Lifestyle

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sweeps The Game Awards — analysis and full winners list

Published

7 days ago

December 12, 2025

Press Room

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sweeps The Game Awards — analysis and full winners list

Performers onstage at The Game Awards 2025 at the Peacock Theater on December 11, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

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The first minutes of The Game Awards set the mold for the next three hours. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won best independent game during the preshow, beating out acclaimed sequels like Hades 2 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Moments after, the main stage opened with operatic singers and a full orchestra (plus the obligatory electric guitar!) belting out music from the game.

A grid of images showing some of the games we love for 2025.

Clair Obscur was already the favorite to win the grand prize — but kicking off the show with the game front-and-center felt like an anointing. It triumphed in nearly every category it competed in, picking up nine awards in total. By the time it won “Game of the Year,” Clair Obscur had surpassed The Last of Us: Part 2 to become the most decorated game in the Awards history.

As predictable as the night became, the game it honored was anything but. Clair Obscur came from an independent French studio composed of developers who had worked for the French gaming behemoth Ubisoft. Instead of chasing trendy genres like battle royales or open-world action games, Clair Obscur drew inspiration from turn-based role-playing games like the classic Final Fantasy titles. It paired an intimate and existential story with a setting that was both whimsical and epic. And it cast motion-capture icon Andy Serkis alongside game actor veterans like Ben Starr and Jennifer English, who delivered the night’s most rousing speech when she accepted the award for best performance.

“I just want to say to every neurodivergent person watching in this room, because I know there’s probably quite a lot of you,” English said. “To all of you that feel like life is stuck on hard mode, this is for you, and thank you so much to the games community and industry for giving us, so many of us, a home.”

Jennifer English, also known for her leading role in 2023 Game of the Year winner Baldur’s Gate 3, accepts her best performance award onstage at the Peacock Theater on December 11, 2025.

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Clair Obscur’s victories fit with two themes of the night: the rise of independent studios and the internationalization of the awards themselves. Half of the “Game of the Year” nominees were indie games, even as the term has stretched to include titles with sizable budgets and publisher partnerships.

This semantic squishiness is a result of The Game Awards’ outsourced voting process, which polls over 150 international media outlets (including NPR) to determine a list of nominees. These outlets decide for themselves how to define categories like an “independent game” or “action adventure game.” After the shortlist is tallied, they’ll pick their favorites in each category, which are weighted against an open online voting system that makes up a 10th of the total score. As the jury has expanded outside of the U.S., which now only represents roughly 15% of outlets, award winners have become both more global and more mainstream.

Still, Clair Obscur’s ubiquity speaks volumes. Even as it swept other deserving indies aside, the game demonstrates the outsized impact a small team can have on the broader market. No longer seen as just a niche, prestige title, Clair Obscur rose to prominence thanks to strong word-of-mouth and its inclusion on the Xbox Game Pass Service, which allowed regular gamers and critics alike to try the game out without committing to a full purchase.

Guillaume Broche, Tom Guillermin, Nicholas Maxon-Framcombe, and François Meurisse accept the Game of the Year award for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

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Big companies still took home prizes, however. After being completely shut out last year, Nintendo earned a few awards for Switch 2 exclusives, with Donkey Kong Bananza winning best family and Mario Kart World winning best sports/racing. Grand Theft Auto 6 won most anticipated game for the second year in a row. Wuthering Waves, a Chinese game with a huge mobile audience, won the Players’ Voice award, the only category completely determined by public online votes.

