A lot of memorable moments have happened inThe Game Awards’ 10-year history. We’ve seenIt Takes Two beat much bigger juggernauts for Game of the Year, a heated war betweenSonic andGenshin Impact fans ceremony’s Player’s Voice category, and even unexpected contenders likeBalatrobreaking through on the big stage. But there’s one thing we’ve never seen at the show: an honest-to-God sweep.
Could 2025 be the year it finally happens? It’s a real possibility thanks toClair Obscur: Expedition 33.
In awards show lingo, a sweep occurs when a single piece of art wins just about every award it's eligible for. For instance,The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King more or less pulled off anOscars sweep in 2003 when it won Academy Awards for all 11 categories it was nominated in. The closest that The Game Awards has to that statistic isThe Last of Us Part 2, which won seven awards in 2020. But that wasn’t a true “sweep,” as it failed to clean up in technical categories like Best Art Direction and Best Score and Music. There’s still plenty of room for a game to hit double digits and set a record that will be hard to beat.
While we don’t know this year’s nominees yet, it’s fairly obvious thatClair Obscur: Expedition 33 is going to be a frontrunner. It’s been an odds-on favorite to win Game of the Year since its launch (and especially sinceGrand Theft Auto 6 was delayed into 2026), and heavy hitters likeHollow Knight: Silksonghaven’t seemed to slow its momentum much. It’s as inevitable asElden RingorBaldur’s Gate 3 were in their respective years, and if it wins Game of the Year, you can expect it to grab Best RPG like those games did too.
But what’s rare aboutClair Obscur is that it's a threat in just about every category it will be eligible for come December. While games that win Game of the Year don’t always win Best Direction, for instance,Clair Obscur’s clarity of artistic vision and precise execution make it feel like the kind of game that will nab the double. It’s also well positioned to win another major category, Best Narrative, as its tear-jerker story is the kind of thing that awards show juries dream of. It will have to fight off possible contenders likeSilent Hill f andGhost of Yōtei to get there, but its emotional opening alone might be enough to sway voters.
Games have swept those major categories before, but it’s harder to pair wins there with more technical awards. Clair Obscur has a claim in several of those categories. Score and Music is a possible shoo-in, though it will have to beat the nostalgic joy ofMario Kart World to get there. Art Direction is a definite possibility too, as its evocative imagery and memorable character designs have already made parts of the game feel iconic. The only category where it’s unlikely to make a dent is Audio Design, one category whereHollow Knight: Silksong is more likely to get its due. Even without that, though, that would already positionClair Obscur to take home six awards.
SurpassingThe Last of Us Part 2’s record will require some very specific outcomes to swing inClair Obscur’s favor. For one, Best Performance would be a must-win award — and that’s going to be tough. While multiple cast members could make the final field, that could be a detriment to its chances if jury members are split over which performance stands out the most. Jennifer English has the best shot at winning overall, but it’s going to be difficult to beat Troy Baker, who is technically eligible for his performance in last year’sIndiana Jones and the Great Circle. Even if voters somehow forget about him,Ghost of Yōtei’s Erika Ishii would be another tough force to reckon with. And that’s just the start of aloaded shortlist of possible nominees.
To really beat the record and land a proper sweep, though, all roads run through The Game Awards’ historically controversial independent categories. As a “AA” game,Clair Obscur sits in a weird netherrealm between AAA and indie just likeBaldur’s Gate 3 before it. It looks like the kind of big-budget game that Sony would produce, but Sandfall Interactive is technically an independent studio. And yes, it is published by a known entity in Kepler Interactive, but Kepler’s games have historically competed in the indie categories. (See: Pacific Drive in 2024 andSifuin 2022.)
With The Game Awards’ rules for what constitutes an indie game being loose — something that fueled debate when the Nexon-publishedDave the Diver landed aBest Independent nomination in 2023 — it will be up to voters to decide how to interpret and positionClair Obscur. If the jury determines that it counts as an independent game, it’s likely to win both Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie Game. That said, history isn’t in its favor here. Baldur’s Gate 3 didn’t compete in Best Independent the year that it won Game of the Year, so it’s hard to imagine the jury classifyingClair Obscur any differently. But never say never when it comes to The Game Awards.
With all of that in mind, there’s a good chance thatClair Obscur could tieThe Last of Us Part 2’s record, but getting past it will come down to technicalities. It raises the question: What would a true sweep even look like for TGA? Maybe seven awards reallyisthe ceiling, with wins for GOTY, Direction, Narrative, Performance, and the relevant genre category being enough to constitute a sweep.
But there’s room for that bar to move higher than evenClair Obscur is capable of. Is there a world in which a family-friendly, narrative-focused, craft-heavy debut indie game that has a great multiplayer mode, VR support, and a mobile port could really clean house one day? What will be gaming’s ownReturn of the King? I pity the studio that will find out and have to write a dozen speeches.
