Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Still Holds the Crown as the Best-Rated Game of 2025 on Metacritic – N4G

Despite all the heavy hitters we recently got, Clair Obscur Expedition 33 still holds the crown as the best-rated game of 2025 on Metacritic.

Back in April, when Sandfall officially released their flagship project, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, it took the gaming scene by storm. Everyone was talking about it, either how the game is great, or expressing displeasure with turn-based games. This game is a perfect blend of everything the players love: the characters are all pretty realistic and relatable, combat is engaging enough, the soundtrack adds so much to the game, and the story is out of this world (people are still debating on what is the “right” ending). It was the best contender for the GOTY 2025 award, even managing to surpass some pretty serious titles, like Split Fiction or Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. 

And now, a few months later, we got a couple of pretty amazing new games, all extremely highly rated on Metacritic. However, Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is still the best-rated game of 2025 on Metacritic.

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Is Still the Best-Rated Game of 2025 on Metacritic and #1 Contender for Game of the Year 2025 Award

Clair Obscur was released on April 27. After it, on June 26, we got the highly anticipated Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, which was widely praised as well. It managed to surpass Clair Obscur’s rating on the PlayStation Store (and even started a review ping-pong). And quite recently, another challenger has entered the arena, in the form of Donkey Kong Bonanza, which was just released on July 17. However, as far as Metacritic is concerned, they are both great, but still not that great to beat Expedition 33. As it stands, Clair Obscur is the highest-rated game of 2025, followed by Blue Prince and Split Fiction.

• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – 93 Metascore
• Blue Prince – 92 Metascore
• Split Fiction – 91 Metascore
• Donkey Kong Bonanza – 90 Metascore
• Death Stranding 2: On the Beach – 89 Metascore
• Monster Hunter: Wilds – 88 Metascore
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II – 88 Metascore

This year’s The Game Awards is scheduled for December 11 and will be held in LA’s Peacock Theater once more. There is still plenty of time until December, and some cool titles are on the way. Mafia: The Old Country will surely be a strong contender, and VTM: Bloodlines 2 could be a surprise hit. Unfortunately, it looks like Silksong will not get released on time, as the expected release date is somewhere in December, before the holidays. But, a surprise release is not out of the question.

In any case, we’d love to congratulate Sandfall once more and to thank them for an amazing game that will surely stand the test of time and serve as an inspiration for future games. Tomorrow comes!