Valor Mortis Director Says AA Games Need More Breakout Hits to Win Publisher Confidence

The remarkable commercial performance of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has become one of the gaming industry's most persuasive recent arguments for the potential of AA development. Sandfall Interactive's role-playing game exceeded expectations dramatically, selling more than 8 million copies after the studio had anticipated something far more modest. Yet that success has apparently not been enough to convince publishers that mid-budget games are a dependable investment category.

That is the view of Radek Ratusznik, game director at One More Level and the director of the upcoming first-person Soulslike Valor Mortis. Speaking during Gamescom, Ratusznik argued that the AA space needs several more breakout successes on the scale of Expedition 33 before publishers stop treating smaller, ambitious productions as an especially high-risk proposition.

"We had this enormous success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but still publishers find the AA segment quite risky," Ratusznik said. In his view, a single exceptional result may be easy for decision-makers to dismiss as an outlier rather than evidence that focused teams and controlled budgets can produce large commercial wins.

One smash hit may not change the investment equation

Ratusznik's point is not that publishers have failed to notice Expedition 33. A game selling more than 8 million copies is difficult to ignore, especially when it has also become a prominent example of a project that captured players through a distinctive identity rather than through the scale typically associated with the biggest releases. The issue, instead, is whether one title can materially reshape the assumptions behind publishing budgets, greenlights, and risk assessments.

For useful background on this topic, read Sony's Physint Exit and Marvel's Wolverine Reception Deepen Questions About PlayStation strategy.

He suggested that the industry needs "a few more Expedition 33s" to prove that the prevailing skepticism is misplaced. That means more games made within AA scope that reach audiences well beyond the expectations usually attached to their budgets, without requiring development spending in the hundreds of millions.

"Maybe one Expedition is not enough," Ratusznik said. "There are also so many companies who can deliver very good titles in the AA scope and budget, not just spending hundreds of millions."

It is an important distinction. The AA label is often used broadly, but it generally points to projects that sit between tiny independent releases and the enormous productions backed by the industry's largest publishers. These games may have strong visual direction, substantial campaigns, sophisticated systems, and experienced developers, while operating with fewer resources than blockbuster franchises. Their appeal is often rooted in specificity: a sharp concept, a memorable setting, or a gameplay hook that is allowed to remain unusual rather than being designed to satisfy every possible audience.

For players, that middle ground can produce games with a sense of personality that is difficult to engineer by committee. For studios, however, the path is less straightforward. A mid-sized team must still make a polished, complete game capable of competing for attention in an exceptionally crowded market. The budget may be lower than a giant release, but the need for quality, marketing, testing, and a clear audience remains.

Publishers may be chasing efficiency and certainty at once

Ratusznik also pushed back against the idea that a reduced budget automatically means a dramatically shortened or simplified development process. He said publishers can sometimes want projects compressed too aggressively, as though the AA model should deliver the scope of a major game at a fraction of the expense and in an unrealistically brief timeframe.

"It's not like we can make the game in one year without any trouble," he said. "The game still needs proper time to be published and properly tested. I doubt that we can squeeze it that much, as probably some of the publishers would like to."

That concern goes to the center of the current AA conversation. A game does not become low-risk simply because it costs less than the most expensive productions. Developers still need time to iterate on combat, progression, performance, controls, difficulty, narrative delivery, and all the other details that determine whether a promising concept becomes a game players recommend. Testing is not optional, and neither is the time required to act on what testing reveals.

There is also a danger in treating Expedition 33's outcome as a formula that can be copied. Its success is evidence that audiences will embrace a well-made mid-budget game with a strong creative voice. It does not mean every studio can reproduce the same result by adopting superficial similarities. Publishers looking for a guaranteed "next Expedition 33" could miss the more useful lesson: creative projects need room to be themselves, and audiences can respond powerfully when that identity comes through clearly.

Ratusznik's comments suggest that the financial conversation has not caught up with the creative opportunity. Publishers may acknowledge that leaner projects can be successful, while still demanding unusually strong proof before committing funds. In practical terms, studios can be expected to demonstrate a compelling concept, a credible production plan, and a path to market--all while facing pressure to keep schedules and costs tightly constrained.

Valor Mortis represents a different kind of AA bet

One More Level's own next project illustrates the kind of game Ratusznik believes deserves more support. Valor Mortis is a first-person Soulslike from the team behind Ghostrunner, but it moves away from that series' parkour-focused action. Its premise is notably different as well, placing players in a strange nineteenth-century French conflict shaped by zombies and moral ambiguity.

That is not an obvious attempt to fit neatly into a safer, established blockbuster template. Soulslike combat has become a major genre influence, but Valor Mortis' first-person perspective, historical setting, and horror-inflected direction give it a distinct identity. It is precisely the kind of focused creative risk that can be harder to place in traditional publishing calculations: recognizable enough to communicate its gameplay appeal, but unusual enough that its ultimate audience cannot be reduced to a simple spreadsheet prediction.

A playable demo shown during Summer Game Fest gave players an early opportunity to see that approach in action. The game's mixture of first-person combat, undead threats, and its unusual French setting has already positioned it as a noticeable departure for One More Level following Ghostrunner.

Whether Valor Mortis becomes one of the additional breakout stories Ratusznik hopes to see remains uncertain. No game is guaranteed to break through, and the broader market has repeatedly shown that quality alone does not ensure visibility. Timing, audience interest, platform strategy, price, marketing, critical conversation, and plain luck can all shape a game's commercial result.

Why the AA debate matters beyond one studio

The stakes extend beyond Valor Mortis or Expedition 33. The health of the AA sector affects the types of games that can be made, the teams that can make them, and the creative routes available between independent development and massive franchise production. If publishers conclude that only the largest bets or the smallest projects are worth supporting, the industry risks leaving less room for games that aim high without attempting to become everything to everyone.

Mid-budget development can also offer a useful counterweight to escalating costs. Rather than relying on sheer production scale, a successful AA project may concentrate its resources around a core strength: an inventive combat system, a compelling world, a striking art style, or a narrative premise with real character. The model does not remove risk, but it can offer a different balance of risk and potential reward.

Ratusznik's argument is ultimately a call for publishers to recognize that balance. Expedition 33's sales show that the audience exists for polished, distinctive games built outside the highest-budget tier. But if one historic success is written off as a rare exception, the companies capable of making the next surprise hit may struggle to secure the support needed to take their shot.

For that perception to change, the industry may indeed need more examples: more teams delivering polished games within sensible scope, more publishers allowing adequate development and testing time, and more releases proving that a project does not need an enormous budget to make a major cultural and commercial impact. Valor Mortis is one of the upcoming games that could help continue that conversation.