Can someone explain to me how Clair Obscur E33 is an indie game?

“An indie video game or indie game (short for independent video game) is a video game created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games.“

Aside from having a small team what criteria do they fill for their game to be considered indie?

High production value

Unreal engine 5 graphics

Backed by a large publisher which funded the game

Multi platform release

How did this manage to get nominated for best debut indie game or hell, even best independent game of the year???

In the GOTY nominee video Geoff says (regarding best independent GOTY) “a game with a high degree of risk tolerance produced outside the traditional publisher system”

It honestly just doesn’t make sense to me, can someone explain what I’m missing?

EDIT: found an article where the CEO of Sandfall (creator of CO33) literally calls his game indie

“As development costs continue to grow, I think we’re likely to see an increase in companies like ours, producing AA-class games,” Broche comments. “Thanks to Unreal Engine, it’s now easier to get an idea of the amount of resources you’ll need relative to your production scale. This makes it possible to develop entertaining games efficiently even with a relatively small team.” As an example, Broche cites 11 Bit Studio’s The Alters, another popular mid-budget title released this year.

How ironic