The RPG space has seen a deluge of incredible titles over the past couple of years, each resounding with the live-streaming audience. From open-world epics like Elden Ring to remakes of classics like Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, each RPG fits a specific niche and hits its audience with gorgeous visuals and innovative gameplay. But Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been ambitious, straddling the line between Western RPGs and JRPGs to tap into a new audience.
Clair Obscur is a completely new IP published by Kepler Interactive and developed by Sandfall Interactive, a studio composed of ex-Ubisoft members. The game’s main selling point is its in-depth JRPG-style turn-based combat, heavily inspired by games like Lost Odyssey, Legend of the Dragoon, and the Persona series. However, to look at it one might be forgiven for thinking this is a Western RPG – and technically it is, being developed by a French team and the world being based on turn-of-the-century France (known as the peaceful Belle Époque era). This mix of Western RPG and JRPG has made waves among the live-streaming community… but for the right reasons?
Clair Obscur Succeeds as an Original IP RPG on Live Streaming
Firstly, let’s put in perspective just how incredible Clair Obscur’s launch has been. In its first week, Clair Obscur has generated 13.6M hours watched, with a peak viewership of 191K – for perspective, recent RPG release Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 brought in 25.1M hours watched in its first week, but that game was a sequel. This high viewership coincides with impressive sales figures, with Clair Obscur selling 1M copies in its first 3 days (perhaps helped by its relatively low price point at $50 USD). The game is also a critical success, with scores in the 90s from major outlets and buzz circulating around a Game of the Year award at this year’s The Game Awards.
With so many RPG franchises already running, how did Clair Obscur stand out? As mentioned before, the game is turn-based BUT it also features active elements with parries and stronger hits for timing button presses appropriately (think the Mario & Luigi series, or Mother 3). While this mechanic isn’t new, seeing it in a Western RPG is rare and brings an element of Souls-like challenge to the title thanks to tight windows on reaction times (chances to show off are always welcomed by live-streaming audiences). Additionally, critics praise the sense of wonder engendered by Clair Obscur’s story: The all-star cast (Andy Serkis, Ben Starr, Charlie Cox, Jennifer English) really sells the characters, and the game is already slated for a movie adaptation in the coming years – reinforcing the trend of transmedia franchises.
The game also had a broad appeal. For starters, Clair Obscur attracted the attention of usual heavyweight streamers like alanzoka and CohhCarnage with 236K and 187K hours watched in the first week, respectively. However, the game also attracted attention from Korean streamers on Chzzk, including the most watched streamer for the game in its debut week 풍월량 (Poong Wol-ryang) with 310K hours watched. Most other streamers shared an even distribution of viewership, corresponding to people preferring their own favourite streamers’ takes on RPGs. xQc remained the main drawcard for viewers on Kick, coming in 6th with 143K hours watched.
Twitch Chat Loves Clair Obscur, Driving Hype for Streamers
To get a clearer image of why streamers and audiences latch onto a particular game, it can help to look at Twitch chat and see what people are saying. Naturally, there was an explosion of chat mentions for “Clair Obscur” leading up to the game’s release, with 4K chat mentions on release day and an initial peak of 12K chat mentions just two days later. But looking back, you can see the rumblings of hype for the title during previews of the game, like the Xbox Game Showcase in June of 2024 (a 30X jump in chat mentions) and a recent wave of interest when gaming publications gave their positive thoughts on the demo in March of this year (a 7X jump in chat mentions).
This critical praise was echoed by live-streaming viewers after the game’s release. Clair Obscur managed to bring in double the number of positive chat messages vs. negative chat messages in its first 6 days after release, with 29% of all mentions being positive. Whether positive or negative, most comments were centered around the game’s combat system and aesthetics. In particular, viewers were quick to discuss Clair Obscur’s similarity to JRPGs. Negative comments spurned the title’s lack of originality, with one commenter calling it a “Persona 5 rip off without the art style”, while positive comments praised the game’s ability to make JRPG combat mechanics accessible: “Clair Obscur is wildly high quality, I don’t even play JRPGs but I love it”.
Clair Obscur Thrives by Bringing Western RPG Fans to JRPG Mechanics
These comments touch on an interesting idea: Was Clair Obscur able to reach a wider audience by Trojan Horse’ing in unfamiliar game mechanics to a potentially receptive new segment of live-streaming viewers? To try and nail this down with some hard numbers, we took a look at the audience overlap between viewers of Clair Obscur in its first six days and viewers of 10 other notable RPGs over the last six months. The most overlap was seen with recent Western RPGs including Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remaster, which had an overlap of 58% and 40%, respectively. In other words, 58% of people who watched Clair Obscur had also watched Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 on Twitch. This high overlap was even seen for older releases, like Dragon Age: The Veilguard (29%). None of this is surprising: If you’re an RPG fan, or a fan of streamers that play new RPG releases, then you’ll likely have watched both games.
Here’s where it gets interesting, however: Of the games examined, the JRPGs all came last with overlaps of 14% or less. That held true for releases within the last six months (e.g., Metaphor: ReFantazio) as it did for older releases (Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth). Considering the frequent comparisons made between Clair Obscur and Atlus’ JRPGs (Metaphor: ReFantazio, Persona 3 Reload), it’s surprising that fans of the subgenre were less likely to tune in to streams (on Twitch at least, anyway). One explanation seems most obvious: Viewers were led more by aesthetics than by gameplay. Clair Obscur looks like a Western RPG, so Western RPG fans tune in. And when they’re greeted by in-depth turn-based combat that has been energized with active elements – something they haven’t seen in Western RPGs before – they respond with praise for the game’s innovations.
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The demand for RPGs remains strong on live streaming, as seen in our Save Point 2024 report. But if live-streaming popularity is being mostly determined by aesthetics, this has serious implications for studios releasing new RPGs. Enticing audiences with dazzling visuals or novel worlds sounds simple, but it requires high production value. A more savvy lesson that even indies could take from Clair Obscur is the value in remixing game concepts: What interest can you spark by taking one subgenre’s aesthetic and applying it to the conventions of a different subgenre? This tactic paid off for Clair Obscur, but another peak of live-streaming interest will most likely have to wait until potential DLC is released in the future.
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