Latest news with #MattHandrahan
Geek Culture
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
‘Clair Obscur: Expedition 33′ Sells 2 Million Copies In Just 12 Days
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 continues to be on a roll, and its hot streak isn't going anywhere. After selling one million copies in its first three days of launch, the role-playing game (RPG) has hit the two-million milestone 12 days in — a feat made even more impressive with its debut title status. 'We've watched in awe as so many of you began your journey. Feeling every step, every emotion, every revelation alongside you,' reads the announcement post on X/Twitter. 'To those just joining us: welcome. Tomorrow comes.' The showing is the latest in a series of achievements from developer Sandfall Interactive, including an all-time peak of 145,063 concurrent players on Steam, surpassing its previous record of 121,422, a 9.7 user score on Metacritic, the highest rating of 2025 thus far, and public recognition from French president Emmanuel Macron. While there were initial concerns that it'd be overshadowed by The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered , which Bethesda shadow-dropped two days prior, publisher Kepler Interactive said the near back-to-back releases helped to stir excitement for the RPG genre, and in turn, benefited Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 . '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,' portfolio manager Matt Handrahan told The Game Business. I knew plenty of people that would play an Elder Scrolls game that wouldn't necessarily play Final Fantasy and vice versa.' He added: '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.' It turned out to be a worthy gamble, as this humble passion project from a core team of around 30 developers has flipped the rhetoric of triple-A and heavyweight titles and the definition of success on its head. Indeed, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a rare success story for the ages with asinine beginnings — speaking to BBC, studio founder Guillaume Broche revealed that he was 'bored' in his previous job at Ubisoft, found composer Lorien Testard, who had never worked on a video game before, on the music-sharing website Soundcloud, and gathered a whole team of junior developers. Led by a stacked voice cast that includes Charlie Cox ( Daredevil ), Jennifer English ( Baldur's Gate 3 ), Andy Serkis ( The Lord of the Rings ), Ben Starr ( Final Fantasy XVI ), Kirsty Rider ( The Sandman ), Shala Nyx ( The Old Guard ) and more, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 follows a group of Expeditioners who have set out to destroy an entity called the Paintress, who paints a number on a monolith every year that dooms everyone of that age to death. Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth's theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia's greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Kepler Interactive Sandfall Interactive
Daily Mirror
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sales explode, shipping two million copies in less than two weeks
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has smashed its arrival on the scene, crossing two million copies sold and swinging through some massive concurrent player numbers on Steam. It's clear that turn-based combat still has its draws, as new reports about major Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sales have proven that it's already made an impact. Originality feels a little few and far between in 2025, what with live service games continuing to hold their dominion. Fortnite is still the champion of all, and with the mind-blowing sales of Oblivion Remastered joining it, it's almost as if winning big in the industry is exclusive to games that have lasted for years, or for legacy titles that reflect games that have already become true classics. But, as games like Split Fiction, Balatro and Black Myth: Wukong have been able to prove, there is hope out there for games that strive to go it alone. There's one game that has been catapulted into the stratosphere out of the blue, though – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has smashed it with new and curious players since it touched down on the field with an appearance on Xbox Game Pass, and across PlayStation and PC. The turn-based scrapper with a complex, layered narrative is grabbing some serious attention – and the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sales prove it. A successful expedition Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sales are currently exploding, as it has maintained a consistent concurrent player number on SteamDB since its launch, with 105,880 players having played in the last 24 hours as of the time of writing, not far down from the game's all-time peak of 145,063 mere days ago. This is exclusive to Steam, too, and doesn't account for the players on Xbox Game Pass earning a chance to play the title at no extra cost. The numbers keep on coming, too, as the game's team has taken to BlueSky to reveal that it has crossed two million Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sales. 'We've watched in awe as so many of you began your journey,' the account says. 'Feeling every step, every emotion, every revelation alongside you. To those just joining us: welcome.' This news comes after Matt Handrahan, senior portfolio director of publisher Kepler Interactive, revealed in a conversation with The Game Business that its arrival in close proximity to the shock-drop of Oblivion Remastered didn't actually have too much of a negative impact on the title's launch. 'I knew plenty of people that would play an Elder Scrolls game that wouldn't necessarily play Final Fantasy and vice versa,' he says. "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.' It's a shocking blast of new players for Kepler that is hard to predict or prepare for, but these huge Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sales have done wonders to prove that turn-based RPGs set in entirely new worlds do have a market in a heavily-saturated gaming world. If we're lucky, this is a trend that will continue to spotlight the worthy up-and-comers that are too often left behind in the noise of the latest AAA remaster.
Geek Culture
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
'Clair Obscur: Expedition 33' Publisher Says Game Benefitted From 'The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered' Launch
It seemed like the launch of Sandfall Interactive's turn-based role-playing video game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 , would have been negatively affected by the shadow drop of Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered , but according to its publisher Kepler Interactive, this wasn't the case, as the games' simultaneous launch helped to boost excitement for the RPG genre with both titles benefitting as a result. Speaking to The Game Business, Kepler Interactive's senior portfolio manager Matt Handrahan explained how Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 managed to beat the odds despite facing stiff competition from Bethesda's highly anticipated remaster. The two games both launched in the same week, with the former released on 24 April and the latter two days earlier. 'We always knew that Expedition 33 had a very specific identity,' Handrahan noted. '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 [who] 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,' he added, '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.' And its results speak for themselves, as Clair Obscur Expedition 33 has proven to be a big hit, soaring past one million copies sold within the first three days of launch while also gaining an all-time peak of 145,063 concurrent players on Steam at the time of writing, an impressive feat considering the relatively small size of its development team. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered , on the other hand, has unsurprisingly seen its fair share of success as a remaster of such a classic title, with over four million players since launch and raking up an all-time peak of 216,784 concurrent players on Steam. Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise 'duds' like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3 . He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Kepler Interactive Sandfall Interactive