Here are the full nominees and winners for the 2025 Game Awards (winners in bold):

Game of the year

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Donkey Kong Bananza (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhorse Studios/Deep Silver)

Best game direction

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Split Fiction (Hazelight Studios/EA)

Best narrative

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhorse Studios/Deep Silver)
Silent Hill f (NeoBards Entertainment/KONAMI)

Best art direction

Best score and music, leveled up by Spotify

Christopher Larkin, Hollow Knight: Silksong
Lorien Testard, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Darren Korb, Hades II
Toma Otowa, Ghost of Yōtei
Woodkid and Ludvig Forssell, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach

Best audio design

Battlefield 6 (Battlefield Studios/EA)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Silent Hill f (NeoBards Entertainment/KONAMI)

Best performance

Ben Starr, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Charlie Cox, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Erika Ishii, Ghost of Yōtei
Jennifer English, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Konatsu Kato, Silent Hill f
Troy Baker, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Innovation in accessibility

Assassin’s Creed Shadows (Ubisoft)
Atomfall (Rebellion)
Doom: The Dark Ages (id Software/Bethesda Softworks)
EA Sports FC 26 (EA Canada/EA Romania/EA)
South of Midnight (Compulsion Games/Xbox Game Studios)

Games for impact

Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia/AP Thomson/Hexacutable)
Despelote (Julián Cordero/Sebastián Valbuena/Panic)
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Don’t Nod Montreal/Don’t Nod)
South of Midnight (Compulsion Games/Xbox Game Studios)
Wanderstop (Ivy Road/Annapurna Interactive)

Best ongoing

Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead Game Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Marvel Rivals (NetEase Games)
No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)

Best community support

Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)
Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead Game Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)

Best independent game

Absolum (Guard Crush Games/Supamonks/Dotemu)
Ball x Pit (Kenny Sun/Devolver Digital)
Blue Prince (Dogubomb/Raw Fury)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)

Best debut indie game

Blue Prince (Dogubomb/Raw Fury)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Despelote (Julián Cordero/Sebastián Valbuena/Panic)
Dispatch (AdHoc Studio)
Megabonk (Vedinad)

Best mobile game

Destiny: Rising (NetEase Games)
Persona 5: The Phantom X (Black Wings Game Studio/Sega)
Sonic Rumble (Rovio Entertainment/Sega)
Umamusume: Pretty Derby (Cygames Inc.)
Wuthering Waves (Kuro Games)

Best VR/AR

Alien: Rogue Incursion (Survios)
Arken Age (VitruviusVR)
Ghost Town (Fireproof Games)
Marvel’s Deadpool VR (Twisted Pixel Games/Oculus Studios)
The Midnight Walk (MoonHood/Fast Travel Games)

Best action

Battlefield 6 (Battlefield Studios/EA)
Doom: The Dark Ages (id Software/Bethesda Softworks)
Hades II (Supergiant Games)
Ninja Gaiden 4 (Platinum Games/Team Ninja/Xbox Game Studios)
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance (Lizardcube/Sega)

Best action/adventure

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Yōtei (Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (MachineGames/Bethesda Softworks)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Split Fiction (Hazelight Studios/EA)

Best RPG

Avowed (Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhorse Studios/Deep SIlver)
The Outer Worlds 2 (Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
Monster Hunter Wilds (Capcom)

Best fighting

2XKO (Riot Games)
Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (Capcom)
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (SNK Corporation)
Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection (Digital Eclipse/Atari)
Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio/Sega)

Best family

Donkey Kong Bananza (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
LEGO Party! (SMG Studio/Fictions)
LEGO Voyagers (Light Brick Studios/Annapurna Interactive)
Mario Kart World (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (Sonic Team/Sega)
Split Fiction (Hazelight Studios/EA)

Best Sim/Strategy

The Alters (11 Bit Studios)
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS – The Ivalice Chronicles (Square Enix)
Jurassic World Evolution 3 (Frontier Developments)
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII (Firaxis Games/2K)
Tempest Rising (Slipgate Ironworks/3D Realms)
Two Point Museum (Two Point Studios/Sega)

Best sports/racing

EA Sports FC 26 (EA Canada/EA Romania/EA)
F1 25 (Codemasters/EA)
Mario Kart World (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Rematch (Sloclap/Kepler Interactive)
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (Sonic Team/Sega)

Best multiplayer

Arc Raiders (Embark Studios)
Battlefield 6 (Electronic Arts)
Elden Ring Nightreign (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco Entertainment)
Peak (Aggro Crab/Landfall)
Split Fiction (Hazelight/EA)

