I went over to Reddit so I could keep track if the game awards because I didn’t have time to actually watch it. Holy shit the hate E33 is getting is completely ridiculous, as Reddit does. Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated for any award about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead. As someone that has enjoyed all of these games, the salt is absolutely bonkers. Most of the ones complaining are basically saying “I never played it but I heard they did [blank] so they don’t deserve [blank] award.”
I just don’t get why they need to shit on other people and the games they like just because their game didn’t win. Shit on TGA all you want, but the fans and the devs literally had nothing to do with winning. They were all great games and all deserve praise in their own ways. In two weeks none of us will give a shit anymore anyway and will probably be complaining that “RV There Yet” wins the “Most Innovative Gameplay” award on Steam. I mean, a flippin’ gacha game won the “Players Voice” Award and people are spending their time shitting on objectively good games.
Game awards are ridiculous, but I will never forget Expedition 33. It deserves all the accolades it has earned and achieved.
Yeah the game is just straight up amazing. I laughed because I saw an article about the streamer, Shroud, complaining about how Expedition 33 shouldn’t have won because Arc Raiders was so great - but then admitted he hasn’t played Expedition 33.
Imagine the average gamer. Imagine the average reddit user.
Now combine them.
I don’t want to imagine the smell
The problem with the Internet is that it amplifies minority negative voices. Hundreds of thousands of people played that game and 100 pieces of shit get on reddit and be assholes and it gives all of their players bases a bad name. It’s the same across anything. On the Internet a loud minority is going to piss in everyone’s lemonade because they are trash humans.
What makes it worse is algorithm based social media prioritize rage bait since it creates engagement. It’s breaking all of our brains.
Gamers make me embarrassed to enjoy video games
Seriously though.
I used to be afraid to tell people how much I love video games, because most people thought of the South Park MMO guy meme as your average gamer. It MIGHT be true, but some of us really just love the craft and what is made of that craft!
It’s like no one has/had any strong opinion about movie aficionados, other than they may not be fun to watch a movie WITH. I don’t know. It was strange then, and still is. lol
Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated for any award about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead.
Nine awards is a lot. And this is after they swept Golden Joystick. It’s a fine game. It’s just not the only game.
Yeah, it’s not the only game, but it did a really good job in all the categories it won.
I would’ve given best RPG to kcd2, but I don’t think e33 is unreasonable.
The only issue I have is sandfall shouldn’t count as an independent game, they had a publisher and were backed by venture capital.
I don’t think e33 is unreasonable.
For any individual award, sure. It’s an arbitrary decision of taste and people can agree to disagree.
When you’re stacking up all the awards on a single game, you’re effectively ignoring the rest of the releases for the year.
The only issue I have is sandfall shouldn’t count as an independent game
I’m more disgusted with giving “Best Indie” and “Best Debut Indie” to the same title. Why even have two categories at this point? It isn’t even the studio’s debut title.
Similarly, three “Best Performance” nominees to the same title. You know what you’re doing and it’s not evaluation or recognition, it’s just promotion.
But then these awards gave Pretty Derby the Best Mobile Game and FFT: Ivalice Chronicles (a thirty year old remaster!) Best Strategy, so whatchagonna do?
Game awards have always been glorified ads.
I have no issue with the Best Debut Indie and Best Indie being the same game.
If Silksong had been the voter’s best Indie, it couldn’t have won best debut because it wasn’t Team Cherry’s first game.
But if they’re going to give the best Indie award to E33, they kinda have to give it best debut. Otherwise they’d have to give one of the awards to a game that was not the best in the category.
When you’re stacking up all the awards on a single game, you’re effectively ignoring the rest of the releases for the year.
If a game does the best in multiple categories should it be skipped over just to highlight another game?
Imo that’s what nominations are for, saying these 6 games did outstanding jobs in this area, the award should still go to whichever one did the best.
I’m more disgusted with giving “Best Indie” and “Best Debut Indie” to the same title. Why even have two categories at this point?
