{"id":50619,"date":"2025-08-01T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=50619"},"modified":"2025-07-31T18:38:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T09:38:06","slug":"clair-obscur-expedition-33-devs-say-companies-making-aa-class-games-like-us-are-bound-to-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/clair-obscur-expedition-33-devs-say-companies-making-aa-class-games-like-us-are-bound-to-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 devs say “companies making AA-class games like us are bound to increase”\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During CEDEC 2025, Automaton Japan had the opportunity to catch up with the creators of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33<\/strong>, one of 2025\u2019s biggest hits. Sandfall Interactive\u2019s creative director Guillaume Broche and lead programmer Tom Guillermin talked to us about how they see the game industry evolving amidst ballooning development costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandfall Interactive has received much praise for producing such a polished game with a mid-range budget and \u201csmall but elite\u201d team<\/a> \u2013 and they think this development style is likely to catch on.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs development costs continue to grow, I think we’re likely to see an increase in companies like ours, producing AA-class games,\u201d Broche comments. \u201cThanks to Unreal Engine, it\u2019s now easier to get an idea of the amount of resources you\u2019ll need relative to your production scale. This makes it possible to develop entertaining games efficiently even with a relatively small team.\u201d As an example, Broche cites 11 Bit Studio\u2019s The Alters<\/a>, another popular mid-budget title released this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Clair<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Guillermin points out that the endless push for higher and higher production value is something most game studios cannot keep up with anymore. \u201cI think only Rockstar Games is able to meet that demand. Therefore, I think that developers will have to put a cap on budgets, and we will inevitably see more companies settle on a development model like ours.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With triple-A development becoming increasingly expensive and time-consuming in recent years, producing blockbusters has become a high-risk business for developers and publishers. Although it\u2019s been said that AA gaming \u2013 the middle ground between AAA and low-budget indies \u2013 has virtually disappeared, perhaps the success of new hits like Expedition 33 will, as its creators say, encourage companies to adopt more sustainable models of development. From the perspective of players, mid-budget titles come with the benefit of a friendlier price point and shorter, yet more focused gaming experiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available for PC (Steam<\/a>), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creative director Guillaume Broche and lead programmer Tom Guillermin think Sandfall Interactive’s model of development is likely to become more common.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-50619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nClair Obscur: Expedition 33 devs say "companies making AA-class games like us are bound to increase"\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creative director Guillaume Broche and lead programmer Tom Guillermin think Sandfall Interactive's model of development is likely to become more common.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/clair-obscur-expedition-33-devs-say-companies-making-aa-class-games-like-us-are-bound-to-increase\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 devs say "companies making AA-class games like us are bound to increase"\u00a0 - 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