The French game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won the Game Awards 2025, considered the Oscar of the electronic game industry. The awards ceremony took place on Thursday evening (11) in Los Angeles, USA. Developed by the Sandfall Interactive studio, based in Montpellier, in the south of France, it is the first French game to achieve this feat in the main awards of the genre.
December 12
2025
– 06:25
(updated at 6:34 a.m.)
With nine statuettes out of the eleven for which he competed, Chiaroscuro broke the record for the most trophies won by a single title at The Game Awards 2025. In addition to “Game of the Year”, it also won in the categories “Best Indie Game”, “Best Art Direction” and “Best Story”.
Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33 is an adventure and RPG game with a story inspired by the Paris of Belle Epoquewith a post-apocalyptic setting, where the player controls characters who explore this universe to stop a mysterious force that threatens to destroy it. The game combines exploration, dialogue and strategic turn-based combat, typical of the RPG genre, with refined artistic direction and soundtrack.
This unprecedented feat made the front page of the French press this Friday (12). Le Figarofor example, highlights the game’s record number of nominations, surpassing major competitors such as Death Stranding 2. The article also addresses the surprising nature of the victory, since the game was created by a team of around thirty people, and discusses the commercial success with more than five million copies sold.
“It’s a passionate project, in which we put all our soul and all our heart. To be rewarded in this way is wonderful. We hope that this can inspire other studios to create works that come from the heart,” celebrated the game’s director, Guillaume Broche, at the end of the ceremony.
The Parisian it also celebrates this victory as a historic milestone for French industry. The newspaper describes the moment of the awards ceremony, when the director Guillaume Broche took the stage dressed in a striped sailor top and a beret, in a play about “Frenchness” of the game, dedicating the trophy to the creators of tutorials on YouTube. Furthermore, the publication praises the mix between post-apocalyptic RPG and references to Belle Epoque.
The newspaper West France underlines the importance of international recognition and reinforces the idea of collective ascension in the sector, in addition to saluting the artistic and narrative originality of the game. Chiaroscuro is available for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, in addition to GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming platforms.
AI and cloud gaming
The Echoes also addresses the electronic games industry, but from a perspective that goes against the proposition of the author of Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33.
An article in the economic newspaper explains that the future of the sector depends on two things: artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud gaming (playing via the cloud, without the need for powerful consoles). AI can now create graphics, stories and even voices, making games faster and cheaper to produce.
Already the cloud gaming allows you to play on any device, like a cell phone or TV, without installing anything heavy. As a result, the industry, which was growing slowly, is expected to accelerate again and move a lot of money in the coming years.
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