One of 2025's early frontrunners for Game of the Year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been one heck of a success story for developer Sandfall Interactive — but it seems as though the title hasn't caught on in Japan.
According to the latest sales charts from the region, the title managed to move just 9,800 copies on PS5, following its launch on the 24th April. As always, we must reiterate that these charts do not count digital sales — but they should still provide meaningful insight into a title's overall popularity.
We're not entirely sure whether this is an expected result. Very few western titles that aren't evergreen games like Minecraft actually make an impact in Japan, but it wouldn't have been unreasonable to suggest that Clair Obscur might have done better, given that it's heavily inspired by Japanese RPGs.
Still, we doubt that the French-made release had much of a marketing campaign over there, and we're positive that Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive wouldn't have been anticipating any big numbers.
Speaking of big numbers, Clair Obscur hit an impressive 2 million worldwide sales last week — an announcement that was widely celebrated. It's just a bit of a shame that it hasn't clicked with a Japanese audience.