Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director says the French RPG's success was "completely unexpected from pretty much everybody" at the studio

Despite a handful of promising trailers and appearances at several Xbox showcases, I don't think very many people were anticipating that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 would become the giant hit that it eventually snowballed into, least of all the people who made it in the first place.

Calling Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 a success is a slight understatement, too. The debut game from French developer Sandfall Interactive has shifted over five million sales as of last year, on top of winning more game of the year awards than pretty much anything besides Elden Ring and holding on to Metacritic's top user-rated game crown (at least until Cory in the House DS overtakes it.)

"It was completely unexpected from pretty much everybody," creative director Guillaume Broche said of the reception in an interview with Edge Magazine. "What really surprised us the most is how much the narrative and cinematics and story resonated with people. This is the thing that's hardest to quantify, because it's always something very personal. So the fact that this worked so well, pretty much instantly, this was the thing where we were like 'Ok, this is one hundred times what we were expecting'."

Of course, it hasn't been an entirely smooth ride thus far. Two of the RPG's big game of the year awards were recently revoked over Sandfall Interactive's use of generative AI, which a studio representative hadn't been entirely clear about before submitting the game. After the fact, Broche admitted that "we tried it, and we didn’t like it at all, it felt wrong" - so with future projects, "everything will be made by humans from us."

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director blames Final Fantasy 10 for letting you nuke the RPG's final boss, but admits it might have been "a little bit too easy to get overpowered"