Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

The success story is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the kind that only happens once every few years. This is the debut game for Sandfall Interactive, which started off with only 30 developers who left Ubisoft to explore their own ideas, includes a storywriter found on reddit and a composer from SoundCloud, and was developed with a budget of $50 million. And despite that, this game has received nothing but praise and has been a massive success, selling over 2 million copies in 12 days, having near perfect scores from multiple review sites, and even had a movie adaptation announced before it had even launched. This is a magnificent success for any video game, never mind a debut release, a success that I think is fully deserved as, not to spoil the rest of this review, but from the first few minutes, I could tell that this game was something special. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was developed by Sandfall Interactive, published by Kepler Interactive, and released on 24^th April 2025 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Windows. 

Story

For 67 years, the Paintress has sat on the top of the monolith, painting a number that ticks down once every year, with everyone in the city of Lumiere of that age suddenly dying. This is an event called the Gommage, and every year the city sends an expedition to the monolith to defeat the Paintress and stop the next year’s Gommage from happening, or, should they fail, help clear the path for those who come after. Gustave, who lost someone during that year’s Gommage and at the age of 32 has only one year until his death, joins this year’s Expedition alongside his adopted sister Maelle, who’s Gommage is still in the distant future but joins him anyway. When arriving on the island, the Expedition encounters something that shouldn’t exist, a man old enough to have white hair, who attacks the team, slaughtering almost everyone. Gustave manages to escape and survive his encounter and reunites with Lune, another surviving member of Expedition 33. Finding other members who survived, they journey across the island to reach the top of the monolith, defeat the Paintress and save Lumiere from yet another Gommage. 

I cannot express just how much I adored this story. Everything in it was done near perfectly. The world was creative and mesmerising. The characters were instantly lovable and I grew attached to them instantly, due to their unique and likable personalities and the incredible dialogue. The plot was dripping with intrigue and wonder, with elements of hope, tragedy, humour and horror, with all of it feeling in character and in perfect sync with the game’s tone and setting. It’s one of the most creative stories I’ve ever encountered in a game and had me engaged all the way up to the credits. 

Presentation

This game looks genuinely fantastic. Just like the story and worldbuilding, the areas you visit are very creative and wondrous, with beautiful environments and breathtaking views. There are plenty of locations that elevate the fantasy setting and tell a story by looks alone, like the breathable ocean that is the Flying Waters, to the decrepit and eerie aesthetic of the Forgotten Battlefield. Even the city of Lumiere is full of the grandness and majesty that you can only find in a Belle Epoque setting. The world was an absolute delight to explore simply to see what kind of aesthetics the next level would have, I genuinely was in disbelief over how good these sections looked multiple times during my time with this. 

Character models also look great. With the level of detail on them, they look as if they could be real people, from the way the clothes and hair moves in the wind, to the dirt and blood plastered to their faces after a battle. Even the characters you only see for a single scene, like the characters in Lumiere, are creatively designed. I especially love the look of the fantasy races you encounter, like the cute and lovable Gestrals, looking as if they were made of wood and key ones designed so differently, or Esquie’s majestic form, seemingly made of felt and silky materials. 

The voice acting is simply spectacular. The game’s cast is simply God Tier, filled with some of the finest performers you can find. Like Charlie Cox of Daredevil fame, or Jennifer English who had roles in games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Elden Ring, or the illustrious Ben Starr once more utilising his Clive Rosefield (Final Fantasy XVI) voice, and of course it would be a crime not to mention Andy Serkis, delivering possibly one of his best performances to date. The entire cast is perfect for their roles and I cannot give these performances enough praise. 

Performance wise, the game does unfortunately have a few hiccups. I was playing on PC, and while I’m not sure if it’s my laptop that’s having problems (mind you it’s played other graphically intensive games perfectly fine), but I did find the game stutter and lag in a couple of places. It doesn’t affect the framerate as a whole, which most of the time runs very consistently, but I did find that the game had to pause for a second every once in a while. Which, for a game that relies a lot on timing and precision, is not the best thing. 

