Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s sweep at The Game Awards has left one of 2025’s biggest developers sulking on social media — and raised a wider conversation about awards, fandom, and how studios navigate public disappointment in a hyper-visible era.
Background
The Game Awards 2025, held on December 11 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, crowned
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as
Game of the Year, and the French-developed indie dominated the ceremony with a record haul of wins. The turn-based, narrative-driven RPG walked away with nine awards — the most ever for a single title at the show — and its victory list included major craft categories such as
Best Narrative and
Best RPG. For many fans and critics, Sandfall Interactive’s debut represented a fresh, emotionally resonant approach to RPG storytelling. For others, the results set up an even more visible rivalry:
Warhorse Studios’ Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, a sprawling and technically ambitious medieval simulator, had been a heavy contender in the same categories and found itself on the losing end of several high-profile awards. The contrast between a compact, highly curated indie and a colossal, historically focused AAA sequel made for dramatic narrative fodder on awards night — and in the hours that followed on social media.
The Game Awards sweep: what happened
Clair Obscur’s haul was both historic and comprehensive: jury awards, craft categories, and the top prize fell to the title in a way that few observers had anticipated at this scale. Multiple outlets cataloged the wins and the significance of the record-breaking night; coverage emphasized how a small French studio had vaulted into the spotlight and altered the awards season landscape. At the same ceremony, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 was nominated in high-profile categories, including
Game of the Year,
Best Narrative, and
Best RPG. Given KCD2’s production values, length, and the scale of its ambition, many players believed the sequel to be a legitimate contender across multiple categories — which made the subsequent social-media reaction by the Warhorse team especially visible.
Warhorse’s public reaction: meme, tweet, photo
Within hours of the awards, Warhorse Studios’ social channels and staff accounts produced a small series of posts that quickly circulated across gaming media.
- The official Kingdom Come account posted the “this is fine” dog meme — a compact visual shorthand for frustration and denial — immediately after KCD2 lost Best RPG and Best Narrative.
- Tobias Stolz‑Zwilling, Warhorse’s communications director, posted an image of The Game Awards trophy with the caption: “We have officially been robbed!” That tweet — blunt, memetic, and clearly rhetorical — was amplified by fans and news outlets.
- Later posts from the official Kingdom Come account softened the tone: a cheeky “ggwp Expedition 33 ” and a screenshot of an in‑game dialogue option reading “Blame the French!” indicated the studio was leaning into banter. Subsequent behind‑the‑scenes photos showed Warhorse and Sandfall devs socializing together after the show.
Taken together, the posts read as a short joke chain — but social-media context matters. Because the communications director used a phrase as stark as “robbed,” the exchange sparked a polarized reaction: some players rallied behind Warhorse as underdogs beaten by an indie juggernaut; others criticized the posts as poor sportsmanship toward peers who had just been honored.
Why the reaction matters: PR, professionalism, and the culture of awards
Video-game awards are part prestige, part marketing, and part community ritual. For studios the stakes are higher than a trophy’s material value: awards shape public perception, can influence holiday sales, and feed into downstream deals (licensing, collaborations, and platform promotions). Given that context, how a studio responds to a loss is both a communications decision and a cultural signal.
- Risk of alienation: A public post that reads as sour or entitled risks incurring backlash from both peers and players. Critics argued Warhorse’s initial posts crossed into immaturity and disrespect for winners who were celebrating legitimate recognition.
- Human response: The flip side is that disappointment is natural — especially after months of awards campaigning and fan voting cycles. Many fans empathized with Warhorse; several publicly stated they had personally voted for KCD2 in the RPG category. Social media often amplifies emotional, unfiltered reactions that in a different era would have stayed in dressing rooms.
- Intent and context: Subsequent photos of the teams together and conciliatory messages from Warhorse leadership suggest the “robbed” phrasing was intended to be tongue‑in‑cheek. The studio’s later “thanks to all of you for your support… PLEASE STAY KIND” post also indicates a swift course correction and an attempt to de‑escalate. Still, the initial messages function as reminders that tone matters in corporate accounts.
