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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteClair Obscur: Expedition 33 was nominated for both Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie Game at The Game Awards 2025, as well as Game of the Year. That makes the nomination a clear example of how “indie” can mean different things: a project’s budget, its studio’s independence, its publisher, its origins, or its creative identity. The nominations show that the label is contested—not that it has no meaning.
What The Game Awards nominated
Epic Games Store’s November 17, 2025 nominee report listed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in Game of the Year, Best Independent Game, and Best Debut Indie Game. It called the game’s 12 nominations a record at the time and identified Sandfall Interactive and Kepler Interactive in the category listings. The report said the nominees were selected by a global jury of more than 150 media publications and creator outlets. Epic Games Store’s nominee report documents the 2025 list; inclusion establishes that the game was nominated, not that The Game Awards has a universal or publicly established definition of “indie.”
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
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Clair Obscur Expedition 33 PS5 | $45.00 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (PS5) | $41.74 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - For PS5 | $45.68 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - For PlayStation 5 | $67.00 | Buy on Amazon |
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Metaphor: ReFantazio Launch Edition - PlayStation 5 | $38.89 | Buy on Amazon |
Why people disagree about whether it is indie
The argument gets muddled when different people use the same word to ask different questions. A small development team, an independent owner, a modest budget, and an indie-associated creative style are not interchangeable tests. A game can fit one and not another.
Budget and production scale
In a GamesRadar+ report excerpting an interview with Edge, Sandfall creative director Guillaume Broche described the game’s budget as “more towards triple-I.” That is a qualitative characterization, not a disclosed budget or a like-for-like accounting of production costs. The available reporting does not establish a definitive figure, so it cannot settle the classification by itself.
#1 Best Overall
- Reactive Turn-based Combat: Craft unique builds for your Expeditioners that fit your playstyle via gear, stats, skills, and &character synergies
- Dodge, parry, and counter in real time, chain combos by mastering attack rhythms, and target enemy weak points using a free aim system
- With only one year left to live, join Gustave, Maelle, & fellow Expeditioners as they embark on a desperate quest to break Paintress’ cycle of death
- Explore an enchanting realm populated by adversaries; Wander through breathtaking landscapes, from Island of Visages to the Forgotten Battlefield
- Experience the debut game from Sandfall Interactive, fully realized in Unreal Engine 5 with stunning graphics and a heartbreaking soundtrack
Studio size and control
Whether a developer is independent can refer to who owns or controls it, while team size describes how many people make a project. Those may overlap, but one does not prove the other. The available reporting does not provide an audited headcount or a detailed ownership and financing breakdown for Sandfall, so rough impressions of the team cannot stand in for those facts.
The publisher’s role
Sandfall developed the game, and Kepler Interactive appears in the award category listings. A publisher can contribute financing, marketing, and distribution; its involvement may affect how a game is perceived, but a publisher’s presence alone does not resolve every definition of “indie.” The relevant question is what criterion a particular award category or speaker is applying.
Rank #2
- Reactive Turn-based Combat - In this evolution of JRPGs, real-time actions enhance the heart of turn-based combat. Build your party and level up six characters. Craft unique builds for your expeditioners that fit your playstyle via gear, stats, skills, and character synergies. Open an active dimension in combat - dodge, parry, and counter in real time, chain combos by mastering attack rhythms, and target enemy weak points using a free-aim system.
- “Tomorrow Comes” - With only one year left to live, join Gustave, Maelle, and their fellow Expeditioners as they embark upon a desperate quest to break the Paintress’ cycle of death. Follow the trail of previous expeditions and discover their fate. Get to know the members of Expedition 33 as they learn to work together against impossible odds.
- A Hauntingly Beautiful World - Explore an enchanting realm populated by surreal adversaries. Wander through breathtaking landscapes, from the Island of Visages to the Forgotten Battlefield, discovering secrets and hidden quests along the way. Find allies of fortune in creatures of legend and recruit a special companion who can access new travel methods and secret areas in the World Map.
- Experience the debut game from Sandfall Interactive, fully realized in Unreal Engine 5 with stunning graphics and a heartbreaking soundtrack.
- European/ UK version
How the project changed
Lead programmer Tom Guillermin told GamesRadar+ that the project began as indie and expanded while retaining its original concept and ideas. He said, “The project definitely started as indie in the very beginning, so I think that’s the weird part of it, and now it’s a bit bigger than that.” He also described the difficulty of drawing a line: “It’s hard to draw a line where you stopped being indie when you started with the same game concept and the same ideas that we ended up shipping.”
That history raises a real classification choice: should a label follow a project’s origins, or the resources and structure behind the finished release? Neither answer follows automatically from the word itself.
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Rank #3
- Engaging Storyline: Dive into a rich, narrative-driven adventure with unexpected twists.
- Complex Puzzles: Test your problem-solving skills with challenging puzzles.
- Immersive World: Explore a visually stunning alien planet with breathtaking details and treacherous terrain.
Creative identity
Some people use “indie” to describe a game’s sensibility or the way it feels, rather than its financing or corporate structure. That can be meaningful as a cultural description, but it is subjective and does not establish who funded or controlled a project.
What the developers said about the nomination
Broche said, “In terms of budget, we are definitely more towards triple-I.” He also said, “We’ll see what happens, but we’d rather this category went to a smaller studio. I don’t think we really needed this [nomination], even if it’s appreciated.” These are remarks by Sandfall’s creative director reported by GamesRadar+ from an Edge interview; they are not an official eligibility ruling.
Rank #4
- Engaging Storyline: Dive into a rich, narrative-driven adventure with unexpected twists.
- Complex Puzzles: Test your problem-solving skills with challenging puzzles.
- Immersive World: Explore a visually stunning alien planet with breathtaking details and treacherous terrain.
Read together with Guillermin’s comments, the remarks explain why the nomination prompted debate: the team’s description of the project’s growth does not map neatly onto a single threshold for “indie.” The reporting does not establish a binding The Game Awards definition or a formal rule that resolves the dispute.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Do the nominations make “indie” meaningless?
No. They show that the label is too broad to settle a question unless the speaker says what it means. For one discussion, “indie” might mean independent ownership; for another, it might mean a small budget or a project that began at a smaller scale. A cultural use of the term may be useful too, but it answers a different question.
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- IGN and GameSpot "Game of the Year" and "Best RPG" from The Game Awards
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The practical test is to name the axis: Are you asking about ownership, publisher involvement, team size, production resources, project history, or creative identity? Once those are separated, people can disagree about eligibility without pretending that one vague label answers everything. The nomination demonstrates inclusion in The Game Awards’ 2025 indie categories; it does not, on its own, prove that the categories are meaningless or define indie games for the industry.
Keep the separate Indie Game Awards decision distinct
The Game Awards and the Indie Game Awards are separate organizations. PC Gamer reported on December 21, 2025 that the Indie Game Awards retracted its own awards to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, quoting nomination committee member Mike Towndrow on that organization’s generative-AI policy. That later decision concerns the Indie Game Awards; it does not change the fact that The Game Awards’ 2025 nominee list included Clair Obscur in its indie categories.
What the audience polls can—and cannot—tell us
Push Square recorded 882 respondents to a poll asking whether the game was indie and 812 respondents to a poll about the most important classification factor. Those were self-selected visitors to one publication, not representative samples of players or the games industry. They illustrate that readers are debating the label, but they cannot establish an industry-wide definition or show that “indie” has become meaningless.
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