Finally, the soundtrack which, you’ve guessed it, is simple perfection. Not only is the game’s composer, Lorien Testard, apparently only 25, but this is the first professional composition, which is honestly staggering. This soundtrack is hauntingly beautiful at times, with a combination of string instruments and soft piano, accompanied by French singing. The songs are very representative of the country it comes from and it works in the game’s favour. And when the game ramps up in tempo, it’s almost like it’s from a different game, but it still fits perfectly. It captures the epicness and tensity of each fight, perfectly fitting the encounter and giving it the appropriate amount of excitement. This is going to be remembered as one of the great soundtracks of this year, it truly is a marvel to experience. 

Level Design

Each location is segmented into its own semi-linear level, which you can access by travelling the overworld. The overworld clearly took some inspiration from old school Final Fantasy and similar RPG’s, giving you a giant open world that will take you a good while to fully explore, with some sections blocked off until you obtain a new ability. It is possible to run into encounters while in the overworld, both against regular enemies and optional bosses, though seeing as you have to trigger encounters yourself, it’s entirely possible to explore this world without having to fight (though it is highly recommended). 

One of the main mechanics you can do in the overworld is set up camp. The camp is essentially a safe haven for your characters. Here you can upgrade your weapons and improve your characters. It’s also here that you get to have a bit of down time with the rest of your party, with characters having short conversations with the others, gaining insight about their motivations and personality and deepening your relationship with them, giving them added benefits and even new abilities in combat. It’s these moments in particular that made me fall in love with the characters of this game, so it is very heavily recommended that you talk to them whenever you get the chance. 

As for the locations themselves, as mentioned they are semi-linear, meaning that while there is one direct way forward, each area is fairly open with a number of branching paths that will lead to better equipment and Pictos (more on them later), as well as harder encounters for those of you who are especially masochistic (hello my fellow nutcases). I did unfortunately find myself getting lost in a couple of these areas, meaning that it did take me an embarrassing amount of time to find my way out, mostly due to the game not making it clear which way you’re meant to go, but also due to the lack of map in each of these levels. As I said, it only happened a couple of times, and I do admit that it could easily just be a me problem, but it was still a little annoying when it did happen. 

It appears that this game has also taken some inspiration from soulslikes, as you have a number of checkpoints that you can rest at. These checkpoints are represented by the flags of previous expeditions, and here you can rest up and regain all your health and healing items, you’re able to allocate stats to each of your characters after they level up, and are able to purchase use skills for your characters to use in battle. While I called these checkpoints, they’re not entirely, as you don’t respawn at these if you get a game over, instead you oftentimes revive just outside of your last encounter, which I do quite like. I also like how these add extra worldbuilding to the game, implying that this is as far as some of the other expeditions got. 

Combat

This game takes your average turn-based style of combat and blends it with other combat styles that should conflict with it, but manages to combine them in a way that makes them work in perfect harmony. To start off, you go into combat with a maximum of 3 party members, though there are some battles – mostly optional ones – that do require you to use fewer. Each character has their own unique style of combat, and I don’t just mean that they use different elements or weapons to each other, mechanically they all work entirely differently. For example, Maelle uses a stance system, her attacks will end with her in one of three stances, the stance she ends her turn in determines the added benefits she gets during her next turn. Or there’s Sciel, who uses an ability called foretell, which stacks on enemies when she attacks them and can be consumed for added benefits. It’s an aspect I genuinely love, not only does it differentiate the characters from one another in a way I’ve never seen before, but it makes you become even more considerate of party formation, and makes you think more about who best to use against a certain group or who works best with particular characters. It deepens the combat and is just done brilliantly. 

