Yup, Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 continues to collect Game of the Year picks, even from small time bloggers like myself. I guess this was always going to be the outcome too, now that I think about it. This wasn’t exactly a super stacked year in terms of game releases, you know? I think the only real competition, in my view, was Hollow Knight: Silksong, and there was a lot about that game I didn’t care for. Had this come out last year, I’d would have had a tough choice between it, Black Myth: Wukong and Metaphor ReFantazio, but this is 2025 and Expedition 33 is my pick for best the year.

I’ve already gone into great length as to why I enjoyed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 so much, so this time I think I’d like to talk a bit about what set it apart from just this year, in my eyes at least. See, if we’re being real, it’s probably a stretch to call Expedition 33 a near-perfect game. The combat does get repetitive eventually, its endgame can drag a little bit, and, yeah, it does suffer from a touch of Unreal Engine 5 fever. All these things are true, and I can understand how they might drag down someone’s enjoyment of the game. That said, though, I think Expedition 33 is one of those titles that surpasses the sum of its parts.

Unlike Hollow Knight: Silksong, which had a couple of conflicting aspects in my opinion, just about everything in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 synergizes in such a way that it all elevates the experience as a whole. Consider the issues I mentioned above. It does have some Unreal Engine 5 ugliness to it, but those rough edges combine with the overall art style to sell the idea of a painted world; that is, it adds to the, well, unreality of it all.

Consider also the potentially repetitive combat and slow endgame. Both can be detrimental, certainly, but both also nudge players towards experimenting more with the pictos system and trying all the party members instead of just grinding their way through everything with just one setup and strategy. All are potential weaknesses, but they all also compliment Expedition 33’s strengths. Could some things still use more development? Absolutely. It’s not a perfect game. Still, I very much admire how there’s very little fat and hardly anything that just straight hurts the experience overall.

As fun as it was for me to play, however, the things that really won my heart were the story, characters and the music. Holy cow, the music! Truly, I loved it all! I loved how, for once, I couldn’t use on tropes and metaknowledge (games business knowledge) to predict what was going to happen. I loved how real the heroes and antagonists were, how everyone’s motivations made sense and that there were, for once, no truly evil monsters in the story. I loved how effortlessly the game got me to feel for all of them (really rare these days) and how it got me to accept how things turned out.

And, man, the music! The music! It covered everything: funky fun beats, EDM bops, powerful ballads and absolutely devastating elegies! This game made me feel more than I think almost any other save for GRIS and possibly Nier: Automata. Perhaps that’s the true reason why I loved it so much. As good as the gameplay was and as interesting as the world was to take in and explore, it was all icing on a cake that took me on a true emotional roller coaster!

I don’t care that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept the Game Awards or that it lost its prize from the Indie Game Awards for using AI (which by the way, was over just a couple of placeholder textures that were quickly replaced after launch). I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, to the point that I’m actually sad that I can’t play it for the first time again. It’s a fantastic work; it’s my pick for Best Game of 2025, and I’m already eagerly awaiting Sandfall’s next project!

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What was your game of the year this year? What about it gave it the top spot on your list? Let me know below and make sure to come back for Cary’s and the Duck’s picks!

Image from the steam page