Clair Obscur Expedition 33 beats out Elden Ring's GOTY award count, and it still isn't finished

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has now won more Game of the Year awards than any other game ever, according to a very organized member of the ResetEra forum. The turn-based strategy game has proved to be something beyond a smash hit, bringing what some may see as a niche genre well into the mainstream.

Elden Ring held the previous GOTY crown for quite some time, and by quite some margin, with a total of 429 Game of the Year awards being doled out to the open-world souls game. Third in the list is The Last of Us Part 2, with 326 awards. It’s no mean feat, then, that Expedition 33, an RPG from a debut indie developer, has toppled the lot of them with a gargantuan 436 (so far).

According to Angie on the ResetEra forums, Clair Obscur surpassed Elden Ring this week, with a trickle of Game of the Year awards still coming through from 2025. There are also still some publications yet to submit their GOTY, so it’s entirely possible that the game may set a bar that won’t be beaten for some time.

Although fans of turn-based RPGs may tear their hair out at any mention of Expedition 33 popularizing the genre, it’s hard to dispute it. Quality notwithstanding, there hasn’t been a smash hit like this, in this genre, for quite some time, with Metaphor Refantazio perhaps coming closest to what could be considered a crossover hit back in 2024.

Clair Obscur has exploded to the point where my friends who live on a steady diet of EA FC 26 and Call of Duty (nothing wrong with that, mind) have messaged me about “that French game,” wanting to know more, and eventually asking for help defeating those creepy mimes. It’s a testament to the love poured into E33 and the quality of its execution, and I’m frankly not surprised that it has garnered the critical attention it has.

If you’re one of the few that hasn’t yet played Clair Obscur and want to know what the fuss is about, Josh Brown’s Expedition 33 review gives an excellent rundown of what you can expect. Speaking of games and years, we have a GOTY list of our own, and you’ll never guess what our number one pick is.