As predicted by many, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 largely dominated 2025’s The Game Awards. That said, Wuthering Waves, a free-to-play open world action RPG was one of the very few games to steal a win from the Sandfall Interactive hit.

what categories did Expedition 33 lose?

Expedition 33 did not have a clean sweep at The Game Awards, but it did take home a ton of hardware. One of the few categories that it was nominated for but didn’t win was Best Audio Design, where Battlefield 6 managed to pull off the win. The other category where a game managed to upset Expedition 33 was the Players Voice category, where Wuthering Waves came out ahead.

Players Voice is an interesting Game Awards category and is actually an award that is 100% community-voted. This category is meant to give fans and the audience the chance to select their own game of the year from a selection of 30 candidates over a 3-round nomination process. In addition to beating out Expedition 33, Wuthering Waves was also up against the very popular Hollow Knight: Silksong and Genshin Impact, which is a similar gacha-style title with years worth of fans already invested. The win definitely seems to signal a large and dedicated playerbase for the title.

Last year the award went to Black Myth: Wukong, while Astro Bot took home Game of the Year. In 2024, Baldur’s Gate 3 managed to pick up both the Game of the Year and Player’s Voice.

what is wuthering waves?

Wuthering Waves originally released on PC and mobile devices in May of 2024, but the game did have an early 2025 launch on the PS5. The title did not have particularly high reviews at launch, but it does currently hold a 71 average on Metacritic. That said, the game had a rocky launch and there have been a ton of major patches implemented over the last year to improve the gameplay experience and help redeem the title.

In terms of gameplay, the title heavily features gacha-style mechanics that follows in some of the similar footprints of HoYoverse games like Genshin Impact. The action RPG does revolve around a story-rich campaign, which many gamers seem to really enjoy. The setting is a beautifully stylized futuristic, post-apocalyptic world. Players have the chance to take control of Rover, an amnesiac wanderer who has awakened from a deep sleep, and slowly uncover their past and origins as they travel across the world.

Gamers who want to check out Wuthering Waves for themselves can pick up the free-to-play title today for mobile devices, PC, or PS5.