Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 made history with 12 Game Awards nominations – the most ever. But the celebration sparked a controversy about how the industry credits development teams.
What’s New
On November 17, The Game Awards announced Clair Obscur received 12 nominations – the most in TGA history. The French indie RPG from Sandfall Interactive is up for Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, and Best Art Direction, plus three acting categories.
A week later at the Golden Joystick Awards, it swept all seven categories including Ultimate Game of the Year, tying Baldur’s Gate 3’s record. Sandfall also won Studio of the Year.
The game launched April 24, 2025, selling 500,000 copies in 24 hours and surpassing 5 million by October.
Why It Matters
Throughout awards season, everyone praised the game as being made by “just 30 people.” At Summer Game Fest in June, Geoff Keighley called it “a monumental achievement” from “a team of under 30 developers.” Hideo Kojima praised “33 team members and a dog.”
Game developers pushed back. Mike Bithell posted that it’s “incredibly noticeable how often ‘and an army of outsources outside America and Western Europe’ is left out. That’s the part I find real uncomfortable.”
Mike Futter was more direct: “Expedition 33 is a triumph, but it wasn’t made by 30 people. Contractors provided vital labor. This is a dangerous path we’re walking.”
PC Gamer found that Sandfall’s in-house staff makes up less than half the game’s credits. The rest includes Korean animators, QA staff from Polish firm QLOC, performance capture artists, localization teams, and audio producers.
Sandfall COO François Meurisse clarified the core team averaged 30 people over four years, but acknowledged “a galaxy of partners revolving around the project.”
Not counting contractors erases contributions from QA testers, localization staff, and workers often from outside Western markets. It also risks convincing publishers that AAA-quality games need minimal budgets.
The Bottom Line
Sandfall’s achievement is real. A core team of 30-40 creating the vision for a game this polished deserves celebration. But so do the hundreds of contractors who brought it to life. The “small team” story is inspiring but incomplete. Should the gaming industry be more transparent about how modern games actually get made?
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