The news that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has surpassed the total number of Game of the Year awards won by the previous record holder, FromSoftware's Elden Ring (with our very own awards marking the historical occurrence), has circulated widely on the Web over the past few days.
Industry veteran Rich Vogel, whom we recently interviewed about the state of the MMORPG industry in Western countries, shared his thoughts on the event in a LinkedIn post. Vogel feels that Expedition 33 is a 'really good game', but also can't quite wrap his head around it being 'better' than Elden Ring, which he praised for its brilliant open world design.
I am very happy that Expedition has been honored with so many awards. It is a really good game. It is hard for me to accept that Expedition 33 is a better game than Elden Ring. I had more fun playing Elden Ring. The open-world design was brilliant. I like that it did not force you down paths like Skyrim and gave you the freedom to go anywhere in the world. You started out being hunted and became the hunter.
Another industry veteran who was part of the aforementioned Wccftech interview on MMOs, Greg Street, also replied that Elden Ring is much more replayable. Street called Expedition 33 a masterpiece but also noted that the game's emotional story makes people more forgiving of other faults, such as the level design.
I imagine I will play Expedition 33 once or twice more in my lifetime, which is typical for single player RPGs for me. I predict I will go back to Elden Ring ten times or more. The replayability potential between the two is hard to compare. I think 33 is a masterpiece for sure, but I think people’s love for the story and characters leads them to overly forgive other places where the game is weaker, such as level design.
Of course, the fact that Sandfall's acclaimed turn-based JRPG has earned more Game of the Year awards (436 versus 435, though Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 still has several prizes left to claim) than Elden Ring does not mean it is objectively 'better'. For one thing, FromSoftware's game arguably had stronger competition, with Sony Santa Monica's God of War Ragnarök taking its own share of GOTY awards that year.
Still, the question now has to be asked: which game do you prefer? Vote in the poll and share your opinion in the comments below.
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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