May 2, 2025 by Rhys Elliott

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is selling faster than JRPGs from iconic studios, but the Oblivion Remaster might have stolen a bit of its thunder

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a certified hit, an all-time JRPG great, and another early contender for game of the year.

Expedition 33 has now sold over a million copies across Steam and PlayStation alone, with over 785K on Steam and over 350K on PlayStation consoles.

Over 1.3 million people have played the game on Xbox, owing to its inclusion on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Expedition 33’s success is even more impressive, as it’s a new IP made by a small core team in France (but still looks very AAA).

While many people were surprised by Expedition 33’s success, it was no shock to us at Alinea. Our Steam data showed that Expedition 33 had 500K Steam wishlisters over a month before launching on April 24.

We knew Expedition 33 was going to do well, but the incredible reviews, influencer reaction, and word of mouth – sparked by the pure quality of the game – took things even further than we expected.

Expedition 33 has been landing with critics and consumers alike due to its stunning visuals, rewarding turn-based-combat system, affecting story and believable writing, and all-star VO 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.

There has been a common narrative among the industry that players aren’t interested in hyper-realistic JRPGs (just anime-heavy ones), which is why the Final Fantasy series has largely shifted to real-time combat.

We bet Square Enix is kicking itself. Expedition 33’s success flies in the face of the sentiment that modern and realistic JRPGs don’t work, highlighting that there’s been a gap in the market all along.

In fact, Expedition 33 has even been performing better than some of the heaviest hitters in the JRPG space made by iconic studios.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been selling twice as fast as other JRPGs on Steam so far

We aligned our copies sold data on Steam for several recent JRPG games. Expedition 33 has so far sold over twice as many copies as some of its peers and inspirations:

On Steam, Expedition 33 has so far sold faster than iconic anime-style JRPGs like Persona 5 Royal (3.3x faster), Persona 3 (3.9x), and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2.3x). However, these are all ports/re-releases of games that came out on console first.

Even more impressively, Expedition 33 is selling 2.3x faster than Metaphor ReFantazio and 4x faster than Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth – two day-in-date Steam launches from two of the JRPG genre’s most iconic developers, Atlus and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio.

Another huge factor in Expedition 33’s Steam success is China. Our data shows that the Chinese market accounts for around a third of the game’s Steam audience, its biggest market.

Again, this shows the necessity for data providers to take all markets into account for player and revenue estimates – not just cherry-pick a few Western ones and make bold claims.

We track all markets here at Alinea. Reach out if you want a free trial to see our data for yourself.

So Expedition 33 is doing well on Steam. But what about PlayStation?

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is also selling well on PlayStation

PlayStation is practically synonymous with JRPGs, such as Final Fantasy VII, which is among the most iconic of all time. Its remakes – timed PlayStation exclusives – have been doing well with PlayStation players.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth sold over 1.4 million copies in its first six days on PlayStation – 4x faster than Expedition 33. This makes sense, given FFVII’s legacy on the platform.

However, when we launch-aligned PlayStation releases for other JRPGs on PlayStation, we found that Expedition 33 sold slightly faster than Atlus IP Metaphor ReFantazio, Like a Dragon sequel Infinite Wealth, and the recent Atlus re-release, Persona 3 Reload. This is remarkable, given the legacy of Atlus games on PlayStation platforms. Of course, Expedition 33’s lower price should be taken into consideration here. The revenue data shows much more parity between the games.

Clearly, gamers are interested in a more mature turn-based JRPG-style game.

How does Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 stack up against the Oblivion Remaster?

So far, the Oblivion Remaster has sold more copies than Expedition 33. Six days after each game’s respective launch:

• On Steam, Oblivion sold 1.4 million copies on Steam and Expedition 33 sold 708.2K
• On PlayStation, Oblivion sold 590K copies and Expedition 33 sold 343.9K
• On Xbox, where both games launched on Game Pass, Oblivion reached 3.2 million players and Expedition 33 reached 1.3 million.

Copies sold on Xbox were extremely low, as Game Pass cannibalises premium game sales on the platform. However, Expedition 33’s inclusion on Game Pass likely helped word of mouth spiral, positively impacting marketing reach and – therefore – sales on other platforms.

However, our data shows that daily copies sold for Expedition 33 are actually tracking higher than Oblivion on Steam, pointing to a longer tail. For example, Expedition 33 sold around 77K copies on Steam on its seventh day on the market – that’s around twice as many as Oblivion sold on its seventh day.

The success of the Oblivion Remaster so far is expected, as Skyrim (the original game’s successor) 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.

People who played the original were on board, and plenty of Skyrim’s tens of millions of fans were also curious to check out its predecessor. This all bodes well for the all-but-confirmed remaster of Fallout 3.

Game Pass resulted in plenty of player crossover

Naturally, there is plenty of player crossover between Oblivion and Expedition 33, as around a third of Expedition 33 players also played the Oblivion remaster. Owing to both games being RPGs, we wouldn’t quite call this a Barbenheimer moment.

After all, Game Pass accounts for most of this crossover. Our data shows that 11.4% of Expedition 33 players on PlayStation played the Oblivion remaster versus 6.5% on Steam. Many of the gamers buying copies of these games likely had to make a choice.

As the Oblivion remaster and Expedition 33 were both day-one Game Pass games, it was certainly an interesting choice for Xbox to shadow-drop Oblivion two days before Expedition 33’s launch.

Expedition 33’s publisher and developer might have been taken by surprise here, especially if their Game Pass commission scales with download numbers on Xbox.

To give both games more air to breathe, it might have made more sense to shadow-drop Oblivion this week. The attention economy is already oversaturated as it is.

Either way, both games are fantastic RPGs that have found their audience.

It’s a great time to be an RPG fan.

Want to see Expedition 33’s long tail for yourself over the next week? Reach out here to get your free one-week trial of the Alinea platform.