Best adaptation

A Minecraft Movie (Legendary Pictures/Mojang/Warner Bros)
Devil May Cry (Studio Mir/Capcom/Netflix)
The Last of Us: Season 2 (HBO/PlayStation Productions)
Splinter Cell: Deathwatch (FOST Studio/Ubisoft/Netflix)
Until Dawn (Screen Gems/PlayStation Productions)

Most anticipated game

007 First Light (IO Interactive)
Grand Theft Auto VI (Rockstar Games)
Marvel’s Wolverine (Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Resident Evil Requiem (Capcom)
The Witcher IV (CD Projekt Red)

Content creator of the year

Caedrel
Kai Cenat
MoistCr1TiKaL
Sakura Miko
The Burnt Peanut

Best Esports game

Counter-Strike 2 (Valve)
DOTA 2 (Valve)
League of Legends (Riot)
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (Moonton)
Valorant (Riot)

Best Esports athlete

brawk – Brock Somerhalder (Valorant)
Chovy – Jeong Ji-hoon (League of Legends)
f0rsakeN – Jason Susanto (Valorant)
Kakeru – Kakeru Watanabe (Street Fighter)
MenaRD – Saul Leonardo (Street Fighter)
Zyw0o – Mathieu Herbaut (Counter-Strike 2)

Best Esports team

Gen.G – League of Legends
NRG – Valorant
Team Falcons – DOTA 2
Team Liquid PH – Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
Team Vitality – Counter-Strike 2

Players’ voice

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive)
Dispatch (AdHoc Studio)
Genshin Impact (HoYoverse)
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry)
Wuthering Waves (Kuro Games)

Lifestyle

Cheddar bay biscuits, cheap margs and memories: Readers share their nostalgia for chain restaurants

Published

2 hours ago

December 19, 2025

Press Room

Cheddar bay biscuits, cheap margs and memories: Readers share their nostalgia for chain restaurants

Affordable, familiar and reassuring are the features that make American chain restaurants a near-ubiquitous presence throughout the country; it is almost as if they are baked into our roadside culture.

Despite well-documented financial struggles, a tough economy and shifting diet trends, these restaurants withstand time.

This series explores why these places have such strong staying power and how they stay afloat at a time of rapid change.

Read our first three pieces in this series, including how these restaurants leverage nostalgia to attract diners, how they attempt to keep costs affordable, and how social media has changed the advertising game – and become a vital key to restaurants’ success.

America’s chain restaurants are not the most glamorous places to eat. And yet, as we’ve reported, they hold a special place in many Americans’ hearts.

We asked readers what comes to mind when they think of restaurants like Olive Garden, Applebee’s or Texas Roadhouse — and you shared plenty of stories.

Not all of the respondees waxed poetic about the merit of these restaurants. David Horton, 62, from New York, for example, said: “The food is mostly frozen and only has flavor from the incredible amounts of sodium they use.”

But overwhelmingly, responses described vivid childhood memories shared in booths looking excitedly over laminated menus and the type of adolescent rites of passage that seem right at home in the parking lot of a suburban chain restaurant.

There’s a science behind why these sorts of memories have such a hold on us.

A server delivers food to a table at the world's largest Applebee's in New York City's Times Square.

The feeling of nostalgia is linked closely to food and smell, and these restaurant chains are often where core memories – like graduation celebrations or first dates – are made.

Chelsea Reid is an associate professor at the College of Charleston who studies nostalgia. And she’s no more immune to nostalgic feelings than anyone else even though she has a better understanding of the chemistry behind the feeling.

“Even just saying Red Lobster, I can kind of picture the table and the things that we would do and the things we’d order, and my mom getting extra biscuits to take home,” she said.

A Red Lobster restaurant is seen in Fairview Heights, Ill., in 2005.

