There was some worry thatClair Obscur: Expedition 33was going to lose of the attention it had earned afterThe Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remasteredwas unveiled and released in the same week, but the former’s publisher seems to think the opposite occurred. The turn-based roleplaying game had some promotional backing from Xbox that helped put it on many players' radars, andglowingExpedition 33reviewshave ensured that it’s become one of the year’s greatest gaming successes.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33was set for release on April 24 whenOblivion Remasteredbroke onto the scene and dropped two days prior. There was a general assumption that the week was too crowded for two RPGs, despite their differences, butExpedition 33’s publisher believes it was actually a help, Matt Handrahan of Kepler Interactive toldThe Game Business. “Actually, proximity to Oblivion didn’t seem to harm us at all,” he said.“In many ways, I think it just drew attention to quality RPGs that week and everybody was thinking and talking about the genre.”
Publisher Says Expedition 33 Benefited From The Extra Attention On RPGs Brought By Oblivion Remastered
Clair Obscur Was Already Highly Anticipated
Handrahan has some very interesting insight into the matter, saying, “We always knew that Expedition 33 had a very specific identity. When I was in the press, I saw the Western-style RPG and the Japanese-style RPG as having quite different appeals and audiences.” To some extent, this is anecdotally true, andin practice,Expedition 33andOblivionare very different games– the former’s lineage hews much closer to the RPGs that come out of Japan. Still, getting a generous release date window can be huge; just look at the way publishers are waiting forGrand Theft Auto 6’s release date to be announced before scheduling their own games.
For Handrahan and Kepler Interactive, though,there seemed to be no doubt thatExpedition 33was going to be a success: “By the time that we rolled around, we had momentum of our own and we felt pretty confident that we could stand beside [Oblivion Remastered].” But he’s also not disillusioned from the financial realities ofExpedition 33’s day-one Game Pass releaseand price point – $50 compared to many other games' new standard of $70 (or more, in the oncoming Nintendo Switch 2 era).
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Shows How Xbox Brand Can Help Smaller Development Studios
It Helps That The Game Is Impressive On Its Own Too
Expedition 33’s impressive sales numbersare primarily a result of the game simply being very good, butit’s hard to deny that it had the benefit of an incredible marketing run. Handrahan says its association with big-name Xbox properties, likeGears of WarandFable, at Xbox-branded showcases really helped spread awareness of the game. Below is a fascinating quote from Handrahan on how the game’s partnership with Xbox helped establishClair Obscur: Expedition 33as a premium experience:
“It let people understand what it was in a way that I think we would’ve struggled to do if we weren’t allied with Xbox in that way. We couldn’t have done it through a Steam demo alone, for example. It helped us to kind of claim this AA territory in a much more confident way. Because it’s a vague space that exists somewhere between small games and extremely big games, and there’s a lot of ground that that covers.”
Earlier this year, it was part of the Xbox Dev Direct stream alongsideDOOM: The Dark Ages,South of Midnight, andNinja Gaiden 4– an exceptionally strong lineup thatproved the worth of Xbox Game Pass. The develoeprs at Sandfall Interactive have clearly accomplished something incredible, but a perfect storm surrounded the game to help it break out of the obscurity that often clouds similar AA ventures. All eyes may have turned towardOblivion Remasteredtwo days earlier, but it doesn’t seem to have slowed downClair Obscur: Expedition 33.
