Despite it being a multiple-time game of the year winner and one of the highest-rated games of 2025, Sandfall Interactive only expected Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Metacritic to hit the 80s.
Speaking to Edge, producer Francois Meurisse explains, "We conducted some mock review six months to one year before release, and we ended up with expected scores of around 80. So our official goal towards the end of production was to reach for 85 in MetaCritic, and we did some great extra work and focus in the last months to bounce the quality up." He adds, "we were hoping for that 85, but passing the 90 bar of Metacritic was really a great reward for the team. That's where things began to get a little crazy."
