by
William D’Angelo
, posted on 02 May 2025 / 5,541 Views
Kepler Interactive, the publisher for the Sandfall Interactive developed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, stated the release so close to the shadow drop of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered didn’t harm the game.
“[During the Summer Showcase] our game was placed alongside Gears of War, Fable and products that are very traditionally known as AAA product,” said Kepler senior portfolio director Matt Handrahan in an interview with The Game Business.
“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.”
Handrahan added, “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. I knew plenty of people that would play an Elder Scrolls game that wouldn’t necessarily play Final Fantasy and vice versa.
“Also, by the time that we rolled around, we had momentum of our own and we felt pretty confident that we could stand beside it. I think there were other aspects, like the price point we were at and the inclusion in Game Pass… so we knew we would have a lot of interest around the game. We were confident in that. And it went as well as it possibly could have done in our eyes.
“And, actually, proximity to Oblivion didn’t seem to harm us at all. In many ways, I think it just drew attention to quality RPGs that week and everybody was thinking and talking about the genre.”
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has gone on to sell over one million units. It released for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, and Xbox Game Pass on April 24.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.