Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 - Game of the Year in 2025
Clair Obscure: Expedition 33
Claire Obscure: Expedition 33 emerged as one of the most remarkable success stories of 2025’s gaming landscape, taking home the prestigious Game of the Year award (GOTY) at The Game Awards 2025.
Developed by the French independent studio Sandfall Interactive, this richly crafted RPG captured the hearts of critics and players alike with its emotional narrative, striking art direction, and innovative turn-based combat system.
In a historic night at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, Expedition 33 not only secured the top honor, surpassing formidable competitors like Death Stranding 2, Hades II, and Hollow Knight: Silksong, but also dominated the ceremony with multiple additional awards, setting new records for both nominations and wins. Its success underscores the rising influence of indie creators in the global gaming scene, proving that bold creative vision and heartfelt storytelling can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the biggest names in the industry.
About The Game Awards event
The Game Awards is the biggest night in gaming, often called the “Oscars of video games.” Founded in 2014 by industry veteran Geoff Keighley, it’s an annual global celebration that honors the best games, creators, and innovations of the year while also spotlighting major trailers and world premieres.
Unlike traditional award shows, TGA blends recognition with entertainment — combining award presentations with high-profile game reveals, exclusive trailers, and industry announcements that gamers around the world eagerly anticipate.
At its core, the event reflects Keighley’s vision: celebrate creativity, champion developers, and engage the global gaming community. His background in games journalism and storytelling shaped TGA into not just an awards ceremony, but a cultural moment for players everywhere.
The show has grown from a niche broadcast into a multimedia spectacle watched by millions, emphasizing both the artistry and passion behind video games.
If you want know more about the game awards event, see here.
Sandfall Interactive
Sandfall Interactive is an independent video game studio based in France, founded by former Ubisoft creative lead Guillaume Broche. The studio made its debut with its first major project, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a game that immediately captured attention for its innovative storytelling, immersive world-building, and bold artistic vision.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - Summary
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 tells a rich, narrative-driven story that combines exploration, strategy, and atmospheric design, highlighting the studio’s commitment to deep, player-centered experiences. The game has been praised for its originality and ambition, establishing Sandfall Interactive as a rising force in the indie game scene.
From the very start, Sandfall Interactive’s approach has been shaped by creative freedom and narrative focus, allowing a small, agile team to innovate outside the constraints of large AAA studios. Guillaume Broche’s experience in AAA development informs the studio’s craftsmanship, while the independence of the studio enables it to take bold creative risks.
By launching with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Sandfall Interactive has positioned itself as a studio to watch, signaling a new era of story-driven, artistically daring games in the global gaming landscape.
Guillaume Broche
Guillaume Broche is a French game developer and entrepreneur whose career spans both major AAA studios and independent creation. After studying business and management in France and the UK, he entered the video game industry at Ubisoft, where he first held junior and mid-level roles in publishing and brand-related functions within the group. These early positions allowed him to build a strong understanding of game marketing, production ecosystems, and the relationship between creative vision and commercial strategy.
He later moved to Ubisoft Shanghai, where he took on more senior responsibilities, including brand development and narrative-focused roles, contributing to large-scale international projects and working closely with multidisciplinary teams. This progression within Ubisoft gave him deep experience in AAA pipelines, global collaboration, and storytelling at scale.
Seeking greater creative freedom, he went on to found Sandfall Interactive, where he serves as founder, CEO, and creative director. There, he led the development of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a project recognized for its distinctive artistic direction and narrative ambition, marking his transition from large studio structures to independent, auteur-driven game development.
Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 - Original Narrative
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 stands out for its deeply immersive and intricately crafted narrative, placing players at the center of a mysterious expedition into uncharted and enigmatic territories. The story explores themes of discovery, human curiosity, and the ethical dilemmas of exploration, gradually revealing the hidden histories, secrets, and challenges of the world the expedition uncovers. Players navigate complex choices and encounter layered characters, each with their own motivations, fears, and relationships, creating a narrative that evolves over the time.
