Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 conquered many hearts in spring. Accordingly, the disappointment was great when it was overlooked at the Grammys. Now the role-playing game has a chance for an award, but as Indie Game of the Year.
What was the deal with the Grammys? The action RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was early on considered a contender for one of the best games of the year, if not even Game of the Year. The musical accompaniment of the game touched many fans and contributed to its success.
The misunderstanding was all the greater that the title was overlooked for the Grammy nominations for Best Video Game Soundtrack. Even one of the nominees stated that he would gladly trade his place with Expedition 33, as GamesRadar reported.
Now the role-playing game finally received the deserved nomination – but for the wrong award, according to some users.
Expedition 33 was so good that many players didn’t know what to do with themselves afterwards:
An Indie that isn’t?
What kind of award is this now? Expedition 33 was nominated for Game of the Year at the Indie Game Awards. Competing for the award are Hades II, Silksong, and the surprise hit Blue Prince, as well as lesser-known titles like Absolum or Consume Me.
Although the role-playing game has so many fans, not everyone is happy with these nominations. Especially Expedition 33 is perceived as inappropriate by some, while others feel that some indie gems of the year are completely absent.
The community director of Palworld, who appears online under the name Bucky, lamented in a post on X the absence of titles like Ball x Pit, Megabonk, Peak, or Schedule 1. Later, he clarified that it was actually more of a joking way to celebrate the strong indie year, but in the comments, some fans are genuinely upset. Half of the games seem too big for some to qualify for an indie award, while they haven’t heard anything about the others.
On Reddit, a user writes: “Including Expedition 33 was kind of lame, even if technically it is an indie. But it’s not really.” Another says: “I have so many questions about these nominees.”
The AA Problem
What lies behind this? The discussion about the nominations for the indie award is actually part of a larger discourse in gaming. Many gamers have been increasingly dissatisfied with the state of the AAA industry for some years now and suddenly appreciate the creativity and passion of indie developers.
Originally, the term indie, short for “independent,” borrowed from the music industry, was defined by a game not being published by a major publisher. Most people associate it with games from smaller teams that make up for their lack of budget with even more passion.
However, due to the great success of some of these titles, developers have been able to produce ever higher quality and larger titles. Few would argue that Hades and Hollow Knight were “real” indie games: the developers of Hades had already made some really good games, but their big breakthrough had remained elusive until then. For Team Cherry, Hollow Knight was even the debut.
When Baldur’s Gate 3 was released, there was also debate about whether it is still an indie game, such as in this post on Reddit, to give an example.
Whether the respective successors of these titles should still carry the indie label seems unclear to many fans. After all, the predecessors were so successful that the budget for development must have been quite high. And while many unknown developers could hardly afford advertising, this probably wasn’t a big problem for established franchises.
These games therefore tend to fall into the AA category for many: not quite the big AAA budget, but also not a small indie miracle anymore. The same goes for Expedition 33, whose budget is reportedly estimated at just under 30 million euros. This is still impressively low for the quality of the game, but still utopian for most indie developers.
More important than the hard facts and definitions for many fans are the feelings: some games feel just less indie than others. Bucky, who started the discussion, asked in another post on November 16, 2025, on X about this as well: “What does ‘indie game’ mean to you? […] When does an indie game stop being an indie game?”
What indie means to you, and whether you think the nominations are justified or would prefer a separate AA category, feel free to let us know in the comments.
A similar discussion took place in 2023 regarding the nomination of Dave The Diver as Best Indie Game at the Game Awards. Because even though the surprise hit brings all the pixelated charm of an indie title, it had a big publisher in its back, Nexon. Dave the Diver was nominated as Best Indie Game 2023, but now the creator clarifies: “We have nothing to do with indie.”
