Josef Fares warns publishers against copying Clair Obscur’s AA success

Kotaku reports Split Fiction director Josef Fares told The Game Business he worries the success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 could lead publishers to overcommit to “double‑A” games and narrow the wider industry.

Fares said the industry still needs triple‑A blockbusters and argued against treating any single hit as a formula, noting “you can’t do GTA for ten million [dollars]” and warning that many double‑A games have failed. He defended Hazelight’s partnership with Electronic Arts, saying “they know how we work. They respect it and they leave us be,” and pointed to Hazelight’s sales, with It Takes Two selling over 20 million copies and Split Fiction topping 4 million in its first few months last year.

Fares also expressed skepticism about generative AI, saying tools like Midjourney were impressive initially but that “the bar hasn’t gone up much,” and that games still need a central creative vision a chatbot cannot provide. He said he does not “see AI taking over” soon and asked, “Who knows what happens in the future?” The article’s author added that, whatever comes of generative AI, EA will continue to make sports games and Hazelight will release another critically acclaimed co‑op blockbuster in a few years.

Key Topics

Culture, Josef Fares, Hazelight Studio, Clair Obscur, Electronic Arts, It Takes Two