This tiny indie team's Unreal Engine 5 RPG looks spectacular

Every so often a game comes along that truly showcases kinds of incredible worlds that a small team can create with Unreal Engine 5. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a turn-based RPG with real-time elements and an other worldly artistic style that brings impossible environments to life. And it looks amazing.

The game involves a journey to stop The Paintress. The early gameplay preview above provides glimpses of a region called Flying Waters, which is both underwater and not. It's a seemingly impossible world that defies physics, and it benefits from incredible lighting and inspiration from surrealist art.

In Flying Waters, players will have to navigate environments filled with remnants from past expeditions, such as destroyed structures and signs of previous groups that met untimely ends. Writing on the PlayStation blog, Sandfall Interactive founder and creative director Guillaume Broche says the priority was making the environments fun to explore.

"We built them to be nonlinear, with a layer of verticality and full of mysteries and secrets. There are multiple tools at your disposal to reach every hidden area: a grapple, climbing hooks left by previous expeditions, ropes…," he writes. "Exploring a level fully will always be very rewarding and you may find secret bosses, items or even entire secret levels by being meticulous in your exploration."

Combat in Expedition 33 blends traditional turn-based mechanics with reactive real-time elements. Timing is key, so the battle system requires quick reflexes and strategic thinking. Each party member has their own playstyle, featuring abilities that can change how you approach combat.

Broche says the indie developer's small team is passionate about the genre and are dedicated to creating an experience that honors classic RPGs while also pushing boundaries in new ways. "Our dream is to make a game that will profoundly touch players as much as the classics impacted our lives," he says. "And hey, even if we fail, we lay the trail for those who come after, right?"

The preview has us itching to see more of Expedition 33. For more game news, see our highlights from Gamescom 2024, Deadlock's -steampunk-meets-fantasy art style and the apparent leak of the PS5 Pro design.

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Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.