This goes for your skills as well. To be able to use skills, you don’t use MP, you use AP points. You get one AP point at the start of your turn and performing certain actions in combat will reward you with more, which will let you activate your more powerful skills when needed. Whenever you use an ability, you’ll be brought into a quick-time event, pressing the buttons at the right time will not only determine how powerful the attack is, but will dictate if the attack will even happen at all. The quick-time events are fairly easy to learn, but it’s still entirely possible to screw up, possibly leading to heavy consequences. What I especially love about these skills, is that not only do you get standard information about them – how much damage the attack will deal, the amount of hit it’ll dish out or any status ailments or buffs inflicted as a result – they each have a secondary effect that will occur with certain requirements. Such as Maelle’s Pyrolyse inflicting extra burn damage if she’s in the offensive stance or Verso dealing more damage depending on what rank he’s at. I found myself focusing more on the secondary effects more than I was any of the other information, spending more time experimenting and figuring out which move sets and formations would allow me to pull them off more. It made strategizing more fun for me and I found myself loving the combat all the more for it. 

Now we get to the thing that will likely make or break your experience with this game, the multiple types of dodging and parrying. Yep, despite this being a turn-based game, you can’t just put the controller down when it’s the enemies turn. Enemy attacks can and will decimate your team, just one combo is enough to end the battle prematurely. So to deal with this, you have a number of ways to defend against these attacks. The two most common ways are standard parries and dodges. Dodges are the easiest to pull off, as they last a little longer so your timing doesn’t have to be dead on. Parrying on the other hand requires absolute perfection, forcing you to learn enemy attack patterns and blocking the microsecond their attack would land. While it is harder, you do get extra benefits when you parry as opposed to dodging, most notably, for every parry you manage you receive an AP point, and if you perfectly defend yourself against an entire combo, that character gets to do a counterattack, dealing a massive chunk of damage. There is also the jumping mechanic, where the enemy will do a sweeping attack that you can’t just step away from and will have to jump over, succeeding in that will let your party deal a small chunk of damage to the enemy. Finally is the Gradient Parries, these are used when an enemy is about to perform an especially dangerous attack, that could potentially one-shot you. Managing to defend against this attack will, again, let you perform a counterattack. Now, this is a mechanic that will draw a lot of people away from the game, some aren’t as good at timing as others or are too impatient to learn enemy attack patterns and will possibly give up when they first encounter this. Personally, I absolutely adored this. I’m in general a fan of learning attack patterns and feel great satisfaction when I manage to perfectly counter them, and there are few games that gave me the level of satisfaction and elation that this one did. It also kept me engaged with the combat, ensuring that no battle felt stale and making me excited for every new encounter. 

You’ll be happy to know that it’s not just opponents that are able to use Gradient Attacks, as your party will have a number of their own. Eventually you’ll get a Gradient Gauge that will slowly fill up as you keep playing. These skills are the most powerful in your arsenal and will have a number of effects. From skills that do a ton of damage, to ones that heal or revive your party. What I also like about them is that using them doesn’t end that character’s turn, in fact, it starts it again, to the point where you get AP after using it. 

Another reason I compare this game to soulslikes, is your limited healing items. You have three types of potions, one that heals, one that revives, and one that gives you AP. You only have so many of these, and while you can get an increased amount from finding certain materials, these are the only items of healing that you can get. Once again, this might be something that may turn you off from the game, but I personally don’t mind this. There are plenty of skills you can use to heal either the caster or everyone on your party, and the better you get at the game, the less you’ll find yourself relying on healing items all together. 

