The levels of praise for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have been off the charts since it launched a few weeks back, and now that more people are rolling credits on the RPG, it's getting some additional Game of the Year talk.
Case in point: Kim Hyung-tae, director of Stellar Blade and founder of its developer, Shift Up, has taken to social media in order to express his love for Sandfall Interactive's debut.
VGChartz's Mark Nielsen: "If there's one genre you can almost always rely on to put out at least a few solid titles each year it's the RPG genre. Whether it's CRPGs, WRPGs, JRPGs, ARPGs, or MMORPGs, there are a lot of subgenres with rich histories and confusing abbreviations, and each of them brings something worthwhile to the table. This year in particular was a bit of an interesting one since it had no brand new entries in the really long-running, genre-defining series like Final Fantasy or SoulsBorneRing to step in and steal the show. Instead, our shortlist consists mainly of much more unique titles within the genre, but they're certainly no less deserving for that."
TNS - CEO of Shift Up, the studio behind Stellar Blade, argued that AI is no longer optional to compete against China's sheer development scale.
Now look, we all gave EA and others gripe when they spoke about AI. But now that Shift Up and Larian are showing how open they are to using it, they need to be treated the same way. We can't look the other way just because it's a developer(s) that we like.
I'm not looking away, but honestly I don't play games out of these regions typically. It's mostly just gatcha games.
I don't play all those gatcha games or games from that region either. I was just pointing out how we tend to "look the other way" collectively depending on if we like a dev or company or not. They should be subject to the same level of backlash.
I recently read a story, not sure how accurate it was, that said that is more nuanced than AI* good/ AI bad.
It said most gamers hate AI used for art, design, storytelling... basically the artistic, creative part of a piece of work.
They don't mind AI if it is used for such things as writing code, compiling assets, determining NPC actions, and that sort of thing.
*AI as in use of LLMs and not the AI we all had no problem with (for the past 4 decades) when we played against the CPU.
As a coder, I hate people who use AI to write code. That's just more work for others down the line.
the cpus/bots you played against aren't AI. They're bots, they don't adapt, they don't learn they just do what they're programmed to do when certain parameters are met. That's why they're easy to exploit, especially compared to AI.
@Michiel
That's kinda the point. The AI (what we called the tricks programmers coded into a game to make enemies seem to react) wasn't really AI. "especially compared to AI."
Artificial Intelligence doesn't exist (that is why I explained what I meant by AI in the old days) and what is called AI today is an LLM.
LLM is a subcategory of AI....all LLM is AI but not all AI is LLM.
AI does exist, wtf are you even talking about. Then explain me how OpenAi created an AI that taught itself how to play Dota 2? what you meant by AI in the old days already had a name: bots. You're just throwing some terms around that you're absolutely clueless about.
@michiel
AI did not autonomously teach itself how to play DOTA2.
"throwing some terms around that you're absolutely clueless about."
Oh boy.
Sorry bud, artificial intelligence only exists in science fiction.
Pragmatically though, how do you deal with the Chinese studios and how do you stay competive?
CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA
I don’t care how a game is made, only that it’s good. If AI lets us create experiences beyond human limits faster bigger better, use it. If it looks rushed or feels off, then utilize the tool better.
I respectfully disagree. When companies utilize things like A.I to become more efficient, it doesn't mean the workload is lessened, but on the contrary, they now think you can be even MORE productive and your workload will actually INCREASE because of your "peak efficiency".
I always think of Ford inventing the assembly line for car making. Cars were made far faster, but it doesn't mean that the cars themselves were quality or that the workers were able to relax because of the increased efficiency, it just meant that the company could make more money and squeeze every last drop of worker sweat to bump up their stock price half a percent.
I remember learning about "Taylorism" which was a concept developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, focusing on time-motion studies to find the one best way to maximize productivity by reducing wasted movements/excess motion. He devised a strategy that restricted the physical movements of workers by literally telling them to move their arms and legs a particular way, usually with an extremely limited range of motion, and to repeat said motion hundreds if not thousands of times per shift lest they get fired. We are heading that way with A.I....And fast.
Fair point on efficiency being misused, but that is about management, not the tool itself. AI is just a way to push creative boundaries faster and bigger. How companies handle it does not change the fact that it can enable experiences beyond human limits.
