievement stands independent of trophy counts.
The “cap the wins” argument doesn’t hold water
Some voices online have suggested that awards should implement rules preventing sweeps of this magnitude. The logic goes that spreading recognition across more titles creates a healthier ecosystem and ensures deserving games don’t get completely overshadowed.
This argument falls apart under scrutiny. The Game Awards operates through juries and voting processes across multiple categories. Artificially capping wins would require someone to overrule legitimate results, essentially declaring that a game was the best in its category but doesn’t get recognized because it already won elsewhere.
That’s not fixing a problem. That’s creating new ones while undermining the entire concept of merit-based recognition. You can’t have authentic awards and predetermined distribution simultaneously.
The real structural issues worth discussing
Rather than blaming Expedition 33 for winning everything it deserved, the conversation should focus on category definitions that may need evolution.
The “Indie Game” designation grows more problematic each year. When does a studio with significant publishing support, substantial marketing budgets, and multi-million dollar production values stop being independent? Raw Fury and Kepler Interactive publish games that technically qualify as indie but operate at scales that dwarf bedroom developers.
This sliding scale creates situations where genuinely small teams compete against studios with twenty times their resources, all under the same “independent” banner. That’s a structural problem predating Expedition 33’s sweep and will persist long after the discourse fades.
Performance categories need expansion
The acting talent in modern gaming has reached a point where existing award structures can’t adequately recognize it. Expedition 33 dominated Best Performance with multiple actors from its cast receiving nominations, all of them genuinely deserving.
But this concentration means other remarkable performances get squeezed out entirely. Jane Perry delivered what many consider her finest work in Dead Take, yet barely registered at The Game Awards despite recognition from other bodies like BAFTA’s long-list.
Film awards separate performances into lead, supporting, and sometimes ensemble categories. Gaming should follow suit. Creating distinctions between lead and supporting roles would allow more actors to receive recognition without diminishing anyone’s achievement. The talent pool has grown too deep for a single category to capture adequately.
Who got overshadowed?
Several titles received multiple nominations and walked away empty-handed. Silent Hill F represents perhaps the most notable case, arriving with significant buzz and departing without trophies. Dispatch, Yote, and other strong contenders similarly found themselves on the wrong side of the Expedition 33 juggernaut.
That’s how awards work. Someone has to lose. But when one game dominates so completely, legitimate achievements elsewhere can feel dismissed rather than simply runner-up.
The rising importance of acting talent
This year’s show emphasized performers in ways that felt borrowed from Hollywood. Trailers highlighted actors. Announcements featured cast reveals. Names like Jennifer English, Ben Starr, and Neil Newbon have become genuine marketing assets.
This evolution reflects gaming’s maturation as a storytelling medium. Performance-driven narratives now sell titles the same way A-list casts sell films. If that trend continues, and every indication suggests it will, awards structures must evolve alongside it.
More categories. More nuance. More room for the expanding talent pool that makes modern gaming possible.
What this means going forward
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 didn’t break The Game Awards. It exposed existing limitations that were always present but rarely this visible. Category definitions need clarification. Performance recognition needs expansion. The gap between “indie” and “independent” needs addressing.
None of these problems require penalizing future games that achieve similar success. They require thoughtful evolution of how gaming recognizes excellence across an industry that has grown far beyond what existing frameworks were designed to accommodate.
The Belgian studio from Brussels earned every award they received. The conversation worth having isn’t whether they won too much, but whether the system can grow to recognize more deserving work without taking anything away from genuine achievements.
Do you think The Game Awards should add more categories to prevent future sweeps, or does concentrated recognition accurately reflect when one game truly stands above the rest?
