The 2026 BAFTA Games Awards saw Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 take home the coveted Game of the Year award, a remarkable achievement for a title that has dominated award ceremonies throughout the past year. This victory places the game in elite company, mirroring the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 in sweeping major awards.
Sandfall’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which garnered twelve nominations, secured three BAFTA awards: Game of the Year, Best Debut, and Best Performance in a Leading Role. Jennifer English received the acting award for her portrayal of Maelle, an accolade she also received at The Game Awards and the Golden Joystick Awards.
Interestingly, despite being a French game with French voice acting, Expedition 33‘s nominations focused on its English cast. The game’s marketing strategy appears to have prioritized the broader English-speaking market and the prominence of its English voice actors, including Ben Starr, Andy Serkis, and Charlie Walton.
Another significant winner of the night was Dispatch, an unexpected hit from late 2025. This superhero-themed game from AdHoc earned BAFTA awards for Best Animation, Outstanding Achievement in Sound, and Best Performance in a Supporting Role for Jeffrey Wright, known for his role as Isaac in The Last of Us Part II.
The 22nd BAFTA Games Awards presented a diverse range of winners, reflecting the rich and varied landscape of gaming in 2025. The ceremony highlighted many titles that may not have received widespread recognition in major year-end discussions.
Other notable BAFTA winners included:
- Arc Raiders: Best Multiplayer
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach: Artistic Achievement
- No Man’s Sky: Game in Development
- Blue Prince: Game Design
- Ghost of Yotei: Technical Achievement and Best Music
- Lego Party: Family Game
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II: Best Narrative
- South of Midnight: Best New IP
- Despelote: Games Beyond Entertainment
- Atomfall: Best British Game
With its BAFTA Game of the Year win, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 becomes only the second game to achieve “Game of the Year” status at all five of the major industry award ceremonies: the Golden Joystick Awards, The Game Awards, DICE Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards, and the BAFTA Game Awards. This is an extraordinary accomplishment shortly before its first anniversary, a truly magnificent achievement.
English Translation:
The 2026 BAFTA Games Awards ceremony, a prestigious British event that has previously honored titles like Hades, Returnal, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Astro Bot as Game of the Year, took place last Friday. In its twenty-second edition, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded the 2025 Game of the Year prize to the dominant force of the past few months’ award season: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Sandfall’s game had secured twelve nominations, converting three into wins: the aforementioned Game of the Year, Best Debut, and Best Performance in a Leading Role. Jennifer English once again won for her work as Maelle, having also been recognized for this role at The Game Awards and the Golden Joystick Awards for Best Leading Performance.
As discussed previously on Recarga Activa and Podcast Reload, it is noteworthy that Expedition 33‘s nominations in this category are for its English cast, despite being a French game with French voice acting. However, the game’s promotion was more heavily geared towards the English-speaking market, both for market reach and the popularity of the involved actors—Ben Starr, Andy Serkis, and Charlie Cox.
The other major winner of the night in terms of award quantity was Dispatch, one of the significant surprises of late 2025, which also impressed us here. AdHoc’s game won the BAFTA for Best Animation, Outstanding Achievement in Sound, and Best Performance in a Supporting Role for Jeffrey Wright, already known to gamers for his role as Isaac in The Last of Us Part II.
This twenty-second edition of the BAFTA Games Awards concluded with a varied list of winners, reflecting a portion of what 2025 represented—a year even richer and deeper than any award ceremony could fully showcase. We, with hours of podcasting, couldn’t fully capture it either, even after recording a mid-year podcast to try and do justice to all the games we anticipated wouldn’t make it into the year-end discussions.
The rest of the award-winning video games were:
- Arc Raiders (Best Multiplayer)
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (Artistic Achievement)
- No Man’s Sky (Game in Development)
- Blue Prince (Game Design)
- Ghost of Yotei (Technical Achievement and Best Music)
- Lego Party (Family Game)
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Best Narrative)
- South of Midnight (Best New IP)
- Despelote (Games Beyond Entertainment)
- Atomfall (Best British Game)
Following this recognition, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 becomes the second video game to achieve the Game of the Year award at the considered five major ceremonies, a feat previously accomplished by Baldur’s Gate 3: namely, the Golden Joystick Awards, The Game Awards, DICE Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards, and the BAFTA Game Awards. An incredible milestone just days before its first anniversary, c’est magnifique!
