Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has broken a new record, surpassing FromSoftware's Elden Ring when it comes to overall Game of the Year wins from press outlets and industry associations. It did so with our own Wccftech Awards '25 prizes, awarded by staff and community both after extensive polls.
Earlier this month, we reported that ResetEra user Angie, who keeps a detailed record of all the Game of the Year wins for each year, revealed how Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had quickly dethroned Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 at the third spot. Now, shortly after our announcement of the Wccftech Awards '25 winners, the ResetEra thread was updated with Angie claiming that our GOTY awards were just enough to surpass Elden Ring's previous record of 435 GOTY prizes in a single award season.
Sandfall's game now sits alone at 436, and the award season is far from over. The game is extremely well-positioned to win again at upcoming events like the DICE Awards and the GDC Awards. The winners of the former will be announced by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) on Thursday, February 12, 2026, during the DICE 2026 Summit in Las Vegas. We'll have to wait a bit more to know the winners of the latter, as the GDC Awards will be unveiled on Thursday, March 12, 2026, during the Game Developers Conference 2026 in San Francisco. A bit further still, the BAFTA Game Awards 2026 winners will be announced on Friday, April 17, 2026, in London.
Those are the major ones, but there are a few others. It's not inconceivable for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to reach 450 Game of the Year wins or more, which would make the record quite hard to beat in the coming years. Records aside, what's more important is that Sandfall Interactive has earned the industry's unanimous appreciation, from professionals to fans. Just a few days ago, a veteran developer like The Astronauts' founder and director, Adrian Chmielarz, publicly stated that the game's incredible quality, achieved with a relatively low budget and a small development team, made him question everything he thought he knew about the limits of game development.
Of course, now Sandfall Interactive has everyone's eyes on them. Will they be able to stay humble and handle the inevitable massive hype surrounding their next project? Only time will tell, but we're certainly rooting for them.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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