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First revealed in Summer 2024 and later appearing at Microsoft’s 2025 Xbox Developer Direct show earlier this year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — the first game from the nascent game development studio Sandfall Interactive — has finally arrived. It stands as one of the year’s most highly anticipated new RPGs, and is slated to go live on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Xbox Game Pass, and PS5 early tomorrow morning.
Clair Obscur immediately caught the eyes of many with its distinctive dark fantasy spin on the optimistic and romantic aesthetic of the French Belle Époque period, with further pre-release trailers teasing its blend of turn-based and real-time RPG mechanics. The narrative, too, has garnered significant interest, as the story promises nuanced and mature development and themes at a time when a lot of writing feels laden with shallow characters and grating MCU-esque quips.
I was very hopeful the game would live up to the hype when I started playing it for review a few weeks ago, and now that I’ve made my way through the adventure, I’m happy to say that it not only meets those expectations, but exceeds them, too. It’s not without a few issues — I’ll get into those throughout this review — but on the whole, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is everything I and many others were hoping it would be, and it’s an RPG you won’t want to miss.
This review was conducted with the Windows PC version of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and made possible thanks to a Steam review code provided by Kepler Interactive. The company did not see the contents of this review before publication.
What is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?
If you’ve seen the trailers for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect from it already. If you’ve been exposed to little or nothing about the game before now, though, there are some things you should know before playing it (or reading this review). I’ll cover them here.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Price: $34.79 at CDKeys (Steam, PC) | $49.99 at Amazon (Xbox) | $49.99 at Amazon (PS5)
Developer: Sandfall Interactive
Publisher: Kepler Interactive
Genre: Turn-based fantasy RPG
Install size: ~55GB
Playtime: 30-60 hours
Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (via Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox app), PS5
Reviewed on: Windows PC
Release date: April 24, 2025
Xbox Game Pass: Yes
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a single player RPG set in a fictional alternate reality in which the Paintress — a mysterious and decidedly malevolent entity — paints a new number onto her faraway Monolith at the start of a new year, counting down from 100. At the end of that year, everyone of that age is erased from existence before a new number is painted; this has been slowly killing humanity for over 60 years, and as the story begins, every 34 year-old is wiped out as the Paintress’ countdown ticks to 33.
In a desperate attempt to stop her, the people of Lumière — believed to be the last bastion of humanity in the world — routinely send out Expeditions of people living out their last year of life before the annual “gommage.” Thus far, all past Expeditions have failed, though each has left behind flags, notes, and guidance for groups that come after them so that one may eventually reach the Paintress and slay her. The path to her Monolith is fraught with extremely difficult terrain, deadly monsters, and other dangers, but year by year, decade by decade, humanity has managed to progress closer and closer.
As the title of the game strongly suggests, you take control of men and women from Expedition 33 during the events of the story. Early on, the Expedition is brutally attacked, leaving only a few survivors (this was revealed in previews); it’s up to them to keep pressing on and fight their way to the Paintress, all while simultaneously trying to process their grief and loss.
Though Clair Obscur isn’t an open-world game, it does have large open levels with secret treasures, simple puzzles to solve, optional bosses to fight, along with side levels to unlock and travel to from the world map. Combat, meanwhile, is completely turn-based, with each character sporting unique systems and moves that synergize with the rest of your party. Interestingly, though, real-time action RPG-style mechanics play a big role on your turns as well as the enemy’s (more on the combat in the next section).
The rest of the gameplay centers around traditional RPG concepts like leveling up stats, unlocking skills, getting better gear, and unlocking permanent upgrades by finding them in the world.
Clair Obscur review: Gameplay, combat, and world
Similar to turn-based JRPGs like Final Fantasy or Persona, the true heart of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s gameplay lies within its combat system. Careful strategy and move selection are critical in those games, and such is the case in Sandfall Interactive’s debut title as well; each Expeditioner can choose to use ranged attacks at the start of their turn and then either a Base Attack or a special Skill move, but they also have unique systems to keep in mind and Skills that synergize with others in the party.
