Yes. At The Game Awards 2025, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won the main Game of the Year award as well as Best Independent Game. That is a direct, named example. GOTY is also used by many other organizations, so an accurate claim should always identify the awarding body and year rather than treating the abbreviation as one universal trophy.
Use an official winner rather than a nomination headline
The official 2025 archive identifies Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as Game of the Year and recognizes it in the independent category. This answers the basic question without needing to decide whether every earlier winner fits every possible definition of indie.
A nomination is different from a win, and a prediction is different from either. When checking a claim, read the completed ceremony’s winner record. A promotional image saying nominated for Game of the Year should not be rewritten as an award victory merely because the title became widely celebrated.
Separate the main award from Best Independent Game
An awards show can have an overall Game of the Year category and a separate category recognizing independent work. Winning the independent category alone does not mean winning the overall award. A title can also be nominated in both categories.
The relevant achievement here is recognition in the main category, with an independent classification explicitly present in the same official record. Name both facts when that distinction matters. It prevents a specialist prize from being accidentally inflated and avoids assuming an independent category is the only place an independent production can compete.
For the documented reference, see The Game Awards’ official 2025 winners archive.
Publishing support does not settle the older examples
The 2021 Game Awards archive lists It Takes Two as the overall winner and credits Hazelight and Electronic Arts. EA’s official It Takes Two feature page describes Hazelight as an independent studio. This is another useful example of why seeing a major publisher beside a developer does not automatically prove that the publisher owns the studio.
Different definitions may still draw different boundaries around publisher-backed projects. Explain the production relationship instead of replacing it with a logo-based rule. If you want an example recognized in both the main and independent categories at the same event, use the explicit archive record described above.
GOTY is not owned by one worldwide institution
Publications, festivals, industry organizations and audience polls can all give Game of the Year awards. Their judges, eligibility periods and categories differ. A game winning one of these does not automatically mean it won The Game Awards’ main prize.
A complete claim therefore contains a game title, organization, year and category. Those details remain necessary even when a game’s store page displays many award badges. A personal year-end selection is also legitimate as an opinion, but it should not be presented as the same institutional result.
Do not infer a budget rule from the outcome
An overall award evaluates the work under the organizer’s process; it is not a company-ownership certificate. Independent status, production scale and critical reception are related topics but remain different questions. A major award does not automatically change who owns a developer.
Nor does one independent winner prove that every small project receives equal visibility. Awards recognition is selective, and the games most people hear about are not a representative sample of everything released. Treat the result as a documented achievement rather than a promise about how any future independent release will be received.
Keep the year and current date straight
This article refers to completed historical results, checked in October 2026. It does not claim a winner for an awards ceremony that has not yet taken place. Later nominations, predictions and live audience voting belong to their own period.
For a quick verification, open the organization’s archive, locate the exact year and read the category heading beside the winner. That small check is more reliable than repeating an unsourced list of supposed firsts. The answer is yes, with the qualification about which award forming part of the answer itself.
Frequently asked questions
Does Best Independent Game mean overall GOTY?
No. Those can be separate categories. Check the exact heading in the official winner record.
Can a publisher-backed independent studio win overall GOTY?
Yes. A publishing relationship does not by itself establish studio ownership. Describe the actual developer relationship and the named award result.
Is there only one official GOTY award in the world?
No. Different organizations use the phrase. Specify the organization and year so the claim can be checked accurately.