Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 generated no shortage of acclaim last year, and while there was certainly some notable hype ahead of launch, I don't think many expected it to be as widely praised as it ultimately became. That includes the developers at Sandfall Interactive, who made all kinds of ridiculous bets on the game's ultimate Metacritic score – but it seems nobody at the studio bet high enough.
"There are internal bets on the team of what we thought the Metacritic score would be," writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen tells IGN, "and then if it is over that, they have to do some dares or do some things, like get a tattoo, dye their hair, or different things."
Expedition 33 ended up earning an exceptional Metacritic score of 92, marking it not just as a game of the year contender, but one of the greatest games of all time. Other games with 92 Metacritic scores include the likes of Bloodborne, The Sims, and The Witcher 3, and even some of Sandfall's JRPG influences, like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 7, and Final Fantasy 10. That's rare company, and it's no wonder so many developers decided to take the under on that bet – and lost.
"I think one person had to eat a chicken, a roast chicken in one sitting within a certain amount of time while another person beatboxes," she says. "There's a lot of random stuff. One person had to dye his hair. He did do that." Specifically, she adds, he had to dye it pink.
"None of us really expected this, so everybody lost," Svedberg-Yen says. "Everybody lost their bet."
Svedberg-Yen had a lot of insight to offer in various interviews at the Game Developers Conference last week. She tells GamesRadar+ that she doesn't use AI for work because "writing is part of the joy," and "it's also part of the pain," and that it's "crazy" to see Final Fantasy legends who are "essentially our heroes" praising Expedition 33. Clearly, they're not the only ones heaping praise on Sandfall's game.
