„I would not be able to live without AAA titles.” Josef Fares doesn't want Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to set a new trend, because „you can’t do GTA for $10 million”

Josef Fares, the founder and CEO of Hazelight Studios—the creators focused on co-op games like A Way Out, It Takes Two, and Split Fiction—recently gave an extensive interview to The Game Business. One of the more interesting topics he discussed was the direction the industry might take following the spectacular success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

"You can’t do GTA for $10 million"

The game from Sandfall Interactive is considered an AA title, meaning it was developed by a relatively small team of about 30 core developers and had a budget of just under $10 million. Fares is concerned that industry giants might follow this path and start creating smaller, cheaper-to-make games. However, he wouldn't want that.

A few months ago, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Patcher estimated the budget for GTA 6 at... 1.5 billion dollars. The amounts mentioned are therefore separated by a big gap, but will Rockstar Games deliver a (much) better game than Sandfall Interactive? Everyone's hoping for it, and they've got good reasons. Even though it's been over 7 years, Red Dead Redemption 2 still has one of the best open worlds and an insane level of detail. However, the answer to this question is not predetermined, aside from the fact that GTA 6 will undoubtedly surpass Clair Obscur multiple times in terms of sales, which in October 2025 exceeded 5 million copies.

AAA games don't have to mean a lack of innovation

Let's return to Josef Fares – what solution does he propose? Simple: avoid extremes.

Of course, Fares totally gets that huge budgets can kind of freeze up developers and publishers. In AAA games, they tend to stick with tried-and-true methods to avoid risks and steer clear of experimenting. However, the head of Hazelight Studios provided examples of teams that, in his opinion, are capable of combining extraordinary creativity with huge budgets.

Great sales of It Takes Two

By the way, Josef Fares shared some new sales numbers for It Takes Two. The Game of the Year 2021 winner has sold 27 million copies so far. Similar to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, it is a relatively inexpensive creation—the production cost has not been officially disclosed, but it seems doubtful that it (significantly) exceeded 10 million dollars—created by a small team that achieved great success.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

April 24, 2025

Rate It!

• Overview
• Guide
• Review

• Josef Fares
• AAA games
• interviews