Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has overtaken Clair Obscur: Expedition 33‘s top spot as the highest-rated game on PlayStation’s storefront. Sandfall Interactive’s very first game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, quickly became perhaps the most widely celebrated game of 2025 when it was released back in April, thanks in part to its turn-based combat and incredible storytelling.
It wasn’t just massive praise that fell into Sandfall’s lap, but record-breaking accolades as well. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33‘s Metacritic user score is the highest of any game ever, with a 9.7 based on over 17,200 reviews. The game’s critic score on the site is one of the highest of the year, too, sitting at a 93, a few points above Hazelight Studios’ latest co-op adventure Split Fiction and indie puzzle masterpiece Blue Prince. Recently, however, Clair Obscur‘s 93 was overtaken by the Switch 2 release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which boasts a 96. Even so, many gamers agree that, since Tears of the Kingdom is a 2023 game, Clair Obscur still holds the top Metacritic score for bonafide 2025 releases.
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Death Stranding 2’s Game of the Year Potential Comes With a Clair Obscur-Sized Catch
Death Stranding 2’s chances to win Game of the Year are strong, but Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 could complicate things for the acclaimed sequel.
Another big game has come along and snatched another one of Clair Obscur‘s accolades. Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, which was released just a week ago, has become the highest-rated game of all time on the PlayStation Store, toppling Expedition 33 from the top spot. The Death Stranding sequel sports a 4.93 rating on the platform compared to Expedition 33‘s 4.91, with 97% of its user ratings giving the sequel a full five stars. Clair Obscur still remains the highest-rated 2025 game on Metacritic, three points higher than Death Stranding 2‘s 90.
Death Stranding 2 Dethrones Expedition 33 on the PlayStation Store
2025’s Game of the Year race just got a lot more interesting now with Death Stranding 2: On the Beach making waves with critics and gamers. Prior to its release, it could be said that Clair Obscur was nearly a unanimous pick among most gamers for the prize, but it looks like Death Stranding 2 will join it as a top frontrunner. Of course, other big games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Monster Hunter Wilds will surely still be in the mix. There are also some smaller games like Split Fiction and Blue Prince that could still end up in the conversation at the end of the year as well, following massively successful releases earlier this year.
With six months left in 2025, there are still a number of promising games set to release throughout the remainder of the year that seem poised to make a run at GOTY. For one, Hollow Knight: Silksong, which has recently been confirmed to be aiming for a release this year, will most likely be a big contender, as could the full 1.0 launch of Hades 2, which is also aiming for later this year. There are also bigger AAA games that could make a run too, like The Outer Worlds 2 or Ghost of Yotei, both of them having predecessors that earned GOTY nominations in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Released
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April 24, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Sandfall Interactive
- Publisher(s)
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Kepler Interactive
- Engine
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Unreal Engine 5