Because they can go to different games. If an indie studio’s first game wins best indie game how can it not also be the best debut indie game? Should it be excluded from winning best indie game just because it’s their first game and they won best debut indie?
It isn’t even the studio’s debut title.
What other games has sandfall developed?
Similarly, three “Best Performance” nominees to the same title. You know what you’re doing and it’s not evaluation or recognition, it’s just promotion.
This isn’t just recognizing the game, it’s recognizing the actors.
Which 2 would you replace and who do you think did a better job?
Game awards have always been glorified ads.
Agreed
If a game does the best in multiple categories should it be skipped over just to highlight another game?
It’s all subjective. If you make Balatro and I make BG3, there’s no objective way to evaluate “Best Game” between the two. You’ve got to make some subjective judgement (or just put your hand out and collect bribes).
Giving one of them a full stack of awards doesn’t signal quality, it signals bias.
If an indie studio’s first game wins best indie game how can it not also be the best debut indie game
E33 wasn’t the studio’s first game. So it shouldn’t be winning the “award for debut games” on the ground alone.
But yes, if you’re winning the “indie game” (which E33’s budget shouldn’t have qualified it for anyway) spotlight another game under “debut” even if you’re predisposed to favor turn based RPGs over platformers or puzzle games or simulators. In fact, especially then.
This isn’t just recognizing the game, it’s recognizing the actors.
It’s recognizing the budget more often than not.
It’s all subjective. If you make Balatro and I make BG3, there’s no objective way to evaluate “Best Game” between the two. You’ve got to make some subjective judgement (or just put your hand out and collect bribes).
Giving one of them a full stack of awards doesn’t signal quality, it signals bias.
It signals quality from the perspective of a poorly selected jury. I have massive issues with how the game awards runs itself, but the solution isn’t to artificially restrict what a game can win.
Bias from a jury’s selection is inherent in all awards, e33 winning 9 awards isn’t evidence of unfair bias or bribes, its evidence of 1) e33 genuinely doing an amazing job in a lot of different areas and 2) the jury being made up of professional journalists who all run in the same circles.
Neither Sandfall or Kepler have the sort of connections you’d need to beat out Sony or Nintendo if all 3 were using shady tactics.
E33 wasn’t the studio’s first game. So it shouldn’t be winning the “award for debut games” on the ground alone.
What other game has sandfall interactive made?
But yes, if you’re winning the “indie game” (which E33’s budget shouldn’t have qualified it for anyway) spotlight another game under “debut” even if you’re predisposed to favor turn based RPGs over platformers or puzzle games or simulators. In fact, especially then.
I think we’re just gonna have to disagree here, I don’t think the point of rewards should be to spotlight a bunch of different games, that’s what the nominations are for.
It’s recognizing the budget more often than not.
Yeah, that’s fair, but it’s not exclusively budget.
I have massive issues with how the game awards runs itself, but the solution isn’t to artificially restrict what a game can win.
It’s an awards show. Everything about it is artificial
Holy shit the hate E33 is getting is completely ridiculous, as Reddit does. Whether you go to the Silksong, KCD2, Death Stranding, Dispatch, Arc Raiders, or any other games subreddit that was nominated for any award about half the comments saying E33 is trash, overhyped, and their game deserved to win instead.
This is why I don’t care anymore about what other people think and don’t check the communities of games. I just hope the game, I like the most wins. If it happens, great! If it does not, sad but that’s okay. That’s life.
I just don’t get why they need to shit on other people and the games they like just because their game didn’t win.
Because it is the internet and nowadays people only think about themselves. “I like this game, I want and need this game to win”. The internet allows people to be sort of anonymous and that brings the worst out of people (because more often than not, there’s no consequences of the actions when it is written anonymously).
I’ve only seen bitching about it not being an indie and taking those awards.
They hired out a small army.
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Which is weird, since that game wasn’t even marketed. I literally hadn’t even heard of it till it started winning shit left and right
That’s one area where you can see it is indie despite the large development cost.