One of the main pieces of equipment that you’ll find are the Pictos. Pictos are this game’s version of accessories, that will add passive buffs and effects to your characters to aid them in battle. From minor effects, like getting extra AP at the start of battle or your standard attack debuffing an enemy, to some really powerful ones like being able to exceed the max amount of damage you can deal, or being revived the instant your HP reaches 0. Each character can only equip 3 Pictos at a time, but you can get past this by mastering it. You see, your characters can gather something called Lumina Points, which can be earned by defeating enemies, gathered from loot, or just by levelling up. Once you master a Pictos – something that can be done after just a few encounters – you can use some of these Lumina Points to equip the effects of said Pictos without using one of your equipment slots – the higher level the Pictos the more points it requires.. What makes it even better is that every character has access to that Pictos’ ability after just one character masters it, meaning no grinding or tedium necessary. I know I keep repeating this, but I really love this mechanic. It helps to optimise your party and get them as powerful as you’d like, and it lessens the headache of having an ability you want everyone to have but can only equip it to one character. 

Enemy Design and Bosses

You’ll find yourself fighting a lot of repeats when it comes to enemies. With a number of them becoming more powerful the more you go through the game. This is something that I usually have a bit of a problem with (well not really, but I prefer if there was some variety), but I don’t mind it that much in this game. This is a game that relies very heavily on you learning enemy attack patterns and figuring out the best way to fight them, so it’s not as offensive this time around. Plus you do still meet new enemies fairly often in new areas, all the way up to the final one, so it’s not like the game runs out of new challenges halfway through. Plus, if you’re like me, being familiar with them does not make them any easier. I still found myself getting hit and dying to combos that I had been familiar with for hours, so it never stopped being a challenge. As said before, learning the enemy’s attack patterns, while taking a fair bit of trial and error, is really fun and engaging to do. Most of them may appear to be simple, but the barrier to mastering them is high, and even when you think you’ve mastered them, you’ll still find yourself making mistakes fairly frequently. Eventually, encounters become especially challenging, with opponents being about to take out a party member in only a couple of hits, making almost every battle feel like it’s a boss fight. 

Speaking of boss fights, these are the creme de la resistance of this game (…because this game’s French… please marvel at my clever writing). These fights are incredibly challenging, and you will die in a majority of them. The combos and attack patterns are especially complex at times, coming at you faster and with more hits per turn. They may even have multiple turns in a row, further exemplifying the threat they bring. These are some of the most challenging bosses I’ve fought in a turn-based RPG, and I cannot express just how much I loved them. Did these fights take me ages to beat at times? Yes, especially the late game ones. But learning and mastering their complex movesets gave me a sense of euphoria that few other games have managed to grant. I found myself both dreading and getting excited whenever a boss was coming, and I never stopped having fun against them no matter how often I died. 

Side Quests & Collectibles

Let’s finally end this with the side content. For side quests, there aren’t really that many. There are a few occasions in the game where you’ll encounter a friendly Novron – a regular enemy that you’ve probably fought already – who will often ask you to help them with their problem. They will often ask you to help them find something that they’ve lost, but they will make other requests, like giving them some Chroma (this game’s currency) or battling them. You will, of course, be rewarded for your efforts, and what you get will depend on the quest in question. 

There are also a large number of collectibles that you can gather. One of the main ones you’ll find are the journals, these will contain the passing thoughts and experiences of a member of one of the previous expeditions, once more adding extra lore and worldbuilding, making the world more interesting. Another one is the records, this is pretty self explanatory, you find these and you’re able to play them at your camp, sometimes they will be rewards for finishing story sections or though there are some that you will have to go out of your way to find. Finally, a Gestral called Caretaker Sastro has lost 9 Gestrals and asks for your help in searching for them. Find these and give them to him and he will reward you each one. 

Conclusion

I have been obsessed with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from the moment I started playing it. Everything about it is a testament on why I love video games as an art form. The story is magnificent, the presentation is artistic and creative, it has one of the best battle systems I’ve ever encountered, and it’s all led to an experience that I will not be forgetting anytime soon. This is the kind of game that only comes once in a decade and it’s one that I think everyone should experience. If you are one of the few people who has not played this game, please change that immediately. If this is only the start of a successful career for Sandfall Interactive, then I eagerly await what they make in the future. 

9.9/10