Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 might be a front-runner for my own GOTY personal pick in 2025—its hooks are well and truly in my skin, ticking all the right boxes for my inner RPG and Sekiro freaks. A banger soundtrack, gripping story, and an all-around good first showing from Sandfall Interactive has seen it reach major success, despite living in Oblivion Remastered's shadow.
In fact, it's apparently outselling Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Persona, and Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth at a whopping 2:1 ratio. That's per analyst Rhys Elliott, who recently spoke to Gamesindustry.biz. Here's a handy graph shared by the site to put it in perspective:
"According to Alinea Analytics' data," the report reads, "The game has sold more than 785,000 copies on Steam in its first week—more than twice the sales of any recent comparable games in the Japanese RPG style, including last year's acclaimed Atlus title, Metaphor Re:Fantazio."
It should be noted that analytics companies like these tend to play the exact methodology behind their numbers somewhat close to the chest—this is all educated guesswork, rather than an official source with a concrete grip on actual sales. Though, given Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 bumped up its all-time peak to 145,063 on SteamDB last weekend, we can at least assume it's done pretty well compared to the competition.
The report also keenly points out that, of these competitors, only one of them (Persona 3 Reload) had a simultaneous Game Pass launch on PC—which is even more impressive. You don't have to play full-price for Clair Obscur at the moment, but PC gamers very much want to.
I'm deeply enthusiastic about the game myself—currently grinding at the 60-hour mark to knock over its final postgame challenge—but I can't help but wonder what the secret sauce is, here.
Not because ol' 33 doesn't deserve the praise, but because Metaphor: ReFantazio was also a game that obsessed me for 80+ hours—and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth wasn't any industry slacker, either. Why is Clair Obscur flying while other very good JRPGs waddle on Steam? Here's a few theories I've got kicking around in my skull.
- It's excellence from an 'unexpected' place. I was cautiously optimistic about Expedition 33 from the trailers, but it's Sandfall interactive's debut. People like fresh experiences, underdog stories, and supporting small studios. Quite frankly, so do I.
- Clair Obscur's opening hours are gripping, and double-pronged: While the gommage didn't hit for me as much as it did for others, the beach scene afterwards had me hooked. You'll either be drawn in by emotion or intrigue by that one-two punch—and for the curious watching it on stream, that's a great sales pitch.
- Its parry-based mechanics pique the curiosity of people who wouldn't usually go in for a turn-based RPG—maybe builds and stat allocations are a headache for you, but if you can nullify all damage with enough skill? That's very appealing.
- PC Gamers like depressed French 30 year olds more than they do anime teens (or Yakuza boys).
I hope it's not that last one, for the reasons I'm about to get into.
The éléphante in the room is that, while Clair Obscur has a ton of JRPG paint in its palette, it has western stylings and trades out the belt buckles for baguettes. There might be a perception that its more anime-inspired contemporaries, such as Metaphor: ReFantazio, are all about cartoon twinks talking about their feelings and killing god—a cliche putdown I'm quoting, but don't put much stock in.
Well. I mean—look. Metaphor: ReFantazio does feature a cartoon twink or two, and they do talk about their feelings, and they kill something approaching god—but it's also a deeply political fantasy story with stellar character development and some real, actual bite and blood to it. If anyone's steered away from that game because they're afraid of an artstyle, I'll be very sad.
As for all the other reasons on that list? I think it's a little from every column, and Clair Obscur deserves its accolades and santé-s. Especially since there's a chance we'll be getting more out of it, and I need more Monoco in my life.
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