In a recent interview published by Edge, the producer of SandfallFrancois Meurisse, explained that the team aimed to reach 80 or maximum 85 on Metacritic con Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33but he never expected the critical success he achieved later.
“We had done some test reviews from a year to six months before launch, and we expected scores around 80,” explained Meurisse, which already represented excellent results, but had pushed the team to improve even further in the last phase of development.
“Our official objective towards the end of production it was to reach 85 on MetaCritic”, reported the producer, speaking of the goal that the team had set in terms of critical reception, with an average score on the aggregator that should have been established around 85.
A result beyond expectations
“We’ve applied some additional work and focus over the last few months to try and increase the level of quality“, explained Meurisse, “we were hoping for 85, but crossing the 90 line on Metacritic would have been a really great achievement for the team, and this is where things started to get a little crazy.”
Nicholas Maxson-Francombe, art director of Clair Obscure: Expedition 33, also confirmed this vision: “We were betting among ourselves on the possible vote Metacritic, I think most of us were aiming for around 80,” he explained.
“We thought we had a pretty good gamewe were proud of what we had done and even if sales had not reached great heights, we would still have been satisfied.”
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On the other hand, as explained by lead programmer Tom Guillermin, “It’s difficult to have a precise measure of how good a game is in developmentbecause we find ourselves conditioned by the previous versions we have seen and which may perhaps be a little rough, with elements still incomplete”, so it is understandable that Sandfall did not have a more plausible idea of the actual quality of the game.
“Part of my job is to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, so I almost forced myself not to get my hopes up too high,” Meurisse further explained. “A lot of my work is manage team expectationsso throughout the entire production I imagined a series of catastrophic scenarios where things could go wrong. But it was worth it, because we far exceeded the best expectations we could have had.”
Meanwhile, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is picking up awards everywhere, even taking Game of the Year and more at The Game Awards 2025.
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