Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 secured five awards at this week's Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' (AIAS) DICE Awards (not to be confused with EA's Stockholm studio of the same name), including the coveted Game of the Year prize, while Sucker Punch's Ghost of Yotei secured three, including for Adventure Game of the Year.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall underestimated just how much players would engage with the game's various sidequests and optional content, and as a result of this extra grinding would find the final boss fight a tad underwhelming.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall will focus on what those at the studio personally think is "cool" for its next game, rather than feel any pressure to focus on what anyone else thinks it should do.
43.8 million player votes later, the winners of the 2025 Steam Awards have been announced, with Hollow Knight: Silksong securing top prize, Game of the Year.
It's been another strange, difficult, and yet somehow also brilliant year for video games in 2025. Triple-A releases have been sparse again, compared to the boom times of old, with a great big GTA 6-shaped hole left in the final few months of the year. And yet once again, every gap left by the established order has been filled twice over with something brilliantly new.
2025 has gone by in a flash, hasn't it? Well, apart from the days I've spent tabulating all your Game of the Year votes and presenting the results here - that has felt like an eternity and I think has given me permanent neck pain. But, let's not worry about that. I'm sure you'll agree it was worth the sacrifice.
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing. This week it's not about what we've been playing, but what we hope to be playing on Christmas Day (you're reading this now, but we wrote this back in June or something as we plan ahead).
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the biggest third-party launch on Xbox Game Pass this year, with game director Guillaume Broche stating the subscription service allowed the studio to reach a wider audience.
Hollow Knight: Silksong developer Team Cherry has revealed it won't be making the trip to The Game Awards next month, as the team believes Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will sweep the Game of the Year award.
Charlie Cox won himself a Game Awards nomination for his work voicing Gustave in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. However, while the actor is understandably delighted to see his contribution recognised, he says as much of the credit needs to go to Gustave's motion performance actor, Maxence Cazorla.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, from developer Sandfall Interactive, has become the most nominated game in The Game Awards history, with a total 12 nominations to its name this year.
