Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has captivated fans of Japanese RPGs.

While the French studio was clearly inspired by genre greats like Final Fantasy 10 and Lost Odyssey with its debut, it arguably gets closer to the feel of those games than publisher and genre specialist Square Enix itself has managed in recent years.

A glowing critical reception has translated into huge sales, with the game hitting one million copies sold in three days, despite also being available for Xbox Game Pass subscribers on PC and Xbox.

“Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a certified hit, officially selling more than one million copies,” Rhys Elliott, head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics, tells GamesIndustry.biz. “The announcement didn’t say players reached – it said copies sold. That was a choice, and I applaud the transparency.”

The bigger story, though, might be in how well it’s selling versus other games in its genre.

According to Alinea Analytics’ data, the game has sold more than 785,000 copies on Steam in its first week – more than twice the sales of any recent comparable games in the Japanese RPG style, including last year’s acclaimed Atlus title, Metaphor Re:Fantazio.

Find data from Alinea Analytics below:

As a simultaneous release on PC and the launch of a new franchise, Metaphor is the most direct comparison in that chart (though Atlus RPGs have a sizable console audience). Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth and Persona 5 Royal, for example, had already launched elsewhere on console before coming to PC.

“It’s worth noting that two of these are ports, but the data still speaks volumes for how much gamers are drawn to Expedition 33,” says Elliott.

Persona 3: Reload is a remake of a PS2 and PSP game, while Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth was the latest entry in a long-running series that has found considerable success on PC.

Of those games, though, only Persona 3 Reload had a simultaneous launch on Game Pass like Expedition 33, making its week one sales even more notable.

According to Alinea Analytics’ data, Expedition 33 has also sold more than 350,000 copies on PlayStation. Elliott says the game has more than 1.5 million wishlists on Steam, setting it up well for a long tail.

Expedition 33’s success comes down to a few factors, according to Elliott, but it starts with quality.

“The game is fantastic. It combines stunning visuals with a rewarding turn-based-combat system that melds the Superstar Saga timed JRPG combat with some Sekiro-style parries. It also has an affecting story and believable writing – as well as loveable protagonists and love-to-hateable antagonists with an all-star voiceover cast.

“The low price point likely also factored in, as our Steam data shows that many players bite the bullet when a AAA game goes on sale and drops below $50.”

At a moment when Xbox is about to hike game prices to $80, with Nintendo already beating them to it on Mario Kart World for Switch 2, choosing that price point worked in publisher Kepler Interactive’s favour.

Yet, Sandfall Interactive also picked an underserved part of the JRPG niche with this project: a turn-based game with graphics that get the audience excited.

“There was also an opening for a modern, realistic-looking JRPG,” Elliott says. “Square Enix was reticent to do it with the Final Fantasy series. Now it’s probably kicking itself.

“Expedition 33 has given RPG fans something they always wanted. If you asked Final Fantasy fans from the late ’90s/early ’00s what the ideal version of a JRPG should look like, it’d be something like this.”

While Square Enix has made plenty of realistic-looking games, its most recent heavy-hitter releases like Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth are primarily real-time action games, with traditional JRPG combat elements functioning as secondary features. Expedition 33 is entirely, unashamedly turn-based.

Senior staff at Square Enix have been asked about why its more recent Final Fantasy games are no longer turn-based, a style the numbered mainline games left behind after 2010’s Final Fantasy 13.

“I’m from a generation that grew up with command and turn-based RPGs,” Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida told Famitsu (via VGC) in 2022. “I think I understand how interesting and immersive it can be. On the other hand, for the past decade or so, I’ve seen quite a number of opinions saying ‘I don’t understand the attraction of selecting commands in video games’.”

“This opinion is only increasing, particularly with younger audiences who do not typically play RPGs,” he added.

Square Enix has not abandoned making turn-based games, like its Dragon Quest series or the Octopath Traveler games, among many re-releases.

But it’s perhaps notable that the big budget likes of FF7: Rebirth and FF16 launched as exclusives on PlayStation, a platform where numerous highly polished, cinematic real-time action games like Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Part 2, God of War, and Ghost of Tsushima have dominated on the singleplayer side. Each Final Fantasy game still sold millions of copies on PS5, even if neither matched Square Enix’s sales expectations.

The Game Pass factor

Elliott believes launching on Game Pass worked in Expedition 33’s favour when it came to influencing sales, too.

“Inclusion on Game Pass will always cannibalise premium game sales on Xbox itself, but inclusion can – and does – snowball into word of mouth that increases sales off-platform.

“Xbox is reaping the benefits of this itself with its first-party games, but third-party – like Palworld – have also benefitted. It can also help put indie games on the map.”

The marketing support from Xbox was also robust, with a reveal at the Xbox Games Showcase in 2024 giving the marketing campaign a strong start. Atomfall is another recent example of a game benefitting from a similar phenomenon.

Even launching against the Oblivion remaster hasn’t slowed down Expedition 33 on Steam.

“The Oblivion remaster is selling twice as fast so far, but that’s expected, as Skyrim is one of the most revered RPGs of all time, many gamers have fond memories of Oblivion from the early Xbox 360 days, and consumers have been awaiting the remaster – the industry’s worst-kept secret – for quite some time,” Elliott adds.

It’s notable, too, that Kepler itself has observed no real impact from launching opposite a remake of a much-loved RPG.

“Proximity to Oblivion didn’t seem to harm us at all,” Kepler’s senior portfolio director (and former GI.biz editor-in-chief) Matthew Handrahan told The Games Business. “In many ways, I think it just drew attention to quality RPGs that week and everybody was thinking and talking about the genre.”

Since they’re on opposite ends of the scale when it comes to RPGs, it’s not too surprising that both Oblivion and Expedition 33 are each finding an audience. But the level of success for Expedition 33 was far harder to predict. At the time of writing, it’s passed Oblivion on Steam’s global sales charts.

“Who said turn-based combat was dead?” Elliott adds. “The realistic-JRPG ideation floodgates probably just opened.”