Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Is Getting Close to Matching What Very Few JRPGs Have Done

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is currently celebrating its one-year anniversary and, at the same time, has officially surpassed another major sales milestone, making it one of the best-selling games in its genre.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sold 8 million copies

Winning the hearts and minds of gamers when it was released last April, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 went on to receive a ton of accolades. It’s the most nominated game in Game Awards history, and even took home the most awards of any game in the show’s decade-long history, too, winning nine awards, including Game of the Year. The French RPG even dethroned FromSoftware’s 2022 masterpiece Elden Ring as the most awarded video game of all time. Additionally, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 currently holds the highest user score of any video game ever on Metacritic.

Calling Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 unique would be an understatement. It’s the very first game from new French studio Sandfall Interactive, and its enthralling turn-based combat was heavily inspired by Japanese RPGs, specifically the Final Fantasy franchise, as well as Mistwalker’s 2008 one-off Lost Odyssey. Fans have debated whether Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 should be classified as a JRPG itself, with some correctly pointing out that it’s not a Japanese game. Others argue that labeling something a JRPG has less to do with where it was made, and more to do with its fundamental game design, as JRPGs typically share distinct characteristics that differ greatly from the hallmarks of Western RPGs.

Expedition 33 is crossing into territory few JRpgs have reached

After releasing it’s anniversary update that brought a batch of fun new hairstyles to Expedition 33, Sandfall Interactive hit X once more to share the news of having surpassed a whopping eight million copies sold since its release a year ago. The game was hovering close to 6 million sales by the end of 2025, meaning that it must have sold an estimated 2 million copies within the past four months alone, likely receiving a boost from its big night at the Game Awards in December. The game is almost certainly on track to hit 10 million copies sold at some point in the very near future. When it does, it’ll be in rare company.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 now sits alongside some of the best-selling JRPGs in the history of the genre. Pokemon is by far the best-selling JRPG franchise of all time, with 14 games crossing the 10 million mark, some of which have soared past 25 million. However, in terms of non-Pokemon JRPGs, the pool of games that have reached 10 million is tiny. Only two Final Fantasy games have crossed that mark: The original Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 15. Persona 5 achieved 10 million sales, but only when combined with its Persona 5 Royal re-release. Finally, Square Enix’s 2017 masterpiece Nier: Automata is one of the few action-based JRPGs to join the 10 million club. Some gamers would add last year’s Monster Hunter Wilds to the list, which moved 10 million copies in a single month, though it’s not quite classified as a traditional narrative-driven JRPG like the others.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is likely on pace to surpass 10 million copies sometime this year, but it might end up selling even more by the end of 2026. It’s arguably the closest a non-Japanese game has ever come to being classified as a JRPG, and seeing it approach sales figures on par with greats like Persona 5 and Final Fantasy 7 is truly impressive.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.

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