At a ceremony that often feels equal parts Hollywood premiere and midnight livestream, this year’s Game Awards handed the mic to the little guys. Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — a moody, ambitious indie — walked away with the largest haul in the show’s history, collecting Game of the Year and a constellation of trophies across direction, narrative, art and performance.
It was the kind of evening that makes people who love games nod and shrug at the same time: a celebration that rewarded quiet craft over blockbuster budgets. Jennifer English’s performance, in particular, earned wide praise and took home Best Performance, while the game swept categories including Best Art Direction, Best Score and Music, Best Narrative, Best Game Direction and Best Debut Indie Game.
When small teams make big waves
The sweep mattered because it signaled more than a single title’s excellence — it underscored a shift in how the industry and players reward creative risk. Clair Obscur’s success sits beside wins in other categories that told the same story: Best Indie Game went to Clair Obscur, while Games for Impact, Best Debut, and Best Score all leaned toward titles that prioritize voice and atmosphere over spectacle.
That doesn’t mean big-budget games were shut out. Hades II won Best Action Game, Battlefield 6 took Best Audio Design, and long-running franchises still picked up hardware and community prizes. But the mood of the night belonged to the indie scene — a fact commentators compared to an Oscars-esque indie moment for videogames.
Winners and highlights
Beyond Clair Obscur’s dominance, the awards spanned a wide swath of the industry:
- Game of the Year: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Best Game Direction: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Best Narrative: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Best Performance: Jennifer English, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Best Indie Game: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Best Action Game: Hades II
- Best Ongoing Game: No Man’s Sky
- Best Multiplayer Game: Arc Raiders (launched earlier this year) — a win that reflected the strong reception for its tense, extraction-shooter design
If you’re hunting details about Arc Raiders’ launch and its technical features, our coverage of that release digs into why it landed as a competitive multiplayer pick: Arc Raiders launch coverage.
Announcements, trailers and the rest of the show
As ever, The Game Awards doubled as a trailer showcase. Highlights included trailers and reveals for games ranging from Capcom’s Pragmata to a new action RPG set in the Star Wars universe, plus headline-grabbers like Larian Studios teasing a return to the Divinity series. Indie spotlights, world premieres and platform announcements kept the stream brisk. The awards also tipped its hat to accessibility innovation — Doom: The Dark Ages won the Innovation in Accessibility prize — a reminder that progress at the edges of design can matter as much as spectacle.
The hardware conversation hums in the background; more consoles and cloud options mean a wider audience for both indie experiments and AAA spectacles. As companies push next-generation hardware and streaming updates, players get more ways to access live-service and indie titles alike — something that showed up in nominations for ongoing-support games and platform-forward projects. For readers curious about console momentum and how that might shape where these games land, the recent update on Switch 2 sales and developer interest is worth a look: Nintendo Raises Switch 2 Forecast as Console Sales Soar. And for streaming and cloud access to your library — a growing factor in how players experience ongoing games — our piece on PlayStation Portal’s new streaming capabilities explains the tech shifts that matter: PlayStation Portal can now stream your PS5 library.
Why this matters to players and creators
Awards nights are partly spectacle and partly industry thermometer. Awards can give indie studios breathing room: visibility often translates to spikes in sales, new funding opportunities and longer tails for small teams. For players, it’s a reminder that the medium continues to diversify; the path from bedroom prototype to award winner feels shorter than it once did.
For larger studios, the night is a signal too. Creative risk can pay off in reputation, and audiences will reward games that push narrative and aesthetic boundaries. Publishers pay attention — and after a sweep like this, expect more pitching rooms to include references to Clair Obscur’s mix of tone, mechanics and auteur-driven design.
If you like to watch the hardware side as much as the design, many gamers will be thinking about where to play next. For those upgrading, the PlayStation ecosystem remains a fast route to many big releases — the PlayStation 5 Pro is one option people are considering for smooth next-gen performance (check price and availability for a PlayStation 5 Pro) PlayStation 5 Pro.
The Game Awards ended with applause for a wide range of creators: indie coders, veteran studios and the odd celebrity cameo. But the headline from this year will stick in the memory — in a crowded marketplace, a well-told, artistically coherent story can still cut through. Sandfall Interactive’s night was proof: when design, voice and execution line up, the little team can feel enormous.