Clair Obscur Leads Remaining Awards Season Despite Inverted Industry Schedule
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Polygon breaks down the remainder of gaming's inverted awards season, looking at what is next for Clair Obscur and other top titles at the DICE Awards and IGF.
Gaming operates on an awards calendar that completely inverts traditional Hollywood structures. While the movie industry builds anticipation through months of precursor ceremonies before culminating in the Oscars, video games crown their biggest winner at The Game Awards in December and spend the early months of the following year sorting through the remaining trophies. This means developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive are still cruising through a victory lap for Clair Obscur, with several major ceremonies still left on the 2026 calendar.
The upcoming DICE Awards represent the closest gaming equivalent to the Academy Awards because voting is handled by the Academy of Interactive Arts Sciences rather than media outlets. Both Clair Obscur and Ghost of Yōtei pull in eight nominations each for the Vegas ceremony, though the ballot also makes room for late-breaking hits like Dispatch and Arc Raiders that missed the early cutoff for December shows. While DICE tends to mirror mainstream choices, peer recognition from industry developers still carries significant weight for studios aiming to cement their legacy.
Meanwhile, ceremonies like the Independent Games Festival completely sidestep blockbuster productions to focus strictly on iconoclastic indie projects. With major commercial releases absent from these ballots, titles like Baby Steps lead the field with multiple nominations, leaving the grand prize wide open for experimental releases. For a breakdown of the full awards landscape and what these nominations mean for the rest of the year, check out the original reporting on Polygon.
As the awards season continues to unfold across the industry, these upcoming ceremonies offer a chance to shine a light on overlooked categories and titles that missed the initial December spotlight, giving players plenty of reasons to keep watching as the calendar turns.
Tags: Gaming Industry, Clair Obscur, The Game Awards, DICE Awards, Polygon
Original article: Polygon