Expedition 33’ For GOTY At The Game Awards?

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Sandfall

In short, no.

Well, that was a brief article. But in all seriousness, this is an unusual season for The Game Wards, which airs tomorrow, Thursday, December 11, given the nominees and one game in particular.

It was a great year for video games, but one has stood out above all the rest, Sandfall’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the fantastical RPG that attracted even skeptics of the genre for a thrilling, heartbreaking tale mixed with stellar exploration, combat, music, voice acting, really every aspect that makes up a game. Some say it’s GOTY. Some say it’s Game of the Generation. Some say it’s one of their favorite games of all time.

Forbes‘Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’ Review: A 10 If There Ever Was OneBy Paul Tassi

So, can anything stop it from winning GOTY? It’s possible, but unlikely. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the most-nominated game in the history of The Game Awards with 12 total nominations, boosted by the fact that it actually has three of the six Best Performance nominations for Charlie Cox, Ben Starr and Jennifer English. Here’s the full list:

• Game of the Year
• Best Direction
• Best Narrative
• Best Art Direction
• Best Score and Music
• Best Audio
• Best Independent Game
• Best Debut Independent Game
• Best RPG
• And the aforementioned three Best Performance nominations.

Of those, I think Narrative, Score and Music and at least one of the Performance nominations are a lock. Because of the way The Game Awards works, it’s effectively impossible for Expedition 33 to not win Best Indie and Best Debut Indie since there are no other GOTY nominees in that category. A vote there would otherwise have to be “well, it’s going to win all the big awards so let’s give it to someone else,” which almost never happens. I also imagine it would take Best RPG, even if fellow GOTY nominee Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is in that category. Direction, Art Direction? I mean, I’d give it to them personally, but who knows.

Game of the Year? I just don’t see how anything else beats it. Oddly enough, its fellow nominee Hades II does have a 95 on Metacritic to Expedition 33’s 92. But that’s never been a guarantee of a win, and I think there are few that would ultimately rank Hades over Expedition 33 when doing a head-to-head, especially in this voting body.

Any dark horses? Silksong, perhaps, again, given the voting body of industry folks. Donkey Kong Bananza is the best game on the fastest-selling console ever, and Nintendo does swipe awards left and right. I do not think Death Stranding 2, KCD2 or even Hades II have a chance. There are betting markets about GOTY, because of course there are, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 supposedly has 94% odds to win.

I’m predicting a sweep. Or at least close to a sweep. While I personally do now consider Expedition 33 one of my favorite games of all time, I think what we’ve seen here is just too good not to win this year, and if it doesn’t, well, I hope you took those 6% odds.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.