Clair Obscur and Dispatch share top honours at Bafta games awards

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With 12 nominations, acclaimed role-playing adventure Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was expected to be the runaway success at the 2026 Bafta games awards, held in London on Friday evening.

And while it couldn’t quite match its nine wins at the Game Awards back in December, it was still the joint biggest winner on the night, taking best game and debut game as well as the performer in a leading role award for Jennifer English.

Alongside it was superhero comedy Dispatch, which won animation, audio achievement and performer in a supporting role for Jeffrey Wright. The only other multiple winner on a varied, unpredictable night was historical samurai slasher Ghost of Yōtei, taking trophies for music and technical achievement.

The visually stunning post-apocalyptic epic Death Stranding 2 attracted seven nominations but took just the one: artistic achievement. In the British game category, Rebellion’s 1950s-themed nuclear disaster thriller Atomfall claimed the prize against an interesting array of competitors including Two Point Museum and Power Wash Simulator 2. Another British game, No Man’s Sky, won evolving game. The much-praised puzzler Blue Prince was a worthy winner in game design, though it lost out in the narrative category to Kingdom Come: Deliverance II.

One slight surprise was in new intellectual property, where South of Midnight beat a strong field including Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Dispatch, Arc Raiders and Split Fiction. The games beyond entertainment award, which recognises games that deliver “a transformational experience”, went to the beautiful semi-autobiographical Despelote, about a boy’s experience of Ecuador’s 2002 World Cup qualifying adventure. Finally, Arc Raiders won in multiplayer and Lego Party! took the family award.

The Bafta Fellowship was presented to Ilkka Paananen, chief executive and co-founder of smartphone games developer Supercell, creator of smash hits Clash of Clans and Clash Royale.