Jennifer Svedberg-Yen
Jennifer Svedberg‑Yen is the lead writer, voice, and localization producer for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
This early involvement allowed her to help shape Expedition 33’s narrative from the ground up, integrating her insights into character development, dialogue, and thematic depth.
Svedberg‑Yen’s writing focuses on complex human emotions, moral ambiguity, and personal discovery, bringing a depth to the game’s story that aligns perfectly with Broche’s vision for a narrative-driven indie experience. Her combined role as writer, voice director, and localization producer ensured that the characters and story remained consistent, immersive, and emotionally compelling across the entire game.
Claire Obscure: Expedition 33 - Original Soundtrack
A key element of Expedition 33’s identity is its original soundtrack, composed by Lorien Testard and Alicia Duport Percier. Their music plays a central role in creating the game’s atmosphere, blending haunting melodies, intricate harmonies, and dynamic soundscapes that adapt to the player’s journey. The soundtrack not only enhances the narrative but also deepens immersion, making exploration and storytelling feel truly alive.
Lorien Testard
Lorien Testard is a French composer whose work blends contemporary classical, cinematic, and experimental elements, and whose music became a defining part of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Before joining the project, Testard was a guitar teacher who composed music in his free time, regularly writing and uploading video game inspired tracks to SoundCloud as part of his personal practice to refine his craft.
In early 2020, while Guillaume Broche was shaping the early concept of Expedition 33, he began searching for musical voices that could bring the game’s emotional world to life. Broche discovered Testard’s compositions on SoundCloud after seeing a post with one of his tracks shared on a French indie video game forum.
Impressed by the emotional depth and narrative quality in Testard’s music, qualities that matched the tone Broche envisioned for the game’s atmosphere, he reached out directly, sharing early concept art, story ideas, and initial game themes. Broche invited Testard to compose the soundtrack from the very beginning of the development process, emphasizing a collaborative approach where music would help shape the world rather than be added as an afterthought.
Testard accepted and immediately became involved in early storyboarding, environmental design sessions, and creative discussions, working closely with Broche and co‑composer Alice Duport‑Percier to craft adaptive themes and immersive soundscapes that respond to the player’s journey through the game. This early integration made the soundtrack a core element of the Expedition 33 experience, helping define the narrative’s emotional arc and atmosphere.
Alicia Duport‑Percier
Alicia Duport‑Percier is a French composer and vocal artist whose work brings a unique emotional and human dimension to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Brought onto the project early in development by Guillaume Broche, she collaborated closely with co-composer Lorien Testard to craft a soundtrack that blends instrumental and vocal elements seamlessly.
She trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon and has performed with ensembles such as Les Kapsbergirls and Libera me, covering repertoire from medieval to contemporary music. She has also appeared in notable operas, including Alcina de Haendel, Orphée et Eurydice de Gluck, and collaborated on interdisciplinary projects like the dance company Chriki’Z.
Duport‑Percier’s signature contribution on Expedition 33 lies in her ethereal vocal harmonies and intimate lyrical motifs, which are woven directly into the game’s narrative and environmental design. Her voice adds depth and emotional resonance, highlighting key moments of exploration, tension, and discovery. By integrating her compositions from the start, the team ensured that the vocal elements were not just accompaniment, but an active storytelling tool, interacting dynamically with player actions and the game’s evolving world.
Through her work on Expedition 33, Alicia Duport‑Percier helped define the emotional and atmospheric identity of Sandfall Interactive’s debut project, making the soundtrack a core component of the game’s immersive experience.
Expedition 33 Legacy
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 demonstrates the growing importance of indie games in the video game industry, showing how smaller studios can deliver bold, innovative experiences that push the boundaries of storytelling, art, and music. By combining immersive narrative, striking visuals, and a dynamic soundtrack, Sandfall Interactive proves that indie titles can rival AAA productions in creativity and emotional impact. Games like Expedition 33 challenge large studios to rethink and reinvent their approach to innovation, proving that passion, vision, and creative freedom are as vital as budgets and technology in shaping the future of gaming.
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