James A. Finley/AP

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James A. Finley/AP

Her nearest Red Lobster closed down, but a local farmers’ market sells a scone reminiscent of Red Lobster’s famed Cheddar Bay Biscuits – a scent she says immediately transports her back to those childhood family outings to the seafood chain.

“I can see my mom wrapping these up in a napkin and putting them in her purse for when we would be like, ‘hey, we’re hungry,’ and she pulls out a purse biscuit.”

Full disclosure: Your intrepid reporters are not without sentimentality. Before launching this project, when it was just a kernel of an idea, we talked frequently about the role these restaurants played in our own lives.

Jaclyn: I distinctly remember cramming into a booth at my local Chili’s in my hometown, Cromwell, Ct., for most birthday dinners until the age of 13 or so.

I’d be surrounded by my mom, dad and brother, and I got to pick whatever I wanted. Except I always chose the same thing: Chicken crispers with a side of fries, topping the night off with the molten lava chocolate cake we’d share as a family.

I can picture it so clearly, down to the booth we’d sit in. Now, my family is spread out. But my love for Chili’s runs deep, and I still get warm and fuzzy when I think about it.

These days, I’m in my 30s, and I need to worry about my health and getting in 10,000 steps a day. So, no, I don’t regularly go to Chili’s now.

But when I do? Those chicken crispers I had as a kid are still on the menu, and yes, I’m likely to order them today (even if on my adult tastebuds, the salt content quickly turns my mouth into the Sahara Desert).

And it’s not to celebrate my birthday. It’s because one of my best friends is telling me she’s getting a divorce over cheap, and sugary, margaritas.

Alana: When the pandemic struck in 2020 and much of the country went into lockdown, there I was mostly alone in my one bedroom apartment, staring at the walls.

After what seemed like a lifetime, I was finally able to expand my tiny COVID bubble.

One of my first “dining out” experiences during that time was in the parking lot of the Hyattsville, Md., Olive Garden where my friend and I sat in absolute glee to be reunited – not just with one another, but also the chain’s staple soup (zuppa toscana for me, please), salad and breadsticks (you can have all the breadsticks if I can have your share of the salad tomatoes).

Since then, that friend and many others have moved away – too far to meet up for a sit-down over a (mostly) hot meal at a reasonably priced restaurant in a city not famed for being cheap.

I recently revisited the Hyattsville Olive Garden for this story. And even though my life is now different, my friends have moved away, and the world has shifted, there it was, exactly the same.

And I liked it.

Many readers said that these restaurants were the type of place a family who could rarely afford to eat outside a home could treat themselves on rare occasions.

Like Julie Philip, 51, from Dunlap, Ill., who wrote: “Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, Red Lobster was an Easter tradition. We would dress up, go to church, then drive close to an hour to Red Lobster.”

Tomatillos are among the fresh produce in refrigerated warehouses at the Sysco food distribution center in Houston.

She continued, “It was one of only a few days a year that we could afford to eat at a ‘fancy restaurant.’ I remember my parents remarking that they had to spend $35 for our family of four. I no longer consider Red Lobster a ‘fancy restaurant,’ but as an adult, my family and I often still eat there at Easter. I remind my kids that we are keeping up a family tradition and I tell them stories of my childhood while eating.”

The original Applebee’s restaurant was called T.J. Applebee’s Rx for Edibles & Elixirs and it opened in Decatur, Ga., in 1980.

Applebee’s

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Applebee’s

For Sarah Duggan, an Applebee’s parking lot evokes a key memory from young adulthood.

Duggan, 32, from North Tonawanda, N.Y., wrote that every time she sees an Applebee’s, she remembers the time her friend, in an act of teenage rebellion, got her belly button pierced in the parking lot of a Long Island Applebee’s — inside the trunk of the piercer’s “salvage-title PT Cruiser.”

Duggan held the flashlight.

She wrote, “I can’t picture those sorts of college kid shenanigans happening in the parking lot of a regular Long Island diner or other independent restaurant, but it seems right that it was at Applebee’s.”

