Once in a while, a game comes around that completely sweeps you off your feet, grabs you with both hands, and refuses to let you go until your time with it is over. Sometimes it’s a long-awaited and greatly expected title, and other times it comes out of nowhere and takes you by surprise. From the day that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launched and I picked it up to give it a try, I knew that it was going to be one of those games. In fact, I had to tear myself away from it eventually just so I could take the time to sit down and write this review!
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Developer: Sandfall Interactive
Platform: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Release Date: 4/24/2025
There’s no real point in burying the lede here: Expedition 33 is a game that has exceeded all expectations and turned out to be one of the most impressive releases so far this year. The love and care of its development team shines through in basically every aspect of the game to create a finished product that’s even more than the sum of its already exceptional parts.
A Captivating Tale of Love and Loss
As a European take on the largely Japanese-dominated turn-based RPG, Expedition 33 simply would not be a complete game without a gripping storyline. Turn-based gameplay occasionally runs the risk of becoming stale, and so the narrative often ends up pulling additional weight, keeping a player wanting to push forward to see just what happens next. Thankfully, this could well be Clair Obscur’s strongest aspect.
From the start, Expedition 33 drops you into the middle of the setting’s main city: Lumière, the last bastion of human existence due to something only ever referred to as “the Fracture.” As one of the game’s primary protagonists, Gustave, you wander the city spending time with your ex-girlfriend Sophie before the gommage, after which Gustave intends to sail out on an expedition to stop the Paintress and put an end to the horrors mankind continues to face in her wake.
If not a lot of that paragraph made a lot of sense, that’s entirely on purpose. The game refuses to hold your hand and explain to you the finer points of the narrative, because for the characters who live within it, this is simply their usual existence. Everything that is going on is so normalized that having some sort of exposition dump would be jarring and out of place. Instead, Clair Obscur trusts its audience to pay attention to the things the characters say, the way they say them, and how they approach oncoming events in order to get a handle on what’s all happening. Even better, they often give players just enough time to fully grasp the situation before dropping things on them in a cutscene and letting the weight of the narrative fully take hold.
And it is, indeed, a weighty narrative. The setting of Clair Obscur is a bleak one, but despite the hopelessness, there is a spark that burns in each expedition that they may be the ones to right the wrongs placed upon them, and if not, that they will gain knowledge that future expeditions can use to further the goal of the people. It is a grand story of mankind’s indomitable spirit, but also an intimate story of family, grief, and taking what joys you can while you’re able. There’s so much I could say, but the game’s narrative simply must be experienced first-hand, as free from outside knowledge as possible.
An Energetic Cast of Capable Characters
A storyline is no good without interesting characters to drive it forward, and Expedition 33 succeeds here just as well. Each of the playable characters not only have a unique and relevant personality, shaped by their reactions to their pasts and the world around them, but each one also offers a mechanical depth that is almost shocking for a game of this type.
Here is as good a place as any to discuss the finer points of Clair Obscur’s gameplay. The game, as mentioned, is largely a turn-based game in the style commonly referred to as a “JRPG” after the Final Fantasies and Dragon Quests that came before it. Each character takes their turn in combat by spending and/or gaining Action Points, and the turn order is seen in the top left corner so players can determine who is acting next. Stronger abilities cost more Action Points, which can take more turns to build up.
This game, however, also takes a page from other JRPGs that came before it, like Super Mario RPG and Legend of Dragoon, including a more interactive element to the combat beyond simply picking your move and watching the animation. Outside of the basic attack, every attack skill a character can perform also comes with a serious of timed button presses that will supercharge the move’s damage. These timings are unique for each move, but never change within the move itself, so the more you use a skill, the more likely you’ll be to have the boost timing down to a science.
Enemy attacks are even more interactive. Almost every attack can be either dodged or parried, with the former having a larger window of success but the latter being a more rewarding option. Enemies, in turn, have a wide range of attack combos and timings to thwart this. Some will attack many times in rapid succession, others will attack fewer times with breaks in between that are difficult to gauge. And this is just the basic level – as you progress, more defensive options become available as enemies bring even more advanced attacks to the table.
