When 2025 began, consensus pointed to a single inevitability at The Game Awards: Grand Theft Auto 6 would claim Game of the Year. In May, however, Rockstar postponed the release into 2026, removing it from this year’s field and, on paper, throwing the contest wide open.
Reality unfolded differently. Just before the GTA 6 delay became public, an under-the-radar title from a new French developer and a boutique publisher arrived to glowing reviews: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It quickly assumed frontrunner status and has remained the market favorite ever since.
On the prediction exchange Kalshi, where participants buy and sell contracts on future outcomes, Clair Obscur currently sits with a roughly 79% chance of taking GOTY. (Kalshi’s users put its likelihood only slightly below their odds on Zohran Mamdani winning New York City mayor.) The title jumped to about 48% the moment the GTA 6 delay was announced, climbed into the 70s over the summer, and even topped the mid-80s in September.
September brought the stiffest challenge yet: surprise releases of two acclaimed indie sequels, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Hades 2. Both earned 90-plus aggregates on Metacritic and OpenCritic—benchmarks that usually make a game competitive for GOTY—and Hades 2 even rated higher than Clair Obscur on those platforms. Each had the profile and player base capable of overcoming the usual disadvantage indie games face with the international Game Awards jury.
Still, neither shifted the odds meaningfully. On Kalshi, Silksong peaked around 20% and Hades 2 near 10%, while every other contender languished below 2%. Clair Obscur has proven improbably durable: like those indie peers it’s a labor of love from a small team—Sandfall Interactive—with distribution via Kepler Interactive, but it also occupies the genre sweet spot the jury has favored repeatedly: expansive, narratively driven, and visually polished action-RPG/adventure experiences.
There’s an element of fortunate timing, too. Because many expected GTA 6 to dominate this year, relatively few AAA releases that fit the classic GOTY mold materialized. Recent major releases in that space—titles such as Ghost of Yōtei and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows—drew respect from critics without igniting widespread enthusiasm. The critical consensus appears to prefer something novel, but not so unconventional that it alienates the broader jury.
Beyond its odds, a Clair Obscur victory would be notable for how historic it would feel: a debut from an unknown studio winning GOTY would be unprecedented, and a small publisher like Kepler outpacing industry giants would be remarkable. Equally striking is that its nearest rivals are modest, self-published indies—a configuration the awards have never seen before.
All the same, there’s a touch of irony in watching a largely static GOTY race in the year Grand Theft Auto 6 stepped aside. In effect, one foregone conclusion has simply been swapped for another.
Source: Polygon
