Preorders for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 recently went live on Amazon for $49.99, while it’s not clear if this was a mistake, the developers have just confirmed that this will be the price once the game releases.
“Pricing that you see from your local retailers is accurate, and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on the game,” the game’s X post says. “We are a small team with an Indie spirit, and we’re creating something we believe is truly special. We aren’t an AAA studio, this is our first game, and we want as many people discovering our world as possible.”
This may seem quite expensive coming from an indie studio, considering other RPGs the size of Dragon Age: The Veilguard currently costs $59.99, but most players don’t seem to mind the cost. “I was more than willing to pay full price,” one player says. “This is exactly the kind of revitalization the genre needs, especially with a new dev jumping in. I’ve been slowly turning more into an AA gamer as that seems to be where devs are making the kind of game they want to play.”
People will only know if they can stomach the pricing when they play the game for themselves, and they can compare it to other similarly priced RPGs. But for the time being, considering everything the developers have shown off so far, $49.99 doesn’t seem too unreasonable.
Instead of caring about the price tag, many were more concerned about how long the playtime will be. Luckily for me, it seems like the developers got that number right as well. “To be clear: we poured all of our hearts and souls into this game,” the developer continues. “When you play Expedition 33, you can expect 30+ hours of main game, and as much side content for our completionist Expeditioners.”
Around 30 hours for the main story seems like the right amount for players who don’t have as much free time as they used to. “I don’t even have that much time for the PS2 era 50-60 hour games anymore, let alone the 80-120 hour ones that come out these days,” one player notes. But if you want more than that from an RPG, then it sounds like there’ll be at least an extra 30 hours in sidequests for completionists who want to spend as much time as possible in this world.