They were published by Kepler Interactive and for some markets Bandai Namco. Neither of which have Ubisoft or EA’s marketing budget which normally makes up something like half of the development budget of a game.
They did have some marketing. I know a lot of French streamers were paid to play the game on launch. But yeah not “in your face for 6 months in front of every YouTube video and inside every happy meal box” like a new assassin’s creed or something.
Like I had heard whispers of it, but that’s abojt it.
It wasn’t the only game to have that problem. I was barely aware Death Stranding 2 existed let alone that it was out.
I had heard of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 (because the fans wouldn’t shut up about how right leaning and “non-woke” the game was) but did not think it deserved a mention.
To be honest the only game even nominated I had played was Donkey Kong Banaza… (I was obviously VERY aware Hades 2 and Silksong existed. I just haven’t had time to play them. Though I would have been offended if they weren’t nominated. Especially Silksong)
Weird, I mostly saw people complaining about kcd2 being ‘too woke’ because minorities exist
There’s stupid people on both sides of the political spectrum.
That’s impressive, to be honest. Expedition 33 even had complete normies talking about it.
The only award I think it didn’t deserve was Best RPG.
But, on the other hand, it should have gotten Best Sound Design over BF6; so it still would have gotten 9 awards.
Truly a masterpiece of a game. To those haters saying “But not even BG3 got that many awards!” it’s not a fair comparison. BG3 is a slightly better game IMO, but Expedition 33 is a work of art on top of being an amazing game and appeals to a much wider audience. Which isn’t to say games like BG3 aren’t beautiful, but I think anyone would agree that E33 is on a whole other level.
I’ll see you Best RPG and raise you a Best Independent and Best Debut Indie.
They have a publisher that funded them with hedge fund money and outsourced aspects of the production to entirely different companies. I’m not making a comment on the quality of the game, but how is that indie?
In your opinion what game deserved the best rpg of 2025?
E33 was the surprise of the year for me. It came from nowhere.
Baguette supremacy.
Aaaaah this game was amazing, can’t wait to download it again to play the new update
I just started playing expedition 33 and I can see why it won so many awards absolutely amazing game!
Absolutely deserved. Good on em!
I’m not saying E33 didn’t deserve to win anything, but I don’t believe it deserved to dominate like that. No single game should be allowed to do this, ever.
I mean, of the 6 nominees for Best Performance, 3 of them (50%) were from E33. That shouldn’t be allowed, IMO. Pick the single best performance from one game, then you can have more variety to pick from. Also, the winner of Best Indie Game should automatically be disqualified from also winning Best Indie Debut game.
In my opinion: KCD2 snubbed for Best RPG, Silksong snubbed for best Action Adventure, and Half-Life 3 snubbed for Most Anticipated Game (is it disqualified – no professionals allowed?).
Why shouldnt the best actor be for the best performance regardless of which game it appears in?
I have the most issue with the performance win, that the nominations are for the English voice acting and this is not even an English game. The original acting is French, I played it with French voice + English subtitle. To me the English voice acting is just part of the localization. This is such an English-centric award and snub for non-English performances.
If anything the motion capture actors are more “worthy”.
Original language is always better in my opinion. Filtering it into English has to leave out or change something.
I think for other people though they see the English voice actors as more professional or higher paid or more famous, whatever it is.
I don’t see the point of limiting the nominees to just one-per-game, for best performance. There’s still only one winner, and if that game legitimately had that many fantastic performances, more power to 'em.
I’ll second the idea of keeping Best Indie and Best Debut Indie separate. I’ll go further and say E33 just isn’t an Indie game, it’s pretty solidly AA.
To me, it’s an indicator that the rest of the industry bankrupted its talent and innovation. There’s been some great indie games, but nothing overwhelmingly amazing, certainly not in the AAA space.
This is why some award shows have an award for being so outstanding you’re in danger of ruining the show by taking all the awards. They give the award to them at the beginning and remove them from all categories, basically letting everyone play for second place.
I think more than specifically any game being better at X than E33, I think a lot of people are mostly just upset there were so many great games that just didn’t win anything because E33 was there.