The characters themselves all feature their own particular combat style, making each one play distinctly from one another. Gustave, for example, is primarily built around charging up his Overcharge ability to deal massive damage. The character that mostly closely fits the “mage” archetype adds a resource known as “stains” with different elemental values to her weapon with every spell cast, and every spell in her repertoire also can consume stains of particular elements to increase their power in some way. Yet another character is a stance-based fighter who must weave between three different stances with different passive effects, and another still builds and consumes a status called “Foretell” on opponents to increase action points and ensure massive attacks each round.
These characters also mesh with each other in ways that are typically quite plain to see. Gustave has an ability which “marks” a target, and the mage has an ability that burns an opponent for more turns if cast on a marked target. The stance-switching character has an ability that swaps to their strongest stance if used on a burning enemy. These synergies exist between nearly every character, allowing each player to come up with their own perfect team. Unlike many other JRPG-style games, there’s also no “primary protagonist” that the game forces into your team at all times, either. Mix that with the fact that every character also has a huge (but not entirely overwhelming) skill tree with multiple styles of play to build into, and you get a game where no two player’s parties will ever truly be the same.
These characters aren’t just interesting mechanically, either. Every character has their own depth and personality, stemming from their own unique pasts that shape how they view the present. Furthermore, they are all quite dynamic characters as well, each one changing and growing from the events that transpire on the expedition. I’m being intentionally vague here, but for good reason. It’s really just worth experiencing for yourself!
A Treat For Your Eyes and Ears Alike
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 doesn’t even skimp on the aesthetics to deliver such a mechanically and narratively complex package. The game’s art style is photorealistic at its core, with each character taking heavy visual cues from the voice actors that bring them to life. Speaking of, the vocal cast for this game is fairly impressive in its own right, including Daredevil’s Charlie Cox as the voice of Gustave, plus such phenomenal video game voice talents as Jennifer English (Baldur’s Gate 3) and Ben Starr (Final Fantasy XVI). They even have the unparalleled Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings, Black Panther) in here!
Despite opting for such realistic character designs, Clair Obscur does not shy away from stylization. Everything is paint-themed, for starters, and the animations each character has in battle are accented with swaths of color that resemble brushstrokes. Once you step away from the human designs, the characters who exist outside of Lumière all possess a visually striking appearance, ranging from imposing to amusing to downright horrific.
All of this visual splendor is accentuated by a score that somehow manages to shine even brighter. The music of Clair Obscur is just as diverse as everything else. The game opens with a beautiful piano track and vocals to match, and continues in this vein, transitioning smoothly to powerful strings and choral voices that feel a natural background to an epic adventure. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on what the general feel of the music is, you’re hit with a new boss battle and a grooving techno-inspired theme to match. From there, the game continues to prove its musical range, moving further still to driving rock-style guitars and ever onwards to jazzy sax-blasting tunes and marimba-infused dance tracks. There’s over 8 total hours of music in this game, and it manages to somehow cross an entire ocean of genre without ever truly feeling like it’s changed its thematic core.
This musical feat is made all the more impressive by its composer, Lorien Testard, having been discovered by game director Guillaume Broche on Soundcloud, of all things. This was Testard’s first foray into video game composing, and I’m not sure a more standout first performance has ever been heard before.
Final Thoughts
By now, it should come as no surprise that I think Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an incredible game. The way each aspect of it fits neatly with every other, all polished to perfection, is a feat that I feel is rare to see in a video game on its release in recent years. It feels like a true passion project, put together by people with a dedicated vision and a drive to see that vision fulfilled, and the end result is something that’s nothing short of breathtaking.
Simply put: If you enjoy turn-based RPGs at all, you owe it to yourself to give Clair Obscur a try. Even if it doesn’t stick for you; even if, for some reason, it doesn’t take hold of you and refuse to let go for its whole run-time, you’ll at least walk away knowing you witnessed something special.
