CLAIR OBSCUR: EXPEDITION 33 Has Sold 8.7 Million Copies and Made $366 Million Despite Xbox Game Pass “Cannibalization”
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been a massive success for developer Sandfall Interactive, and the latest sales estimates show just how big the turn-based RPG has become.
According to Alinea Analytics, the game has sold an estimated 8.7 million copies and generated $366 million in revenue, despite millions of players accessing it through Xbox Game Pass.
Those are some pretty awesome numbers for an indie RPG, especially one built around turn-based combat, a genre that doesn't always attract mainstream audiences.
The report compares the sales performance of several recent Game of the Year winners, including Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Astro Bot, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Unsurprisingly, Elden Ring leads the pack with 36.4 million copies sold and $2 billion in revenue. Baldur's Gate 3 follows with 23.2 million copies and $1.2 billion, while Astro Bot has generated $291 million from 4.7 million copies sold.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hasn't reached the sales heights of those first two RPGs, but its performance is impressive nonetheless. It also made history on the awards circuit, matching Baldur's Gate 3 by winning all five major Game of the Year awards and becoming one of the most-awarded games ever.
What's particularly interesting about its commercial success is how well it sold despite being available through Xbox Game Pass until recently.
According to Alinea, 4.3 million players experienced the game through Xbox consoles and PC Game Pass. That availability contributed to what the analytics firm calls "Game Pass cannibalization," with Xbox accounting for just 5.5% of total copies sold.
Steam, however, tells a very different story. The PC storefront accounted for 58.8% of the game's sales, suggesting that Game Pass availability didn't stop a huge number of PC gamers from purchasing it outright.
Guillaume Broche, the game's creative director, has previously spoken positively about the subscription service, explaining that Game Pass "lowered that barrier of entry," particularly for a turn-based RPG that might "put people who prefer more real-time action games off."
Circana analyst Mat Piscatella has also pointed to the game as "a great example of a game where its sales potential was likely increased because of its inclusion in a subscription service."
It's an interesting argument because those 4.3 million Game Pass players don't necessarily represent 4.3 million lost sales. Plenty of subscribers may never have tried Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 if they'd had to pay full price upfront.
Instead, Game Pass gave those players an opportunity to discover the RPG, recommend it to friends, and help expand its audience beyond the usual turn-based gaming crowd.
The low percentage of Xbox purchases suggests the subscription service affected sales on that platform, but the game's overall performance makes it difficult to argue that Game Pass hurt its success.
With 8.7 million copies sold, $366 million in estimated revenue, and a ridiculous collection of Game of the Year awards, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has become one of the biggest RPG success stories in recent years.
For Sandfall Interactive, that's a great achievement, and it makes a pretty convincing case that putting a game on Game Pass doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing commercial success.