Clair Obscur Expedition 33 wins Game of the Year

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was named Game of the Year at this year’s Game Awards.

The French-developed role-playing game (RPG) emerged victorious in nine out of 10 categories, with further wins in Best Narrative, Best Music and Best Acting.

It beat out competition from Death Stranding 2, Nintendo platform game Donkey Kong Bananza, indie game Hollow Knight: Silksong and Hades 2, and medieval adventure game Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 to take the top prize.

The ceremony in Los Angeles also gave players their first look at two new Tomb Raider games, the sequel Control Resonant, and a new Star Wars role-playing game.

Clair Obscur is set in a world where supernatural beings called Painters prevent the population from growing past a certain age.

The game, which tells the story of a group of adventurers on a quest to destroy a painter, received critical acclaim for its emotional storytelling and use of old-school turn-based combat.

The story of developer Sandfall Interactive, which is made up of a group of employees, also attracts players Who left gaming giant Ubisoft to build their dream project.

Wearing a red beret and striped T-shirt, director Guillaume Broche said as he accepted the Game of the Year award that the year had been a “strange timeline” for the studio, as he thanked his team.

He also expressed his gratitude to the industry’s “unsung heroes” – “people who make tutorials on YouTube about how to make games because we didn’t know how to make games before.”

Clair Obscur is a popular game shortlisted for this award and is the most nominated game in the history of the awards ceremony, with a total of 12 nominations.

Its composer Lorien Testard won awards for best score and music.

It’s the first project from the musician, who was discovered after posting a collection of homemade video game music to his SoundCloud account.

Clair Obscur also won handily in the Best RPG, Best Indie Game, and Best Indie Debut categories.

The film’s three nominations were all in the same category – Best Performance by an Actor – and actress Jennifer English won the award for her role as Maelle, beating out co-stars Charlie Cox and Ben Starr.

The actress, who often talks about having ADHD, dedicated the award to “everyone who is neurodivergent watching.”

Clair Obscur only missed out on two of the awards it was competing for.

Battlefield 6 won the award for Best Audio Design, while open-world action RPG Game of Thrones was a surprise winner in the fan-voted Player Voice category.

Best game rivalry “Donkey Kong Bananza” won the Family Game Award, and online shooter “Arc Raiders” won the Best Multiplayer Game Award.

Sequel Hollow Knight: Silk Song was named best action-adventure game, while anime-style horse racing game Umamusume: Pretty Derby was named best mobile game.

Despite being called the “Oscars of gaming,” the Game Awards, hosted by its founder Geoff Keighley, are a mix of traditional ceremony and trailer reveal.

Some of the gaming industry’s biggest developers will be showing off major upcoming games for the first time during the show, which is considered one of the main reasons for many fans’ attention.

One of the biggest announcements of the night was the RPG Divinity from Larian Studios, the makers of 2023 Game of the Year Baldur’s Gate 3.

The developers teased the news with a mysterious statue that first appeared in the California desert.

A remaster of the original Tomb Raider game has also been leaked, but the announcement of a new second game starring Lara Croft came as a surprise.

The cast (minus rapper 50 Cent) of the new Street Fighter movie adaptation has unveiled its first trailer.

Fans also saw new footage from the upcoming Resident Evil 9, confirming the appearance of fan-favorite character Leon Kennedy and the PS5 shooter Sharos.

The Game Awards have been criticized in the past for prioritizing advertising over awards, with winners’ speeches being shortened and stage presentations lacking in some categories.

The 2024 show has been praised for taking some steps to address criticism, but developers continue to call on organizer Geoff Keighley to better acknowledge the sector’s problems, such as massive job losses in recent years.

This year, there were complaints that the awards were abandoning the “Future Class” program – which was created in 2020 to highlight “rising stars” in video games.

The last time the award was awarded was in 2023, current and former members of the organization signed an open letter urging the award to address the Israel-Gaza war.

In the run-up to this year’s nominations, after it was confirmed the Class of the Future would not return, alumni accused the scheme of being symbolic and not doing enough to help them connect.

Last year, the ceremony presented Aamir Satwat with its new Game Changer Award for his work in helping laid-off developers find jobs.

BBC Newsbeat has contacted the organizers for comment.

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