This episode underlines a practical lesson for studios: awards-night reactions should be handled with empathy and awareness of optics. A meme is never just a joke when it carries the studio’s institutional voice.
The creative argument: did Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 “deserve” those awards?
A recurring fan debate after the ceremony was whether KCD2 had been
unfairly eclipsed by Clair Obscur. That conversation splits into three measurable areas:
scope and ambition,
design philosophy, and
narrative execution.
- Scope and ambition: KCD2 is a sprawling, simulation-heavy title that leans into historical authenticity, deep systems, and emergent play. Its world size, dozens of playable hours, and complex mechanics make it a textbook AAA contender. Meanwhile, Expedition 33 is comparatively compact, focusing on carefully written scenes, turn-based combat that innovates on a smaller scale, and highly curated pacing. Those are different types of achievements that don’t map perfectly to a single award.
- Design philosophy: Kingdom Come’s value proposition is simulation and player-driven emergent storytelling; Clair Obscur’s is crafted narrative and atmospherics. Awards like Best Narrative can favor dense, authorial storytelling as easily as player-driven branching systems, depending on jury criteria and subjective taste. Neither approach is objectively superior — they’re divergent design philosophies.
- Public reception and critical consensus: Many publications and year-end lists placed Clair Obscur at the top of 2025’s lists; it also enjoyed a rapid commercial ascent and strong Game Pass exposure ahead of the awards. KCD2 received praise for its scale and ambition but faced criticism in some corners for pacing and technical rough edges that can hurt jury perception. Awards weigh craft and polish alongside ambition.
In short: “deserving” is a disputed, subjective metric. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 had legitimate claims; whether it should have won depends on how you value
scope versus craft and
emergent systems versus authored narrative. The Game Awards jury and voting processes leaned toward Sandfall’s highly curated narrative package this year.
The commercial ripple: sales, Game Pass, and discoverability
Award wins still translate into measurable commercial impact — and in 2025, distribution channels like
Xbox Game Pass significantly alter the discoverability dynamic.
- Game Pass reach: Clair Obscur’s presence on Xbox Game Pass (PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate) amplified its player base prior to awards, increasing votes and exposure and arguably contributing to cultural momentum going into The Game Awards. Xbox Wire and the Xbox store confirmed the title’s presence on Game Pass and highlighted its Game Pass launch as among the biggest third-party Game Pass rollouts of the year.
- Sales and discounts: Both titles saw discounted storefront pricing in December. Official storefronts and reputable key‑reseller pages showed Clair Obscur listed at $49.99 with periodic sales, while Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 appeared at $59.99 on some platforms and on promotion on others. Third‑party key retailers like Loaded were running steep discounts at the time of reporting, with Expedition 33 available for roughly $30.79 and KCD2 around $33.49 on PC — numbers reported by several outlets and visible on the sites themselves. These discounts matter: awards week often triggers spikes in interest and bargain hunters.
The modern awards-to-sales pipeline is therefore multi-faceted: Game Pass primes an audience, awards provide headlines, and sales/discounts convert interest into purchases. From a business standpoint, the exposure Warhorse received through nominations — even without trophies — still has value. But studios understandably hope for the boost that a trophy can deliver.
The social-media calculus: how studios can respond better
The KCD2 reaction episode feeds into a broader set of best-practice recommendations for game studios managing public communications:
- Pause and plan: Immediate, emotional posts from institutional accounts are risky. A short internal cooling-off period (even 30–60 minutes) gives staff time to shape tone.
- Humanize, don’t weaponize: Personal accounts may show candid emotion; corporate accounts should aim for empathy and celebration of peers. If the studio wants to vent, use personal channels and avoid language that can be read as dismissive.
