Fallout and The Elder Scrolls boss Todd Howard's GOTY pick just so happens to be the current game of the year frontrunner Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

2025 is almost at an end, which means it's time to mentally compile our list of the best games of the year and get angry at online stranger's objectively wrong GOTY picks. And, now, we can all have opinions on Todd Howard's opinions since the Bethesda Game Studios boss recently crowned his own GOTY.

Speaking to Eurogamer about his favorite games of the year, the Fallout and Elder Scrolls 6 steward name-checked Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 while also giving a shoutout to Death Stranding 2 and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. He is an RPG man, after all.

"Expedition 33 is really unique and amazing," Howard gushed. "I think Expedition 33 is a really unique piece of art in so many ways"

Howard's choice is hardly a surprise. In fact, right now, it lines up with the common consensus since Sandfall Interactive's RPG is arguably the award season frontrunner. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 absolutely cleaned house at The Golden Joysticks 2025, and it gathered a whopping 12 nominations from The Game Awards, more than any other game in the show's history.

The Bethesda boss isn't the only industry vet throwing love at Expedition 33 either. Final Fantasy's Naoki Hamaguchi also said it was probably his game of the year, too, and not just because it has JRPG-inspired combat: "What makes that game so good is the fact it gets all of the elements in it right, and it balances them all at such a high level of quality."

"The real reward in our heart is the emotional response": As Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 continues its GOTY domination, the devs and actors are still reeling from its success