Draugoth
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One week after the release of "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33" and more than a million games sold, Emmanuel Macron paid tribute on Instagram to Sandfall Interactive.
A success deserved and welcomed by the President of the Republic himself on 1 May:
Kepler says that Xbox helped 'change the view' of what Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was after featuring the game in its Summer Showcase last year.
The hit RPG, developed by French studio Sandfall Interactive, sold over one million units in three days. It was heavily backed by Xbox, with the game featuring in two of the firm's digital events, as well as launching within Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
Xbox's support for the game was significant, but what was perhaps less helpful was the surprise release of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Microsoft decided to announce and release the game, which is also an RPG albeit in a different style, just days before Expedition 33 was due to launch, and also made it available within the Game Pass service.
A success deserved and welcomed by the President of the Republic himself on 1 May:
"One million copies and to date one of the highest-rated games in history: and yes, it's French. (...) (...) You showcase French-style boldness and creativity," the head of state wrote in a comment in response to a studio publication.

Article: "You have the boldness and creativity of the French": Emmanuel Macron salutes the success of "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33"
Kepler says that Xbox helped 'change the view' of what Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was after featuring the game in its Summer Showcase last year.
The hit RPG, developed by French studio Sandfall Interactive, sold over one million units in three days. It was heavily backed by Xbox, with the game featuring in two of the firm's digital events, as well as launching within Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
"[During the Summer Showcase] our game was placed alongside Gears of War, Fable and products that are very traditionally known as AAA products," Kepler's senior portfolio manager Matt Handrahan told The Game Business.
"It let people understand what it was in a way that I think we would've struggled to do if we weren't allied with Xbox in that way. We couldn't have done it through a Steam demo alone, for example. It helped us to kind of claim this AA territory in a much more confident way. Because it's a vague space that exists somewhere between small games and extremely big games, and there's a lot of ground that that covers."
Xbox's support for the game was significant, but what was perhaps less helpful was the surprise release of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Microsoft decided to announce and release the game, which is also an RPG albeit in a different style, just days before Expedition 33 was due to launch, and also made it available within the Game Pass service.
"We always knew that Expedition 33 had a very specific identity," Handrahan said. "When I was in the press, I saw the Western-style RPG and the Japanese-style RPG as having quite different appeals and audiences. I knew plenty of people that would play an Elder Scrolls game that wouldn't necessarily play Final Fantasy and vice versa.
Article: Expedition 33 publisher: "Elder Scrolls: Oblivion didn't seem to harm us at all"