Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s Game Awards nominations show ‘indie’ is still a meaningless term

[ad_1] The Sport Awards nominees have landed, and 6 video games will jostle for the prized Sport of the 12 months honor: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Loss of life Stranding 2: On the Seaside, Donkey Kong Bananza, Hades 2, Hole Knight: Silksong, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. This 12 months’s nominees have made historical past for the award present, now over a decade previous, with a number of indie video games vying for the highest prize for the primary time.

Although that historical past isn’t with no little bit of head-scratching. One has to marvel: Is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 actually an “indie” sport? Amid its 12 nominations — probably the most within the present’s historical past — Clair Obscur was nominated for each indie classes, Greatest Impartial Sport and Debut Indie Sport, along with Sport of the 12 months and a bunch of craft classes.

At first look, Expedition 33 has a glance and status that’s extra aligned with a typical AAA blockbuster than smaller-scale indies like Peak or Megabonk. With Sandfall’s staff measurement of round 30 core members and a smaller price range than you’d count on for a sport with these manufacturing values, Clair Obscur would doubtless be thought-about a AA sport, in keeping with a classification system posited by business information consultants earlier this 12 months. It’s a nebulous label that sits someplace between indie video games from small groups (like Silksong’s three-person Group Cherry) and the multimillion blockbusters that dominate gross sales charts, like Name of Responsibility.

Sure, Sandfall Interactive, the developer behind Expedition 33, is an unbiased studio, which could be sufficient to suggest its standout debut as an “indie” sport. Alternatively, Sandfall partnered with Kepler Interactive to publish the sport, and thru that partnership was capable of drum up a price range that allowed it to solid Hollywood stars (Charlie Cox as Gustave, Andy Serkis as Renoir) and place it in a serious writer showcase. (I don’t suppose Daredevil may get solid in an apparent indie like Eat Me.)

<img width="1650" height="928" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Lune wearing the Baguette costume Clair Obscur Expedition 33." data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/baguette-costume-clair-obscur-expedition-33.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/baguette-costume-clair-obscur-expedition-33.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive One may argue that partnering with a writer is the alternative of being unbiased, although in actuality it’s extremely frequent for unbiased studios to associate with a writer to assist carry their video games to market and promote them after the very fact. Uncooked Fury, the writer of Blue Prince, makes a speciality of it, for instance. Even 2024’s GOTY contender Balatro from solo developer LocalThunk — an indie if I’ve ever seen one — had a writer in Playstack, which has printed video games like Mortal Shell and The Case of the Golden Idle.

In some methods, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is paying homage to 2023’s Baldur’s Gate 3. Each video games captured the zeitgeist of the business through the years they got here out, and each have been (pretty or unfairly) held as bastions for what AAA video games can aspire to be, and what unbiased studios can do when free of the clutches of monopoly-like mother or father firms. (Sandfall was based by ex-Ubisoft builders.)

Baldur’s Gate 3 was self-published by Larian Studios, and, in each sense of the phrase, it was made independently. Not like Expedition 33, nonetheless, Baldur’s Gate 3 didn’t get nominated for Greatest Impartial Sport. (Controversially, Dave the Diver was nominated for the class in 2023. Its retro-inspired, pixel artwork look and low value level of $19.99 definitely flagged it as an “indie” sport, but it surely was developed and printed by Mintrocket — a subsidiary of Nexon, the South Korean gaming big.)

<img width="1650" height="928" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Shadowheart, a cleric, gazes at a magical device in her hands in Baldur’s Gate 3" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/chorus/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24854082/baldurs_gate_3_patches.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/chorus/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24854082/baldurs_gate_3_patches.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: Larian Studios The opposite titles in The Sport Awards’ Greatest Impartial Sport class — Absolum, Ball x Pit, Blue Prince, Hades 2, Hole Knight: Silksong — are all unequivocally indie video games. Ditto for the Debut Indie Sport nominations becoming a member of Blue Prince and Expedition 33: Despelote, Dispatch, and Megabonk.

Dispatch, although, falls into an identical grey space as Expedition 33. It definitely has the look, scope, and value of an indie sport, however is it any extra “indie” than Expedition 33? Its comic-book-come-to-life artwork type doesn’t have the identical lifelike, Unreal Engine 5 look that we count on from non-indies, however its voice solid options Hollywood expertise (Aaron Paul, Jeffrey Wright), and Important Function helped fund its closing stretch of improvement, along with a few of its members taking part in key characters. Dispatch studio AdHoc had round 30 staff when the sport was proven off eventually 12 months’s The Sport Awards, which means it’s comparable in measurement to Sandfall. (In fact, a lot extra individuals contributed to Expedition 33 exterior of the studio.)

<img width="1650" height="928" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Robert Robertson in a crowded elevator in Dispatch" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/dispatch-fail-checks-episode-5-2.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/dispatch-fail-checks-episode-5-2.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: AdHoc Studio through Polygon All in all, the consternation round what's “indie” and what’s not isn’t going away any time quickly. We’re nonetheless early within the 2025 awards race, and I wouldn’t be shocked if extra awards our bodies view Expedition 33 and developer Sandfall as indie, just like the Indie Sport Awards has. (For what it’s value, director Guillaume Broche referred to as the studio “triple-I” when talking to Eurogamer earlier this 12 months, which… simply provides one other wrench into this classification dialogue.)

Maybe Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 nabbing nominations within the unbiased classes is a course correction by the jury (of which Polygon is a contributing outlet) after Baldur’s Gate 3 wasn’t thought-about indie in 2023. Or possibly it’s an try to outline indie video games as these made by unbiased groups, no matter price range or scope. Or possibly it occurred as a result of we nonetheless don’t have one of the best language and labels to precisely describe video games compared to each other.