This year, video games all bowed to one king at The Game Awards: “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.” Sandfall’s underdog RPG success — hailed for its gorgeous worldbuilding, artful combat system and gripping soundtrack, won a record-breaking nine awards out of 12 nominations — including the top prize, Game of the Year.
The achievement wowed video game developers like Dineth Meegoda, a technical artist at Respawn Entertainment.
“[What] inspires me is the fact that they are not afraid to remix things,” Meegoda said. “They have obvious influences from a lot of existing games, like ‘Persona,’ but taking that and remixing it in their own style, especially taking parts of their own culture and their own influences, and putting that into the world is really inspiring.”
“Clair Obscur,” a narrative role-playing game centered around fighting enemies in turn-based combat, was adored by a crowd who roared upon each trophy it notched. Gaming producer Su Dural, who decorated her nails in support of “Clair Obscur,” raved about hearing the Best Score and Music winner’s soundtrack, which was performed live by an orchestra during the show.
“My ears turned blessed today just listening to that live, I was so happy,” Dural said.
Besides “Clair Obscur” publisher Kepler Interactive, only one other publisher won multiple awards: Nintendo, which won two awards for “Mario Kart World” and “Donkey Kong Bananza.”
The awards show also played host to a number of new game announcements. New entries in beloved series like “Control,” “Mega Man” and “Tomb Raider” were unveiled at Thursday’s show.
Alex C, an aspiring voice actor, didn’t hesitate to highlight what his favorite announcement of the night was.
“Mega Man, for sure. I’m just a huge Capcom fan, so it’s like [seeing], Mega Man and Monster Hunter. I was excited to see all that,” Alex said.
It wasn’t just games that were announced — the upcoming “Street Fighter” film adaptation also made an appearance with a trailer. Its star-studded cast, including Cody Rhodes, Noah Centineo and Jason Momoa, later took to the stage to award Best Ongoing Game to “No Man’s Sky.”
A new entry in the “Divinity” franchise, simply titled “Divinity,” came as another surprise. ” It will be developed by Larian Studios, who previously won Game of the Year in 2023 for “Baldur’s Gate 3.” That announcement was previously teased by a mysterious statue sitting outside the Peacock Theater, a payoff that Dural was waiting for.
“The ‘Divinity’ announcement was crazy,” Dural said. “I’ve been watching all these theories about that statue they revealed for days now, and everyone was speculating something else about it. And oh my god — of course, it’s Larian.”
The honorary Game Changer award was given to gaming education company Girls Make Games. The award was presented to two alumni of the program — including USC computer science junior Monica Paredes, who was among the first recipients of the Girls Make Games scholarship in 2023.
Among the biggest announcements was the unveiling of a release date for Phantom Blade Zero — a game centered around Chinese mythology, and one of the most anticipated PlayStation 5 releases in 2026.
Tyler “Sarthe” Robinson, a content creator boasting over 400,000 followers on both TikTok and Instagram, was invited to China to try out the game early. He says the game is going to “take over the world.”
“Every single movement in the entire game has been motion captured by the best kung fu artists in the world,” Robinson said. “When you’re watching gameplay of the game, it looks like a cinematic the whole time… You’re like a fucking action hero, okay? It’s super hype.”
The final announcement of the night was the reveal of “Highguard,” an original player-vs-player first-person shooter game made by developers behind “Titanfall” and “Apex Legends.” It’s an announcement that was surreal for Meegoda, who worked on “Apex Legends” with many of “Highguard’s” staff.
“I was like — ‘Wow, this is crazy.’ Like, these are people that used to work on the same project that I work on now. I’m really excited to check it out, although I have no clue what’s in store,” Meegoda said.
The celebration left many of the fans, actors, developers and streamers inspired. However, for Dural and other attendees, it was the success story of Sandfall’s indie development team at “Clair Obscur” that stuck with them the most.
“I was mainly supporting that game this year,” Dural said. “Just the journey that the team went through, how much of a passion project that was and what kind of incredible things that you can make when there’s collaboration and passion involved –I think that’s, like, really inspiring, and that’s the kind of environment I would love to work in one day.”