For example, Lune — the elemental mage of the group — excels at applying status effects like Burn, which the rapier-wielding Maelle can take advantage of with one of her Skills to enter her unique Virtuoso Stance that boosts all damage by 200%. Lune’s Skills also generate elemental Stains for herself, and if you use a Skill that benefits from that Stain on her next turn, it’ll consume it for a big damage boost. Combat is full of opportunities for each party member to support each other or combo their own moves like this, making the strategic side of battles very enjoyable.
What sets Clair Obscur apart from many other JRPG-style turn-based games, however, is that it also places a strong emphasis on performing real-time maneuvers taken straight out of an action RPG. Choosing the Skill you use isn’t the end of your turn; to actually maximize the effectiveness of that move, you’ll need to execute some carefully timed button presses like you would in a rhythm game. Additionally, incoming attacks have to be dodged or parried, with the former easier (and thus, ideal for learning) and the latter more rewarding since fully parrying every part of a move nets you a deadly counter-attack. Attentive players can also use their basic ranged attack to target and break weak spots, hurting them significantly and/or interfering with enemy mechanics.
I’ve never been hugely into turn-based RPGs, but I do love action RPGs with dodge and parry mechanics like this, and Clair Obscur’s fusion of the former’s deeply strategic elements with the thrilling challenge of mastering fights in the latter has birthed combat system I’ve fallen in love with. From start to finish, every part of a turn cycle — hitting enemy weak spots, choosing which moves for your party to use, executing them, and then defending yourself against your foes — is engaging, ensuring that there’s never a dull moment. And as you’d expect, the game’s various boss fights are even more exciting, with most featuring bespoke mechanics to learn and exploit as well as especially tricky, but still well-telegraphed moves that are a blast to counter.
The battles are undeniably the highlight of Clair Obscur, and the game rightly makes them the focus of most of its 30-60 hour runtime. Between fights, though, you’ll be exploring large, but linear levels with lots of side paths that lead to hidden treasures like new weapons, permanent upgrades, or special modifiers for your characters called Pictos; the latter improve stats and give you a wide range of notable effects, including raw stat increases under certain conditions, ways to generate extra Action Points (the resource needed for Skills), and huge buffs in exchange for drawbacks, among others. These items tend to be gated by optional boss battles or simple, yet enjoyable puzzles.
Another thing worth noting is that winning enough battles with Pictos equipped on a party member makes their effects — sans their base stat improvements — available for everyone on the team as a Lumina. You can only equip a limited number of Luminas with each party member’s finite number of Lumina Points, though these are gradually increased over time as you find items that give you more. Thus, as you get more and more Lumina Points, you can experiment with more and more Picto effects.
The other part of the buildcrafting process comes from leveling up, leveling up core stats for things like HP and damage, and unlocking new Skills from each character’s skill tree. There are plenty of different ways you can build each of your party members and all of them are viable, though certain limitations will drive you to think carefully about progression. Chief of these is the fact that respec items are somewhat rare, though you also have to keep in mind that you can only have six Skills equipped at once.
Overall, the gameplay of Clair Obscur is absolutely fantastic, and ultimately, my only real problem with it is that its various systems — both in combat and outside of it — are introduced so rapidly that I found it hard to wrap my head around everything the game was trying to teach me early on. Things became clearer with more playtime invested, though, and there’s a helpful index of mechanics you can review at any time.
Clair Obscur review: Story (no spoilers)
Another huge part of Clair Obscur is its narrative (covered here with no spoilers beyond preview-approved material) — an emotional and heartfelt story about Expedition 33’s survivors forging ahead against all the odds, even as they’re besieged by grief, loss, regret, and constant worry about what lies ahead of them. Throughout their journey, the Expeditioners encounter new friends like the comedic bloodthirsty Gestral creature Monoco and the mythical Esquie who gives them means to cross the lands, along with mysterious antagonists like Renoir — an aging man that’s somehow still alive despite the Paintress’ gommages.
I don’t want to talk about the story too much in this review, but what I will say is that it’s excellent, with varied characters that go through believable conflicts — both internally and between each other — that are written with weight, nuance, and sensitivity that feels appropriate for the subject matter, along with moments of levity to balance things out. It also certainly helps that it features a star-studded cast, including Charlie Cox (Daredevil) as Gustave, Jennifer English (Baldur’s Gate 3, Shadowheart) as Maelle, Ben Starr (FFXVI, Clive Rosfield) as Verso, Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings, Gollum) as Renoir, and many other big names in voice talent.
