Clair Obscur Expedition 33 and Dispatch advance to round two of The Game Awards’ Players’ Voice category

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 and Dispatch have both advanced to round two of The Game Awards’ Players’ Voice category. The Players’ Voice category involves three rounds, and the votes are 100% decided by the public, unlike the rest of The Game Awards’ categories, where votes are split 90% in favor of a selected jury of journalists and gaming publications, with only 10% allotted to fans.

There usually is a big difference between the Game of the Year and Players’ Voice winner.  In 2024, the PlayStation 5 exclusive, Astro Bot, won Game of the Year, meanwhile, Black Myth Wukong won Players’ Voice. Baldur’s Gate 3 won GOTY in 2023, and Genshin Impact won Players’ Voice. Genshin Impact won the Players’ Voice award in 2022, as well, whereas Elden Ring won Game of the Year.

Round two for the Players’ Voice category has narrowed the nominees down from 30 to just ten. The Players’ Voice nominees will be cut down to only five for the third and final round, where the winner will be revealed at The Game Awards on December 11. Right now, the remaining ten nominees are as follows:

• Clair Obscur Expedition 33
• Dispatch
• Death Stranding 2
• Donkey Kong Bananza
• Genshin Impact
• Ghost of Yotei
• Hades 2
• Hollow Knight Silksong
• Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
• Wuthering Waves

Make sure to cast your vote before 6PM PST/9PM EDT on December 6 and 2AM GMT on December 7. To vote, you do need an account, with The Game Awards website allowing you to sign in with a social media profile, including X, Facebook, Twitch, and Google.

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 and Dispatch Game Awards nominations

Both Clair Obscur Expedition 33 and Dispatch are nominated for Best Debut Indie at The Game Awards. However, unlike Dispatch, Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is also nominated for Best Indie period.

These indie nominations for Expedition 33 and developer Sandfall Interactive are controversial because the game is published by Kepler Interactive and reportedly had a $60 million budget. In addition, many have chosen to brand the game AA instead of indie, with Shawn Layden, former head of Sony Worldwide Studios for PlayStation, hailing Expedition 33 as a “rebirth” for AA games.

Whether you think the nominations are warranted or not, Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards is not an outlier, as Expedition 33 is nominated for Best Indie at the Indie Awards on December 18.

Expedition 33 is nominated for ten more categories at The Game Awards, including Game of the Year. With these 12 nominations, Expedition 33 has achieved history by overtaking The Last of Us Part 2 for the most Game Awards nominations, with Naughty Dog’s sequel acquiring 11 back in 2020.

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is the favorite to win Game of the Year. It already won Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards in November, and it won GOTY at the record-breaking Gamescom X Asia in October.

As for Dispatch, it’s a shame it’s only nominated for Best Debut Indie. Despite quickly eclipsing 1 million sales, it was released late, with Episodes 7 and 8 launching on November 12, just seven days before The Game Awards’ cut-off, November 19, which probably went against Dispatch for other categories such as Best Indie, Best Narrative, and Best Performance.

The Witcher 3 director has praised Dispatch as his Game of the Year, and both the Dispatch and Expedition 33 devs have tipped their hat to each other.