This month, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 absolutely cleaned house at The Golden Joystick Awards 2025 with seven trophies, matching a record previously only held by Baldur’s Gate 3. That’s good company indeed, but the team behind the French RPG can’t quite believe it.
Speaking to Radio Times Gaming after the show, art director Nicholas Maxson-Francombe called the record-tying night “quite surreal” because the team “never intended for all these awards, we just wanted to make a game that we thought that we liked [and] we thought other players would enjoy.”
Devora Wilde, who had roles in both games as Lae’zel and Clea, said “after Baldur’s Gate 3, I didn’t think we’d be in this position so soon, and so it’s absolutely wild to be here, and I just feel honored that Sandfall trusted us, and the team’s trusted us with it.”
Aliona Baranova is another actress with roles in both hit RPGs, and she said “it’s really a win for everyone that beautiful games like Baldur’s Gate and Clair Obscur are being celebrated in the way they are.” She also joked that her, Wilde, and Jennifer English might be the “good luck charms” that made it happen.
Verso actor Ben Starr called Clair Obscur “a game that was made with love and it was made for a very specific audience, and it just turns out that the audience for this game was bigger than people thought.” As for why it’s had such an effect, Starr thinks it’s a “timely” story. “If you go to a convention you’ll see hundreds of people in berets or dressed up as Esquie which is not an easy cosplay,” he added.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director doesn’t think sales and awards success should change the studio: “What we want to do is exactly what we wanted to do when we started”