She continued, “It makes me think about how nobody, from riotous camp counselors to your spouse’s grandparents, looks or feels out of place at a chain restaurant.”

Grocery prices in November were up 1.9% from a year ago, according to a report from the Labor Department Thursday. Overall inflation dipped to 2.7%, from 3% in September.

Lifestyle

New Video Shows Plane Carrying NASCAR’s Greg Biffle Exploding

Published

3 hours ago

December 19, 2025

Press Room

New Video Shows Plane Carrying NASCAR’s Greg Biffle Exploding

NASCAR’s Gregg Biffle
Jet Turns Into Ball Of Flames …
Shocking Video Shows

Published
December 19, 2025
5:49 AM PST

Brevin Renwick

Horrifying new video shows the precise moment a plane carrying NASCAR driver Greg Biffle and his family crashed and exploded in flames Thursday, killing everyone on board.

Security footage captured the corporate jet turning into a ball of fire as it crash-landed near a runway at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina. The aircraft was scheduled to fly to Florida, but not long after takeoff, it turned back to the airport before crashing.

As you can see from the clip, the plane was reduced to what looks like a burning oil slick with black smoke rising into the sky. All seven people on the plane died, including Biffle, his wife, Cristina and two children — Emma, 14, and Ryder, 5.

PEOPLE reported minutes before impact, Cristina sent her mom a chilling text, stating, “We’re in trouble.”

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the cause of the crash.

Lifestyle

President Trump to add his own name to the Kennedy Center

Published

14 hours ago

December 18, 2025

Press Room

President Trump to add his own name to the Kennedy Center

President Donald Trump stands in the presidential box as he visits the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C, on March 17, 2025.

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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will now have a new name — the “Trump-Kennedy Center.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the news on social media Thursday, saying that the board of the center voted unanimously for the change, “Because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building.”

Shortly after the announcement, Ohio Democrat Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the board, refuted the claim that it was a unanimous vote. “Each time I tried to speak, I was muted,” she said in a video posted to social media. “Participants were not allowed to voice their concern.”

When asked about the call, Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations at the Kennedy Center, sent a statement reiterating the vote was unanimous: “The new Trump Kennedy Center reflects the unequivocal bipartisan support for America’s cultural center for generations to come.”

Other Democrats in Congress who are ex-officio members of the Kennedy Center Board, including Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries issued a statement stating that the president is renaming the institution “without legal authority.”

“Federal law established the Center as a memorial to President Kennedy and prohibits changing its name without Congressional action,” the statement reads.

Leadership of the Kennedy Center is being investigated by Democrats.

From left, Shannon Tweed Simmons, 2025 Kennedy Center Honoree and member of rock band KISS Gene Simmons, Gigi Criss, 2025 Kennedy Center Honoree and member of rock band KISS Peter Criss, Erin Stanley and 2025 Kennedy Center Honoree and member of rock band KISS Paul Stanley pose on the red carpet for the 48th Kennedy Center Honors at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Earlier this year, Trump installed himself as the chairman of the center, firing former president Deborah Rutter and ousting the previous board chair David Rubenstein, along with board members appointed by President Biden. He then appointed a new board, including second lady Usha Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Fox News host Laura Ingraham and more.

The Kennedy Center in a photo taken along the Potomac River in an undated photo.

Trump hinted at the name change earlier this month, when he took questions before becoming the first president to host the Kennedy Center Honors. He deferred to the board when asked directly about changing the name but said “we are saving the Kennedy Center.”

President Donald Trump talks to the media in the Hall of Nations during a tour at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after leading a board meeting on March 17, 2025.

The president was mostly hands off with the Kennedy Center during his first term, as most presidents have been. But he’s taking a special interest in it in his second term, touring the center and promising to weed out programming he doesn’t approve of. His “One Big Beautiful Bill” included $257 million for the building’s repairs and maintenance.

Originally, it was called The National Cultural Center. In 1964, two months after President Kennedy was assassinated, President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation authorizing funds to build what would become the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.