Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been one of 2025's biggest successes so far, and it's now sold more than 3.3 million copies. What contributed to the game's big success? No doubt a number of factors, including its lower price and smaller scope, according to publisher Kepler Interactive.
Kepler's Matthew Handrahan told GI.biz that Expedition 33 "really respects the player's time;" it's not a game that offers size for the sake of size. "It gives them plenty to do, and it gives them plenty of satisfaction, but it isn't arbitrarily 500 hours of gameplay," he said. "It's impactful because it's scoped correctly. […] It doesn't have any sense of bloat or extraneous things that are put there just to make it larger and larger and larger."
Handrahan went on to say he believes "brevity should be more of a virtue in gaming," adding that "something can be better by being shorter."
What he's saying sounds similar to what 2K said about Mafia: The Old Country, which is a $50 linear game that doesn't require a "massive time commitment." 2K has said it believes there is an audience for just such a game, and Expedition 33's sales results thus far may lend credence to that possibility.
Also in the interview, Handrahan reacted to rising prices in gaming, saying Expedition 33's $50 price point might have helped the game reach more people. As the price of AAA games goes up and up, it creates an opportunity for "sensibly scoped games" in the $40-$50 range, he said.
"I don't think anyone that played Expedition 33 would think they didn't get their money's worth out of that," he said. When the $50 price was announced, the company got backlash online, Sandfall COO and producer François Meurisse said, because people feared Expedition 33 might be a 12-hour game with "unfinished content."
"But in the end we stuck with the price, we doubled down on it, [and] we provided some context about the fact that it wasn't a AAA," the developer said. "In the end, it was a win-win situation, because it was a way to attract more players towards the game, to have good player satisfaction about their buying [decision], and it could actually end up doing more sales. So maybe players' perception can change a bit about that kind of price [point]."
Expedition 33 also launched into the Game Pass library--the same week as Oblivion Remastered--and some theorized that this might have negatively impacted the number of copies sold outright. Kepler rejected that idea, though, saying launching near Oblivion Remastered didn't seem to hurt "at all."
Other developers have admitted that launching into Game Pass might cannibalize game sales, but any potential losses could be mitigated by a payment from Microsoft to launch on Game Pass. The business specifics of any such deal between Microsoft and Kepler for Expedition 33 are unknown.
Given the big success of Expedition 33 thus far, many are wondering if Sandfall will release any DLC or expansions for the game, but nothing has been announced. The studio is, however, gearing up for its next game.
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Kepler's Matthew Handrahan told GI.biz that Expedition 33 "really respects the player's time;" it's not a game that offers size for the sake of size. "It gives them plenty to do, and it gives them plenty of satisfaction, but it isn't arbitrarily 500 hours of gameplay," he said. "It's impactful because it's scoped correctly. […] It doesn't have any sense of bloat or extraneous things that are put there just to make it larger and larger and larger."
Handrahan went on to say he believes "brevity should be more of a virtue in gaming," adding that "something can be better by being shorter."
What he's saying sounds similar to what 2K said about Mafia: The Old Country, which is a $50 linear game that doesn't require a "massive time commitment." 2K has said it believes there is an audience for just such a game, and Expedition 33's sales results thus far may lend credence to that possibility.
Also in the interview, Handrahan reacted to rising prices in gaming, saying Expedition 33's $50 price point might have helped the game reach more people. As the price of AAA games goes up and up, it creates an opportunity for "sensibly scoped games" in the $40-$50 range, he said.
"I don't think anyone that played Expedition 33 would think they didn't get their money's worth out of that," he said. When the $50 price was announced, the company got backlash online, Sandfall COO and producer François Meurisse said, because people feared Expedition 33 might be a 12-hour game with "unfinished content."
"But in the end we stuck with the price, we doubled down on it, [and] we provided some context about the fact that it wasn't a AAA," the developer said. "In the end, it was a win-win situation, because it was a way to attract more players towards the game, to have good player satisfaction about their buying [decision], and it could actually end up doing more sales. So maybe players' perception can change a bit about that kind of price [point]."
Expedition 33 also launched into the Game Pass library--the same week as Oblivion Remastered--and some theorized that this might have negatively impacted the number of copies sold outright. Kepler rejected that idea, though, saying launching near Oblivion Remastered didn't seem to hurt "at all."
Other developers have admitted that launching into Game Pass might cannibalize game sales, but any potential losses could be mitigated by a payment from Microsoft to launch on Game Pass. The business specifics of any such deal between Microsoft and Kepler for Expedition 33 are unknown.
Given the big success of Expedition 33 thus far, many are wondering if Sandfall will release any DLC or expansions for the game, but nothing has been announced. The studio is, however, gearing up for its next game.
Source