The plot itself moves a bit fast for my liking, but it’s hardly a major problem I’d seriously dock points from the story for. Enjoyable and foreshadowed twists more than make up for whatever that slightly rushed feeling takes away, as do the narrative’s beautifully animated and shot cutscenes.
Clair Obscur review: Visuals and audio
Though Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s development initially began with the older Unreal Engine 4, Sandfall Interactive eventually made the switch to Unreal Engine 5 to take advantage of its more advanced rendering capabilities. That definitely shows in-game, as the slightly stylized, highly detailed world of Clair Obscur is nothing less than a feast for the eyes.
As I said before, the overall aesthetic of the game is heavily inspired by the Belle Époque period of French history — a fact made apparent by Lumière’s grand architecture, vibrant colors everywhere you look, suave character designs that look like they’d be right at home in the 18th Century, and the overarching feeling of hope and optimism that persists in the world despite everything that its inhabitants suffer. With that said, it’s also colored distinctively by surrealism, with many of the game’s diverse environments bearing bizarre and dreamlike vistas.
Rendered in cutting-edge detail, it’s a gorgeous world, and one that’s a good complement to the upsetting and confusing challenges that the characters do their best to work through over the course of the story. Together with Clair Obscur’s vivacious animations and its striking visual effects, it also stands out quite a bit from most other modern titles.
The score composed by Lorien Testard is also worthy of high praise, with everything from grand orchestral instrumentals to tracks heavy with powerful choirs to listen to as your travel and fight your way to the Paintress and her Monolith. There’s a fitting area and battle theme for every single level in the game, as well as tracks tailor-made for many of the biggest and most impactful moments in the narrative.
Clair Obscur review: Performance and stability
Many titles made with Unreal Engine have a reputation for being rife with annoying stutters that often make moment-to-moment gameplay choppy and frustrating, so any time I review a game that uses it, I can’t help but be a little nervous. In Clair Obscur’s case, though, I barely experienced any stutters at all. There were a couple here or there, but they were very few and very far between.
Overall, performance was quite good on my Intel Core i5-12600K, RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and 32GB DDR4 rig. On an ultrawide (3440×1440) monitor with Epic settings and NVIDIA DLSS upscaling disabled, I was getting a consistent 50-60 FPS during both exploration and combat, with rare dips into the high 40s during particularly intensive moments. With DLSS enabled on Quality mode, however, my framerate shot up to a range of the mid 70s to the low 90s.
That’s not to say I didn’t have any problems, though. In a few levels, texture and lighting pop-in was particularly apparent, leading to cases where I’d enter a new area and its environment would look jarringly different than how it did before I fully stepped in. On some rare, but nevertheless noteworthy occasions, the framerate would also fall down to the 30s and 40s for several minutes for an unknown reason. And while this didn’t happen often, it did occur during a battle at a few points, which made dodging and parrying enemy attacks more difficult than it should have been.
Clair Obscur review: Conclusion
As someone who’s only enjoyed turn-based games on occasion compared to RPGs with real-time mechanics, I went into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hopeful, but unsure of how I’d feel about an experience that aimed to merge the two into one cohesive formula. After playing through it, though, I’m both very impressed with and very enthusiastic about Sandfall Interactive’s experimental fusion. It truly captures the best of both genres in its creative combat system, and supports that core of the game with an expertly written story and stunning audiovisual presentation.
I have little nitpicks about plot pacing and the speed at which things are introduced to you in the early game, and certain aspects about the game’s overall performance could be better, too. All in all, though, this is undoubtedly one of the best Xbox games and best PC games of the year, and while the shadow dropped Oblivion remaster has stolen some of its launch thunder, this is nevertheless still a game I implore you not to pass up — especially since it’s available on Xbox Game Pass.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 releases on April 24, 2025 on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (Steam, Epic Games, Xbox app), and PS5 for $49.99. You also have the option of playing it on Xbox or PC through Xbox Game Pass.
