Both The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Oblivion) and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Expedition 33) launched directly into Xbox Game Pass in late April, on the 22^nd and the 24^th respectively. As Oblivion was shadow dropped, there was immediate concern around the impact of its surprise release on the performance of Expedition 33, and fears it would be overshadowed by Bethesda’s much more established franchise; particularly as both titles fall into the RPG genre.

However, while Oblivion gained greater initial traction - nearing 8m monthly active users (MAUs) in April across PlayStation, Xbox and Steam versus Expedition 33’s 3.5m – Sandfall Interactive’s turn-based RPG has gone from strength to strength in subsequent weeks. In fact, in May, Expedition 33’s player base surpassed that of Oblivion, gaining an additional 3.3m MAUs and almost doubling its April user numbers. At the same time, Oblivion began to decline, losing around 17% of its initial MAUs.

Post-release hype gave Expedition 33 its second wind

Unlike Oblivion, Expedition 33 had no pre-existing fan base. Neither title had strong marketing prior to launch: the former was a surprise release, and the latter was a new IP from a recently established, small studio. General consumer awareness of the Elder Scrolls brand already placed the title in a much stronger position. Ampere’s proprietary popularity metric*, which measures global online engagement with titles and franchises on a scale from 0-100, shows that in the months leading up to the games’ releases, Oblivion was consistently scoring six-to-eight times higher than Expedition 33. In short, public awareness and anticipation of the game was already many times greater than it was for Expedition 33, pre-launch.

The hype for Expedition 33 really kicked in after the game’s release: it received critical acclaim and glowing reviews from early players and, in many ways, it marketed itself on the perceived quality of its narrative, its combat, its soundtrack, and many other factors.

How far do the player bases converge?

Overlap between the two titles is generally high, for a number of reasons. Although quite different, both games do fall under the RPG umbrella, and offer single player, story-driven experiences. Plus, both titles were added to Game Pass at the same time, and users of the service tend to play across multiple available games. In April, around 14% of Oblivion players across PlayStation, Xbox and Steam also played Expedition 33. This rises to 17% among console players, and falls to just 7% for Steam players. In fact, Steam players were more likely to have also played Skyrim in the same month, than Expedition 33. By May, the overall share had increased to 18%, and the only other game more popular than Expedition 33 among Oblivion players was new release Doom: The Dark Ages.

The opposite view is quite different. In April, almost a third of Expedition 33 players also played Oblivion, and it was by far the most popular secondary title among users. However, in May, this had dropped to just 17%, reflecting the overall decline in Oblivion users, alongside the broadening player base of Expedition 33.

*Based on aggregated metrics including volume of interest and web traffic from major services