While Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s wild success took its developers by surprise, one prominent actor and performance director was in fact so confident in the game that she took out a bet for 33 baguettes.
Aliona Baranova – most notable for working as the performance and motion capture director on Baldur’s Gate 3 – appeared at a panel during Emerald City Comic Con 2026, alongside the French RPG’s lead actors, Ben Starr and Jennifer English, where she was asked about whether or not she saw Clair Obscur’s success coming.
“I knew,” she said frankly. “Genuinely, I made a bet with someone called Jack who’s on the Kepler [Interactive] publishing team that it would sell a million copies in the first week. I made a bet and the bet was to win 33 baguettes. Is that the camera there? Yeah? Jack, where are my baguettes?”
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Baranova was surprisingly ahead of the curve. Ben Starr told his friends to keep their expectations in check prior to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s launch, and thought it would no where near rival the impact his past role in Final Fantasy 16 had.
Even creative director Guillaume Broche didn’t see it coming as he recently said it “was completely unexpected from pretty much everybody.” Except for Baranova, of course, she had the foresight to bag herself perhaps too many rods of bread.
I probably don’t need to remind anyone of how big a deal Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 became last year. The game’s won more game of the year awards than pretty much everything this side of Elden Ring, and it’s sold over five million copies. Not bad for a studio’s first outing, eh?
“You can’t build clever little games anymore,” says RPG legend, unless you get lucky like Clair Obscur Expedition 33: “That doesn’t please the stock market”
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