(NEXSTAR) — Several years of layoffs in the gaming industry have been the cause of concern and uncertainty among many game developers, but some are using it as an opportunity to create games they would never be able to make in a traditional AAA studio.
Such is the story of “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33,” the first game from French developer Sandfall Interactive.
The game’s been making big waves with a near-perfect Metacritic user score of 9.7, a film adaptation already in the making, and many putting it as an early contender for 2025’s Game of the Year.
Since its release in late April, the game has broken 3 million in sales, its soundtrack has topped charts, and the dev team even got a congratulatory message on Instagram from French President Emmanuel Macron.
Michael Douse, head of Larian Studios, creators of 2023’s Game of the Year winner Baldur’s Gate 3, said in a post on X that he thinks it could reach 10 million in sales this year, and it has an “exceptional chance” of winning Game of the Year.
The game’s main creative force, director Guillaume Broche, left his job at Ubisoft to make the game.
Broche claimed in an interview that a game like “Expedition 33,” which he came up with the idea for while “bored at Ubisoft,” would take over two decades to get greenlit at a AAA studio and claimed he “didn’t have that kind of patience.”
Despite its impressive visuals and heavy level of polish, “Expedition 33” was made by a team of around 30 people, according to Broche.
It’s not the only game from a small team to stand out in 2025. While it currently holds the top spot on Metacritic’s games of 2025, the #2 spot is held by indie puzzler “Blue Prince,” a game largely made by one person, developer Tonda Ros.
It was long thought that the AAA studio system, and the large marketing funds that came with it, were a necessary part of making a truly successful video game.
But the success of “Expedition 33” and “Blue Prince” shows that not only is the system not necessary, but it might be actively detrimental to the final product.
Longtime gaming content creator Maxamillian Christiansen, better known by his moniker “Maxamillian Dood,” suggests Sandfall’s smaller size allowed the studio freedom to do whatever they wanted.
“It’s a realization that this industry, and how many people are involved and how many moving parts, are severely getting in the way of creativity,” Christiansen said on a recent livestream. “They’re able to execute their vision with very little flak and get to what they want to get to without having to worry about shareholders and release dates and all that kind of stuff.”
Industry professionals agree that these successes are indicative of a larger change coming to the landscape of game development.
“I think we’re definitely in a transition period as far as an industry,” said Jordan Dubreuil, associate professor of game development at New England Institute of Technology.
“When you have mass layoffs and cuts across the game industry, these are very highly creative people,” Dubreuil said. “Anybody in those roles with the accessibility to tools like Gadot, Unity, or even Unreal Engine, it’s very simple for them to just pick up one of these tools and start building.”
These breakout indie hits come alongside yet another round of layoffs at major AAA gaming studios, with titan publisher/developer Electronic Arts and “Apex Legends” developers Respawn Entertainment both recently announcing the elimination of hundreds of jobs, and Respawn announcing they were also cancelling multiple in-development projects.
One of those cancelled projects was, according to an industry insider, the long-anticipated “Titanfall 3,” which the source claims had a “playable version” at Respawn.
It’s far from the first big layoff the industry has seen over the past few years. Starting in 2022, as the home entertainment boom of the Covid-19 pandemic started to slow, layoffs began, including high-profile cuts at Bungie, Amazon Games, and Sony, among many others.
Since 2022, it’s estimated over 35,000 jobs have been cut from the game development industry.
“From the ashes of a lot of these layoffs, you’re going to see more creative games, and you’re going to see these new studios rise up out of that,” Dubreuil said.
No matter how long the shift may take, “Expedition 33” and “Blue Prince” show that even now, the AAA studio system is not the only path to make a hit game.