Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Was The Biggest New Third-Party Xbox Game Pass Launch in 2025

If you were looking at the calendar, the week that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launched on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S with a day one launch on Xbox Game Pass, considering the fact that this was Sandfall Interactive's debut title, and (though you may not have known it at the time) it would be competing with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, you'd be forgiven for thinking Clair Obscur didn't have a strong shot at standing out that week.

Not only was Oblivion Remastered's shadow-dropping in no way a hindrance for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but according to Xbox Wire, it became, and would remain, the biggest new third-party launch on Xbox Game Pass in 2025.

You might have some conspiratorial thinking around that news, thinking that Xbox started tracking this metric to jump on the Clair Obscur hype even more as we inch closer to The Game Awards and the feeling that gaming's modern zeitgeist has already dubbed Clair Obscur to be the game of 2025 (especially after its sweep at the Golden Joysticks), but this is actually something that Xbox began tracking only last year, when Palworld became the biggest third-party launch on Xbox Game Pass ever.

And, in fairness, considering Clair Obscur's appearance in January's Developer_Direct video is at least partial proof that Xbox has been behind the Clair Obscur hype for a long time now.

The size of the launch is measured by the number of unique users who played the game within its first 30 days of availability, which means that in its first month of release, when the whole industry seemed consumed by the Clair Osbcur craze, a lot of players rushed to Xbox Game Pass to see what all the fuss was about.

"This year has been so far beyond what any of us could have imagined, and it’s down to how passionate and supportive our fans have been to make that a reality," said Sandfall Interactive creative director, Guillaume Broche, in an Xbox Wire post. "It’s really nerve-wracking to be a new studio releasing our first game, but the support of everyone has really made everything feel like a dream."

Broche also noted that Sandfall Interactive's working with Xbox and releasing on Game Pass was a key element to getting the word out about Clair Obscur. "From being there to announce our game back in Summer 2024, to coming to the studio for the Developer_Direct video in January, Xbox helped us get the word out there and reach a lot of players."

"Letting a lot of people try our game when maybe they might not have before. The turn-based RPG genre has a lot of fans but sometimes it might put people who prefer more real-time action games off, but Game Pass lowered that barrier of entry. They could just try it and see how it feels. So a lot of curious players could start the game, explore Lumière and the early game, and realize there’s a lot to enjoy here, even if they weren’t expecting it at first."

When Wccftech's Francesco De Meo reviewed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 earlier this year, he gave it a 9.5/10 and pegged it as a potential Game of the Year candidate. Fast forward to today and not only did it sweep The Golden Joysticks, winning seven awards (including Ultimate Game of the Year), but it has 12 nominations at The Game Awards, and could very well repeat its Golden Joysticks performance.

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