Manufacturing the Safe Bet: The Real Cost of Expedition 33

The other day, I unloaded on the media whitewashing surrounding Expedition 33 and the hypocrisy of the coverage [link]. That was the immediate reaction to the double standards on display.

Now that the dust has settled, the anger has faded. It has been replaced by a genuine concern for what this victory actually signals to the rest of the industry. We are looking at a future where safety is rewarded over risk, and that is a much bigger problem than one game winning 9 trophies.

The Dangerous Precedent of Prestige:

There is something genuinely worrying about how quickly the industry has closed ranks around Expedition 33. Not because the game exists, and not because people enjoy it, but because of what its coronation represents.

In a year defined by collapsing AAA budgets, public fatigue with safe blockbusters, and constant talk about how creatively bankrupt large publishers have become, the industry still managed to reward the most transparently safe, pre-approved outcome. This does not feel organic. It feels enforced.

The concern here is not taste. It is influence, precedent, and how quietly the definition of “good” is being rewritten in real time.

Audacity, Rebranded:

One of the most surreal moments in this entire cycle came from outside the games industry. President Emmanuel Macron publicly praised Expedition 33 as a “shining example of French audacity.”

This is the same political class that, not long ago, was perfectly happy to blame video games for corrupting youth and fuelling unrest. Games only become culturally acceptable once they resemble prestige television.

Calling this audacious is revealing. Expedition 33 borrows well-worn JRPG structures, filters them through muted cinematography, casts Hollywood actors, and presents the result as serious art. Audacious, indeed.

It is designed to reassure institutions, not challenge players. What is being celebrated here is not boldness. It is compliance with a globalised prestige template.

Safety Wins Awards:

Expedition 33 did not sweep awards because it pushed boundaries. It swept because it avoided them.

Strip away the presentation and you are left with a linear corridor RPG with a timing gimmick. Japanese studios have explored these ideas for decades, often with far more mechanical ambition. The difference is not design maturity. The difference is that everything culturally specific has been neutralised.

This is what TGA reward.

Not experimentation. Not excess. Palatability.

At this point I would not even be surprised if TGA handed Game of the Year to a prestige-filtered visual novel, as long as it was lit like an HBO pilot, backed by a decent marketing budget, and pitched as “important.” Interactivity is negotiable. Optics are not.

TGA is not a neutral celebration of games. It is a prestige filter. Games that pass through it gain legitimacy, sales momentum, and institutional protection. Games that do not are quietly erased from the mainstream year, surviving only if they have already built a community too large and too loyal for the industry to neutralise.

Awards do not reflect taste. They manufacture it.

The AA Fiction and the Erasure of Context:

One of the most dishonest parts of this conversation is the insistence on positioning Expedition 33 as an "indie" or "AA" triumph. This is a game with heavy government backing, significant institutional support, and Hollywood actors front and centre. That alone disqualifies it from any meaningful definition of the underdog. Budget size is not just about raw numbers. It is about access, safety nets, and who is allowed to fail.

Lumping this project in with genuinely independent teams flattens the landscape. When the industry frames a state-subsidised production with A-list talent as the standard for "independent" success, it creates a warped reality.

Actual indie titles had a strong year on their own merits, but they are now forced to compete against a manufactured tier of "prestige indie" that has access to resources they can only dream of. The danger isn't that indie games will disappear; it is that the bar for what counts as legitimate success is being silently raised to a financial impossibility.

Risk vs. Comfort: What Got Snubbed:

Death Stranding 2 is not a safe game. It doubles down on hostile terrain, asynchronous cooperation, and systems that are deliberately awkward and demanding. Kojima also uses Hollywood actors, but as bait, not padding. Star power pulls players into unfamiliar mechanics rather than smoothing them away.

One demands engagement. The other demands agreement. TGA made its preference obvious.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II walked away with nothing. A game built around physical combat, social simulation, and historical friction was apparently too much effort to reward. It expects players to learn, to fail, and to adapt.

That kind of friction no longer fits the prestige mould.

The Whitewashing Loop:

The issue is not that a Western studio made a JRPG-inspired game. The issue is how that game is framed and rewarded.

Ideas Japanese developers have explored for years are suddenly treated as mature and innovative once filtered through Western restraint. Stylisation becomes excess. Emotion becomes immaturity. Cultural specificity becomes something that needs sanding down.

This is not appreciation, it's just blatant cultural laundering.

Sales spikes following awards only harden the lesson. Funding follows optics, not originality. Over time, creators are pressured to flatten their work to survive.

We have seen this many times before. Square Enix is the biggest prime example, SE chased Western prestige approval and hollowed itself out for a decade. Capcom survived by compromise. Sony shifted west and dismantled much of its Japanese output once it no longer fit the Cali house style.

None of this is theoretical.

“Just Play What You Enjoy”:

The most common response to all of this is the same tired line you see everywhere: just play what you enjoy, awards don’t matter, stop being negative, at least games are being celebrated.

This is not wisdom. It is disengagement disguised as positivity.

Awards absolutely matter. They influence funding, marketing spend, hiring decisions, and what publishers believe is safe to greenlight. They shape what critics feel comfortable praising and what players are told is worth their time.

This is the loop:

Awards create legitimacy -> Legitimacy drives sales -> Sales set precedent -> Precedent determines what survives.

Dismissing that reality is easy if you are not invested in the medium beyond consumption. It is much harder if you care about what gets made five years from now.

The Precedent Being Set:

The lesson being taught could not be clearer.

Strip away cultural texture. Adopt prestige aesthetics. Be familiar, restrained, and digestible. Do not ask too much of the player. Do not make institutions uncomfortable.

This is not progress. It is stagnation disguised as maturity.

Games do not advance by becoming respectable. They advance by taking risks, by embracing excess, and by letting different cultures speak in their own voices.

Right now, the industry is being rewarded for doing the opposite.