Blue Princeseemed to come out of nowhere to top Metacritic’s charts with a unique take on the roguelike genre, but after 2 weeks,Clair Obscur: Expedition 33has officially overtaken it. On release day,Clair Obscur: Expeditionbecame a Game of the Year contender, fluctuating between a score of 91 and 92, but had yet to overcomeBlue Princeuntil today. Now, this game made by roughly 30 people with an original take on turn-based combat, is the king of 2025, so far.
OnMetacritic,Clair Obscur: Expedition 33is sitting at the number one spot. With a score of 92 at the time of this writing, it’s officially the highest-reviewed game of 2025 for now, dethroningBlue Prince. In an X post by the officialexpedition33account, developer Sandfall Interactive has expressed its gratitude to all its fans and supporters for this monumental achievement. The post also confirms that the game has sold over 500,000 units in 24 hours.
Clair Obscur Continues A Metacritic RPG Winning Streak
There’s Been A Lot Of Heavy-Hitters For RPGs Recently
With this achievement,Expedition 33iscontinuing an RPG winning streak on Metacritic. Last year, Atlus’sMetaphor: Refantaziowas widely regarded as one of thebest RPGs of 2024. The game ended up being the third-highest-rated game of that year with a Metacritic score of 94, just behindElden Ring: Shadow of the ErdtreeandAstro Bot, and slightly ahead ofFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Notably,2023’s highest-rated game wasBaldur’s Gate 3, another turn-based RPG that recentlyreceived its final content update, Patch 8. This week,The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remasteredhas been another immediately successful release. Since the game was shadow-dropped, there isn’t a lot of data for review scores, but itpassed 100,000 concurrent players on Steamin less than 3 hours. It’s safe to assume RPG fans are enjoying a lot of quality content.
We’re In A Turn-Based RPG Renaissance
There Seems To Be A Lot Of Creative Expression Being Discovered
With the success ofClair Obscur: Expedition 33this year,Metaphor: Refantaziolast year, andBaldur’s Gate 3in 2023,we appear to be in a turn-based RPG renaissance.Expedition 33’s unique combat, which combines real-time elements with strategic turn-based decision-making, might be a glimpse that there is still a lot of creative freedom to be explored in turn-based RPGs.Baldur’s Gate 3’s dice-roll mechanics that resembleDungeons & Dragonsalso saw a lot of praise for its faithfulness to the legendary tabletop game.
RPG developers slowly moved away from turn-based combat for a long time, exploring other, more action-y style combat systems, butit seems like fans are embracing creative takes on turn-based combatat a scale comparable to late 90s and early 2000s RPGs, likeThe Legend of Dragoon,Lost Odyssey, andFinal Fantasy 10. With all of this praise,Clair Obscur: Expediiton 33’s future is bright, and I can’t wait to see what Sandfall Interactive creates next.
