Microsoft has announced that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has set the record as the best third-party title to release on Xbox Game Pass in 2025, adding a further accolade to Sandfall Interactive’s debut title.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is widely regarded to be one of the best games to release this year, with the expectation that it will sweep up numerous victories in The Game Awards next week, and the Game Pass record shows just how impressive the release of the title was.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is Game Pass’ Best Third-Party Title of 2025
In a post on the Xbox Wire, Microsoft’s announcement of Clair Obscur’s impressive accolade detailed how it was based on the data of the number of unique players who played the title in the first 30 days of launch.
Sandfall’s creative director, Guillaume Broche, said the success was “so far beyond what any of us could have imagined,” detailing how nerve-wracking it was to release a title, but the “support of everyone has really made everything feel like a dream.”
Broche also thanked Xbox and Game Pass for their support, noting that the game’s addition to the service allows people to “try our game when they might not have before,” particularly as the turn-based RPG genre can be off-putting for newcomers.
Clair Obscur is up for several major honors at The Game Awards, having been nominated for Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Score/Music, Best Audio Design, Best Independent Game, Besty Debut Indie Game, and Best Role-Playing Game, while Charlie Cox, Jennifer English, and Ben Starr make up half of the contenders for Best Performance.
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