The highly-acclaimed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 just added yet another accolade to its name — as it’s now the biggest new third-party game launch on Xbox Game Pass in 2025.
Microsoft announced the news today after examining data from every day one Xbox Game Pass launch this year, and ranking every third-party game by the number of unique users during its first 30 days of availability.
It’s a hugely impressive achievement for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the debut game from French studio Sandfall Interactive, for several different reasons. Firstly, because the game arrived just two days after Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (which itself also launched via Game Pass). And secondly, because we already know that Clair Obscur went on to sell very well too (5 million copies in five months) — something its launch via Game Pass does not appear to have dented.
“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,” Sandfall creative director Guillaume Broche said in a statement.
Xbox Game Pass let “a lot of people try our game when maybe they might not have before,” Broche continued. “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.”
So, what was Clair Obscur’s Xbox Game Pass competition? It’s been a long year, so it’s worth reminding ourselves of everything the turn-based RPG has beaten to become this year’s biggest third-party Xbox Game Pass release. (And remember, this is separate to Microsoft’s own first-party output, which will include Avowed and South by Midnight, as well as Bethesda games such as The Outer Worlds 2, and Activision fare like Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.)
Other third-party games that arrived day one via Microsoft’s subscription service notably included the highly-anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong, as well as the post-apocalyptic survival game Atomfall. The highly-acclaimed indie puzzle favorite Blue Prince also arrived this year, as did Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Ball X Pit, and PowerWash Simulator 2.
Congratulations, then, to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — something we may well be hearing a few more times this month, considering its record-breaking number of nominations at The Game Awards. Tempted to give it a try? It’s still on Xbox Game Pass, and we have an array of tips for the important things to know before going into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
