Summary
The top spot when it comes to the highest-rated video game of 2025 has changed hands a few times already.Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2held it until handing it over toSplit Fictiona month later, and a month after that,Blue Prince took it away from Hazelight. Now,Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s review scores are in and, as it stands, Sandfall Interactive’s debut game is the best of the year.
The review embargo on Clair Obscur lifted this morning and as the scores poured in, the RPGsettled ona very impressive 91on OpenCritic. That’s a point higher than Split Fiction and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and two points more thanMonster Hunter Wilds,Keep Driving, andBlue Prince.
Even though Blue Prince debuted at a 92, its score has dropped since, which meant Split Fiction briefly returned to the top spot before Clair Obscur swooped in. That also means we could see the same thing happen to Clair Obscur, but it’s less likely. Blue Prince was an unexpected hit which means some outlets likely opted not to review it at first. However, since it launched onPlayStation PlusandXbox Game Pass, and got a ton of hype post-release, it has been reviewed more since, hence its score dropping slightly.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Is The New Highest-Rated Game Of 2025
It Was Fun While It Lasted, Blue Prince
Clair Obscur is a far bigger release that more people know about, and more people were expecting it to be a big hit.Previews have been glowingmeaning as many outlets as possible will have wanted their reviews out there as soon as possible. There will be more reviews trickling in over the coming hours and days, but it’s unlikely the score will drop quite as drastically as Blue Prince’s did in the days after its launch.
That might mean Clair Obscur is now the new pace setter for 2025, and with so many big games still to come, it should probably make the most of it. WithNintendolaunching a slate ofSwitch 2games between June and the end of the year,Death Stranding 2andGhost of Yoteistill to come fromPlayStation, andRockstarsticking to 2025 forGTA 6, for now, there will almost certainly be a few more games that score more than 90 this year.
That said, to debut with a score of 91 is huge for Clair Obscur and Sandfall. WithOblivion Remastered dropping on Game Passon Tuesday, just two days before Clair Obscur’s arrival, there was a real risk its release would get overshadowed, particularly with it also being available on Game Pass day one. Hopefully it scoring a 91 will convince more people it’s worth taking a break from Oblivion to check out a new, very different RPG.