@Crimson
But management of the tool cannot be divorced from the tool itself. These tools are developed with enterprise in mind. They save all the cute "now grandma can have her own A.I assistant!" shtick for their V.C. peeps.
Show me a multi billion dollar company that spends up the ass to implement A.I into their workflows not to pad profits with the increase in productivity, but also to lessen the workloads of their employees, and I'll show you the (most likely) Onion logo on the top of the page.
@0hMyGhandi
You’re treating the tool and the incentive structure as the same thing, and I don’t think that holds up. Every major technology was built with enterprise money and profit in mind. That never dictated how creators actually used it.
Companies squeezing more output out of efficiency isn’t unique to AI, that’s just capitalism doing what it always does. That doesn’t make the tool itself Taylorism 2.0.
In game dev, AI isn’t turning people into assembly line workers. It’s removing iteration and prototyping bottlenecks so smaller teams can do more without massive budgets. If corporations misuse it, that’s a labor issue, not proof the tech itself is the problem.
@Crimson
Fair points all around. We will just have to wait and see how this plays out. I guess I always saw A.I as a gun. It doesn't matter who wields it, because the intent behind having it is pretty straightforward. Some people will only use the gun as a last resort, primarily to help small businesses and or solo peeps have at least some competitive advantage while they wear many, many hats. Some people will use the gun as a first resort because they see the inherent advantages of A.I. and immediately think "cost savings", while others will know a gun exists, but don't know how to use it. A.I has all the ability to become weaponized, and I agree with you that bad actors cannot be blamed for all of A.I, but I just don't trust big companies like E.A. (for example) to use it in ethical fashion.
and again, you are correct about major technologies being developed with enterprise in mind.
We are entering just such a weird time in history. Unlike older technology, A.I is here to stay forever. And it's only going to get better. And the attempts to reign it in have been awful. Some commercials I've seen on TV have embraced it fully as long as they state "made with A.I" text on the bottom as it's shown, while others are absent.
What makes A.I so frusturating and compelling is that no one really knows what the end game actually looks like. We see a million different paths, and so it's like we are designing the rules for a whole new sport. The thing that makes this so unique is the iterative process that has made the technology exponentially better with each passing year. This is all moving so fast and at times, I wish we pumped the brakes to ask how this will fundamentally change our lives, because it will in a matter of time, for better or worse.
VGChartz's Taneli Palola: "Before we leave 2025 completely behind us and begin taking a closer look at the horrors that 2026 surely has in store, let's once again mull over the best and worst of the last year. As is more or less tradition by now, the winners side took ages to properly fill, while there was an abundance of choice for the losers, but to keep some semblance of balance I whittled both sides down to just five. Let's take a look, shall we?"
Good read.
“Phil Spencer made some rather curious statements following the layoffs, notably stating that ”our platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger.” So the company is simultaneously the most successful it's ever been, while also firing people by the thousands. Its gaming division is supposedly stronger than ever, yet it's effectively gutted many of the studios that brought it success in the first place.”
This is how a textbook Makavelian society works, where the top dogs become more successful in terms of flair and pomp with soaring bank accounts, only to realize the foundation of the society is rotten and relatively close to collapse. According to former border patrol agent JJ Carell., in 2025 the US was the largest consumer of human in trafficking on earth, and that slavery in America was more popular last year than it ever was, even compared to back when slavery was actually legal in the 1800s. But activist today will blab about how happy they are. But activists today will blab about how happy and proud they are that slavery is technically illegal because they fundamentally fail to grasp how a Makavelian society functions.
The year isn’t close to over so it’s a little premature to be calling for GoTY already.
I still have to start the new dynasty warriors game, get doom, looking forward to lost souls aside, playing south of midnight and honestly Clair definitely set a standard that’s going to be tough to top. But, it’s not impossible for sure
i do too, this game, fuck me sideways.
only a few games give me that sorta feeling, i couldnt stop playing.
the music, fuuuck so good.
the story, the characters, fhe battles ,so good.
i love this game so much ha
This is my GOTY so far. Ghost is a day 1, i still have to finish ds1 so i probably wont be there day 1 for ds2. I kno Ghost is gonna be amazing, but its gonna be hard to top this as my goty.