It's been a great year for games so far in 2025, but one title in particular has emerged as one of its biggest surprise hits, a colossal win for Xbox Game Pass, and a serious contender for Game of the Year: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. This fantasy RPG built by a relatively small team at Sandfall Interactive floored players with its creative blend of turn-based and real-time mechanics and its beautiful, impactful story — but interestingly, one of the biggest names that contributed to the latter feels a bit uncomfortable with all the praise.
That individual is Charlie Cox, the star of Marvel's critically acclaimed Daredevil show and its Daredevil: Born Again follow-up that also had a leading voice acting role in Expedition 33 as party member Gustave. Speaking at a panel at the Washington State Summer Con this past weekend, Cox explained that while he's incredibly excited for the success of the game, he feels awkward for the attention it's brought him since he ultimately didn't spend much time contributing to the project.
"I don't mean to minimize it in any way ... apparently the game is awesome. I'm not a gamer, I have no idea, I haven't played it — my agent asked me if I wanted to go and do a voice-over, [and] I was in the studio for four hours, maybe," he said, drawing laughter from the crowd. "People keep saying how amazing it is, and 'congratulations,' and I feel like a total fraud."
"But I'm so thrilled for the company, I'm so thrilled it did really well. Just FYI — ask someone else a question," he continued, chuckling. "I feel uncomfortable."
Charlie Cox talks Clair Obscur Expedition 33! @expedition33(Shy Charlie also makes an appearance🥹)#CharlieCox #Gustave #Expedition33 #ClairObscur #ClairObscurExpedition33 pic.twitter.com/GSdCvrvV0DJune 22, 2025
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It's worth noting that in the world of voice acting, the range of time it can take for performances to be fully recorded is pretty wild. Cox's four-hour stint at Sandfall is on the extremely short end of the spectrum; for larger, more expansive RPGs with tons of dialogue interspersed throughout NPC conversations and moment-to-moment gameplay, however, it's a process that often takes hundreds of hours. For example, Tom McKay — the actor behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 protagonist Henry — was in Warhorse Studios' recording booth for "over 500 hours."
Even though Cox only spent a short time in Sandfall's recording studio, though, he made those four hours count — as anyone who's played through Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will tell you. His performance as Gustave is phenomenal, bringing an emotional weight and range to the character that — along with Esquie voice actor Maxence Cazorla's mocap animation work — solidifies him as one of the game's best characters, and arguably the strongest of its first act.
On the whole, Expedition 33 is full of excellent performances like this, and it's a big reason why Sandfall's debut title ended up being such an explosive hit when it launched in late April. Along with its clever plot and innovative gameplay mechanics, its deep narrative with beautifully written and acted characters is what led to glowing reviews like mine and drew 3.3 million sales a month after launch.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is hands down one of the best Xbox games and best PC games of 2025, and a must-play for fans of story-rich RPGs. It's available on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (Xbox PC, Steam, and the Epic Games Store), and PS5 for $49.99, though you can get it for as little as $38.09 on CDKeys thanks to an awesome deal. Alternatively, you can play it through Xbox Game Pass.
