Award ceremonies and video games make for an odd couple. We don’t sit down for a Forza race wearing a tuxedo—hardly ever, anyway—or stand up to applaud the child who sniped us in Fortnite and is now Carlton-dancing over our corpse. So there’s a strange, Twilight Zone vibe to the formality and glitz of The Game Awards, an annual jamboree of announcing things and clapping that takes place in Los Angeles each year.
Stranger than seeing the great and good of the games industry suited up was the winners list, which Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 absolutely dominated to a degree even James Cameron would envy.
The debut role-playing game from former Ubisoft employees Sandfall Interactive won nine of the 30 award categories on offer, including Game of the Year, Best RPG, Best Narrative, and Best Art Direction. People really, really like it, then.
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It’s nice to see an independent project celebrated, but during a year that also saw creative accomplishments like Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, Hollow Knight Silksong, and Hades II trot merrily onto your storage drive, for Clair Obscur to sweep the categories so emphatically sends an unintentional message that maybe this is the only game worth caring about from 2025.
Oh, and if you slept through the live-streamed event—few would blame you for prioritizing sleep over 720p footage of disappointed runners-up clapping—you should know that it’s now international law that you must play Clair Obscur, or risk your gamer card being revoked.
Arguably (alright, definitely) more interesting than the winners list were the new game announcements. Studios pay a lot of money to have their upcoming projects showcased at this awards show, so you know there’s a bit of spending behind all the debutants from this year’s show. Case in point: Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic. Written by Casey Hudson of Mass Effect fame, it’s an RPG that revives the brilliant and ageing Knights of the Old Republic titles of yesteryear. It’s single-player (huzzah!) and has a frustratingly vague trailer (boo!) for you to enjoy right now.
Baldur’s Gate 3 developers Larian were in attendance to tease a new Divinity game, which they’re calling their ‘biggest ever.’
Resident Evil Requiem gave us a tease of longtime protagonist Leon Kennedy in its latest clip, suggesting that he’ll be playable for at least part of the 2026 survival horror title.
There’s a new Tomb Raider game on the way, too. Tomb Raider: Catalyst sees an updated look for Lara Croft, including an interesting necktie that only makes her look like a member of the Travelling Wilburys a little bit.
Pick of the night, though? Probably Star Wars: Galactic Racer. Not only does it bring back glorious memories of Episode 1: Racer from yesteryear with its sense of speed and Wipeout-style inertia, it’s also being made by ex-Criterion developers at new studio Fuse Games, so there’s plenty of Burnout and Need For Speed know-how being baked into it.
That’ll do it for another year, then. We can’t wait for the games it showed, but we’re pretty confident we can last another 12 months before the next multi-hour clapathon.
NOTE: This story first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