- Amplify positives: Highlight what the team achieved — patch plans, player metrics, upcoming content — rather than focusing solely on the loss. That keeps community momentum forward-focused.
- Repair proactively: If a tone misstep occurs, follow with clear, warm outreach: congratulate winners, share photos, and highlight camaraderie. Warhorse’s later photos and conciliatory language followed this script and helped cool the controversy.
Those steps are straightforward yet often overlooked in the adrenaline of award night. The balance between authenticity and institutional responsibility is delicate, but vital.
What the debate reveals about awards culture in 2025
Several structural realities of modern awards are highlighted by this incident.
- Diverging criteria and subjectivity: Awards are not a neutral metric of “best game.” Different voters and juries prioritize different attributes. That makes any single night less definitive, and open to interpretive dispute.
- Platform power and exposure: Games on subscription services enjoy a discoverability advantage that can translate into greater cultural momentum — not necessarily because they are strictly “better,” but because more players try them. That exposure influences both critical consensus and public voting.
- Community identity and tribalism: Gamers form passionate, identity-driven attachments to titles. When awards go against those attachments, the reaction can be extreme. Studios walk a thin line between supporting fans and avoiding incendiary rhetoric.
Ultimately, the outcome at The Game Awards tells us less about a single title’s absolute worth and more about evolving cultural mechanics: curated narrative craft is being celebrated at scale, Game Pass distribution shapes who plays what before awards, and social media turns every PR moment into a public debate.
The long view: what this means for Warhorse, Sandfall, and players
For Sandfall Interactive and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the awards are a defining moment. The wins will likely bolster the studio’s bargaining power for partnerships, create opportunities for expanded content, and give the team a durable cultural brand. For Warhorse and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, the nominations and the visibility that came with them still represent success — and the controversy may even concentrate attention back onto the game in the short term. Both outcomes have business and creative upside.
What matters going forward is how each studio leverages momentum. For Sandfall, converting awards into sustained engagement through DLC, community content, and polished post‑launch support will be important. For Warhorse, leaning into ongoing updates, community listening, and narrative patching (where needed) can turn disappointment into a renewed narrative arc. Both studios can benefit from being transparent with players about their roadmaps and priorities.
Final analysis: awards are snapshots, not verdicts
The Game Awards are a high‑visibility snapshot of industry sentiment at a moment in time. They highlight trends, reward certain kinds of craft, and generate conversations that reverberate across social and mainstream media. But they are not the final verdict on a game’s legacy.
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won in a way that reshaped award‑season expectations and demonstrated how a focused, auteur-driven RPG can triumph on the global stage.
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 remains a landmark project for simulation-forward RPG design; its nominations and fan support reflect an enduring appetite for deep, systemic experiences.
- The Warhorse social-media moment was a PR misstep when viewed in isolation, but context and follow-up photos show the industry’s interpersonal norms are intact: developers can be candid, then reconcile, and ultimately celebrate each other.
In the long run, games are judged by players and time. Awards accelerate attention, but the true test is sustained engagement, community goodwill, and the quality of post-launch support. For both studios, the next months of patches, DLC, and community interaction will likely matter more than a single trophy night.
Takeaways for developers, PR teams, and players
- For developers: Embrace visibility but plan for optics. A measured public voice preserves relationships and reputation.
- For PR teams: Prepare templates and escalation paths for emotionally charged events (nominations, wins, losses) to avoid knee‑jerk posts that can be amplified.
- For players: Awards are a useful discovery tool, but they are not the sole indicator of whether a game will resonate with you personally. Try to separate awards‑driven hype from your own preferences.
The Game Awards 2025 have given the industry a headline moment, a heated social-media vignette, and a reminder that, in modern gaming culture, every win and loss is amplified. Both Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will continue to be played, debated, and enjoyed — and that continuing dialogue is precisely what makes gaming culture vibrant and resilient.
Source: Windows Central
https://www.windowscentral.com/gami...ing-the-huge-medieval-rpg-at-the-game-awards/