French indie title Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 dominated the annual Game Awards in Los Angeles, winning in a record nine categories, including best video game of the year.

“What a weird timeline for us,” Guillaume Broche of video game studio Sandfall Interactive quipped, thanking his team as he accepted the top award.

“And also I want to extend thanks to the unsung heroes of this industry — the people who make tutorials on YouTube on how to make a game —because we had no idea how to make a game before.”

Expedition 33, the first game from Sandfall Interactive, tells the story of a group of characters battling seemingly impossible odds in a post-apocalyptic universe with a distinctively French visual style.

It was nominated in a record number of categories, winning many despite squaring up against heavyweights like Death Stranding 2: On the Beach from industry legend Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear Solid fame, or Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Bananza, starring the eponymous gorilla.

Expedition 33 began in 2020 as a project of Broche, a developer at French games giant Ubisoft. He brought ex-colleague Tom Guillermin on board to create the small studio that same year in the French city of Montpellier.

‘Thank you to the players’

They struck a publishing deal in 2022 with UK-based Kepler, which provided funding for the project.

Some 5 million copies of Expedition 33 have been snapped up since its release in April this year.

“This was supposed to be a joke; I have no idea what’s happening,” Broche joked. “Just a massive ‘thank you’ to the players.”

The grassroots popularity of Expedition 33 has manifested in fans attending conventions and video game fairs wearing a striped mariner’s shirt and red beret — one of the most stereotypically French outfits players can equip for their characters.

The action game follows a small group of characters seeking to defeat a powerful entity threatening their home city, Lumiere, which bears a striking resemblance to Belle Epoque Paris.

Inspired by Japanese games such as the long-running Final Fantasy saga, the French title is a role-playing game offering turn-based combat against the monsters inhabiting the world.

Its popularity was founded on the story’s emotional depth and endearing characters, married with original gameplay, which introduced reactive rhythm-based elements to parry enemies’ attacks.

Sandhill “managed to present something really polished and go toe-to-toe with major titles,” industry specialist Benoit Reinier told AFP at the time of the game’s release.

At just 30 people for most of its development, the team behind Expedition 33 was far smaller than typical blockbuster studios.

Broche said they brought everyone from Sandhill to Los Angeles to celebrate the awards.

The music of Expedition 33 stuck in many players’ heads and played an outsized part in their immersion into its universe. Winning categories for the game included narrative, role-playing, and music score.

French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the team in May, thanking them for “putting the spotlight on French-style boldness and creativity.”

There are also plans to bring the Expedition 33 story to the big screen.