The event known as The Game Awards is coming up soon for 2025, which will celebrate the accomplishments and popularity of the video game industry. One of the big titles nominated for multiple awards at the show is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a game that has gotten a lot of attention since it released in 2025. Many people feel it's a game that deserves all the praise at the show, and is hailed as something that revived the JRPG genre for a lot of people.

But are statements like that and the push for it to win at The Game Awards actually overhyping the game to an extreme? Having played through it and seen what many have been making noise about, I don't find Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to be bad, but it's definitely a game that has received an overwhelming amount of praise that is edging on the side of hyperbole that some are not being honest about. And the 12 nominations at The Game Awards are an effect of that. Here's why Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is vastly overhyped by The Game Awards, and by many other people online.

The runaway praise

While not actually being revolutionary

For some people online that have been able to play Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the game is a big hit in ways that make it one of the best games of 2025. It blends together aspects of turn-based tactics and reactionary tools for its combat, along with moments of exploration that are similar to classic Japanese role-playing games. The story of the game has themes of grief, self-discovery, and a plot twist that can change one's view on the major aspects of its narrative. At the same time, its presentation is clearly influenced by RPGs like modern Final Fantasy and Persona games, which have a heavy emphasis on visual style and attention to detail on character models and environments. It's nothing that hasn't already been done in many other games, especially with major releases within the genre that inspired the developers at Sandfall Interactive.

But while all of this is great when looking at the game objectively, there's also an overwhelming amount of praise that goes to a far extreme for it. One example is the soundtrack of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which is fantastic to listen to, but not as memorable or impactful when compared to other music from other games that many would view as iconic. That doesn't take away from how good it is, but there is clearly a lot of hyperbole about it from people discussing the game, including ignoring many of its shortcomings and issues while playing it. A lot of the discourse about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 refers to it constantly as a masterpiece, or a revolutionary game that somehow revived the JRPG genre for everyone in recent years.

These are descriptive terms that are far too loosely thrown around about a game that is, in reality, just a good to great experience. The truth is that the game is a far from what some would consider revolutionary. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 doesn't have or present anything to players that fundamentally changes the way we view the genre, nor how anyone would play role-playing games moving forward. To say otherwise would not be totally honest about what everyone is getting from it.

A question of indies

The most awards with an asterisk

With so much of the chatter about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 being present online, it was inevitable that the game would be nominated at the upcoming Game Awards for 2025. When awards host Geoff Keighley announced the nominees for each category at the show, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was the game that received the most nominations in various categories. It ended up being the most nominated game in the history of The Game Awards, racking up a total of 12 nominations. But not all the categories were ones that people felt the game deserved to be included in.

Both indie game categories, Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie, have Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 nominated alongside other indie titles. This immediately sparked a controversy for the show about how the game could be part of the indie categories, when it's status as an indie game is heavily questioned. Much of this comes down to the undecided definition of what an "indie game" actually is, or what makes a game part of the indie scene instead of a big budget AAA release. For a lot of people, including myself, an indie game is a self-published project that doesn't have the backing of a large publisher or a massive team behind it. It's something many other indie games have as a clear trait.

This becomes very blurry with games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which was published by Kepler Interactive, and had numerous contractors that worked on it, not just the small development team at Sandfall Interactive. When compared to other titles within both indie categories at The Game Awards this year, there is a clear gap between Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and everyone else. Because the discourse about it is so active, it's very questionable if Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 should be seen as the most nominated game in the show's history. It almost feels like that debate about this is being ignored, and not clarified, in favor of letting the game have that headline shared around before The Game Awards takes place.

Overlooking the competition

Ignoring the rest of the year

Although Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a game that has its fans for one reason or another, much of the praise for the game tries to define it as a runaway success ahead of any other game in 2025. Among the nominees for Game of the Year in the upcoming show, tons of people believe that the rest of the list of games included in the category are nowhere near the quality of experience that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is in comparison. This couldn't be further from the truth, and is another example of the hyperbole surrounding the game in 2025. Multiple big releases that were highly praised are somehow ignored by many, despite doing things that may be viewed as more impactful in some ways than what Sandfall Interactive's release had done.

Games like Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Donkey Kong Bananza, Hades II, and Kingdom Come Deliverance II all brought phenomenal experiences to players throughout the year. But the discourse online about these games in relation to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 would have you believe they're vastly inferior, and have no chance at The Game Awards if they share a category with it. Even without playing through all the games within the Game of the Year category, one only has to look at the chatter about each title online to see how much these games resonated with everyone who experienced them.

Although some awards have steep competition between games that excel in what they provide players this year, there's more than one argument that can be made for other games winning outside of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It's not a landslide sweep across the board, as much as some people might believe it is. This includes awards where the game has been nominated multiple times, such as Best Performance where three voice actors are included from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, while other games released in 2025 were completely ignored.

Overhyped does not mean bad

People want to see Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 praised for being a great game in 2025. And while there's nothing wrong with that at all, it's a game that everyone should play through when they can, but there's an element of hyperbole that many are just not being honest about. The Game Awards for 2025 having it as the most nominated title in the history of the show is a byproduct of what feels like a big push by tons of people to overhype what they want Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, not what it actually is. The truth is that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a good to great game that is just highly praised in ways that are taken to an extreme, even for those who really like it.