Switch 2 ‘Zelda' Dethrones ‘Expedition 33' On Metacritic, Which Doesn't Count
Tears/Expedition 33
The Nintendo Switch 2's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom made headlines yesterday when it officially became the highest-scored game on Metacritic of 2025, dethroning Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, probably the most significant GOTY contender to date.
I'm here to say no, that doesn't count.
While this is may be subjective, I'm here to give my position that a re-release that is mainly just a graphical upgrade of an already-existing game does not deserve the actual honor of pretending its 95 is actually a true toppler of Expedition 33's 93. And now, Breath of the Wild has just become tied at 93.
Does Tears of the Kingdom itself deserve its 96 on Metacritic for its initial release? I'd argue that's debatable, but overlooking that, at least it's an actual game release. Tears of the Kingdom's Switch 2 'edition' is not. Nope, sorry.
Also, there's another fact being overlooked here. To get that 95 average for Tears, it's only based on nine reviews. Nine. That's four 10s, a 9.5, three 90s and an 80. That's it. And the tied-for-second Switch 2 Breath of the Wild has 11 reviews.
Most major releases of games will end up anywhere from 50-150 scored reviews, and in this case, that very much includes Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which has 84 reviews averaged for its second-best 93 metascore (not to mention it's wildly high 9.7 user score based on 16,000 ratings).
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The current top 10 list for the year is:
I will give smaller indie games a pass on having fewer reviews given the context of their scale, but these Zelda upgrades? Get off this list.
Why do I care so much? Well, I am the number one Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 defender, where that game has probably already become one of my favorites of all time. And I will not have its honor besmirched by an upgrade of a Zelda game that came out two years ago. I normally will dismiss all 'remastered' or reissued games from lists like this, and this is no exception. Remakes are a different story, but no, Expedition 33 is still on top here, I don't care what the list says.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
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