Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an "homage" to the RPGs of old, and its director wants players to "break the game with crazy builds"

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 grabbed headlines earlier this year in June at Xbox's big Summer Game Fest showcase, thanks in no small part to its evolutionary turn-based combat and stunning photorealistic visuals. The game looked like a serious step forward for turn-based RPGs, and add to the reveal that it was from an independent developer established by Ubisoft veterans, and heads were instantly turned.

A month removed from its reveal, and Expedition 33 still looks the part in a new gameplay presentation from Sandfall CEO and creative director Guillaume Broche, along with COO and producer Francois Meurisse. It's still early on in Clair Obscur when Broche picks up the controller - playing only the second level of the game - and introduces chief protagonist and resourceful engineer Gustave, who's on a mission with scholar Lune to find Maelle, youngest member of the expedition's roster and Gustave's foster sister.

What immediately jumps out to me is just how good Clair Obscur's character models look. Not just the models themselves, but the faces in particular - which Broche reveals is thanks in no small part to Epic's Metahuman tech. The creative director adamantly asserts that no AI whatsoever was used in the game, but the Metahuman tech lets Sandfall extract facial models and customize them however they want – even using performance capture technology in tandem with the impressive facial models they've extrapolated.

Turn-based tactics

Ubisoft veterans behind stylish turn-based RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 "all have a love" for JRPG classics like Final Fantasy, "but also want to see something fresh done with the genre"

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 might play as a turn-based RPG, but out in the open world you have full control of Gustave. In fact, you can switch on the fly to control any one of your current party members, and take advantage of their unique traversal abilities, like an air dash-type move for Lune, for example. This helps you solve environmental puzzles, of which there are many in Expedition 33, like finding and shooting three targets in a vicinity to unlock a resource deposit.

The aforementioned turn-based combat feels like something Sandfall is really proud of, and for good reason. Every attack in Expedition 33 prompts you to input a series of QTE-based button prompts to deal bonus damage - a cursor might travel clockwise around a square while you attack, for example, and you need to press A right as the cursor moves over the final side of the square in order to bag the bonus.

It's a little bit reminiscent of Yakuza's now-turn-based RPG combat, or even the older Paper Mario combat system, but not to the point where it feels like Expedition 33 isn't bringing anything new to the table. You can freely aim a firearm with any playable character when it's their turn, and target an enemy's weak spot to deal bonus damage. One enemy has two glowing orbs floating above them – a telltale 'weak spot' sign – which Gustave shoots to decimate their health pool.

Even on an enemy's turn, Clair Obscur still gives you tricks for bonus damage. When an enemy targets Gustave, Lune, Maelle, or all three at once with an attack, Broche presses a button perfectly in time with the attack to have all three party members deftly dodge out of the way, entirely negating all incoming damage. It's possible, Broche teases, to get through Expedition 33 without taking a single point of damage – but no one at Sandfall has managed this feat at the time of writing.

For those who feel like really testing themselves after hours in Expedition 33's world, there's also parrying. Upon a slight visual cue, you can press one button to have Gustav, Lune, Maelle, or all party members at once parry an attack. Here's where things get interesting: parrying also negates damage like dodging, but it crucially restores your mana points, which all Expedition 33 characters use to pull off abilities in combat. Additionally, if you can parry every hit in a chain attack, you can actually strike back at the enemy with a huge, flourishing attack of your own.

Speaking of mana, though, or AP points as Expedition 33 dubs them, you're going to need to manage them tactically . Every character has their own AP pool, and not only do they fuel abilities, but firearm shots also use AP. Utilizing an enemy's elemental weakness against them is paramount in just about every RPG - Expedition 33 being no exception - and so battles become more refined and stylish if you're able to accurately deduce an enemy's weakness and take advantage of it with your AP stock.

30 was once considered young

Clair Obscur's overarching storyline feeds back into its wonderfully wacky world design. Gustave and company are on a mission to find and kill the mysterious Painter, who awakens once every year and paints down an ever-decreasing number. Everyone and anyone immediately dies once they reach this number in age, and it turns out Gustave doesn't have very long to live by the time his expedition rolls around. “There was a time 30 was considered young,” he retorts to Maelle at one point, which I'm not sure the latter truly believes.

Gustave is just the latest in a very long line of attempts to kill the Painter. Your party can find other expedition markers while they're out roaming the world, which act as little reminders of those that came before - and ultimately failed in their quest. At these points you can rest up, heal your party, and also level up characters using acquired XP. The expedition markers act as a checkpoint system that slot seamlessly into Expedition 33's overarching story.

There will even be some social elements in Expedition 33 at these checkpoints. Broche is keeping this card close to his chest, refusing to say anything about Clair Obscur's social aspects aside from the fact that there will be some sort of system present in the final game. This is undoubtedly an influence from the Persona series, which Broche has previously spoken about growing up loving.

An homage, not a replication

You've probably read ad nauseum about how Expedition 33 was inspired by the likes of Final Fantasy and Devil May Cry. Broche reasserts this when I ask him about specific inspirations, saying he's the “biggest fan” of Final Fantasies 6 through 10, specifically, but he also wanted to make something “different and fresh,” which is where Clair Obscur's riff on established turn-based battle mechanics come into play. The creative director isn't forgetting about what's come before, though - Expedition 33 is being made as a “homage” to games like Final Fantasy 6.

If you think back to the turn-based games of old, like Final Fantasy, you can probably recall some pretty 'broken' builds which just tore the game's combat system wide open. Take, for example, the devastating 'Gem Box' and 'Economiser' combination from Final Fantasy 6 - a moveset that reduces all magical abilities to costing merely 1 MP, while letting you cast two spells per turn, and if one of them so happens to be 'Quick,' you bag two additional turns straight away.

Since Expedition 33 is, in Broche's words, an “homage” to classic turn-based games and RPGs, he actually wants players to “break the game with crazy builds and like, stupid combinations.” To that end, Clair Obscur has a metric tonne of customization options for every character - every weapon comes with potentially multiple passive abilities, while armor and firearms also grant your squad brand new abilities, all of which can be mastered for additional gains by completing multiple fights with them equipped.

It might also surprise you to know that Expedition 33 went into 'full production' when Sandfall was founded just three-odd years ago. Yes, that was during the height of COVID-19's, which you'd think would be a devastating time to start a new studio, but Broche believes this is what's kept Sandfall going despite thousands of layoffs around the gaming industry over the last year or so. The creative director says that because Sandfall was started on a “high” in the pandemic when investment in games was rife, the studio is still riding this 'high' with a deal to fully finance Clair Obscur until release, guaranteeing financial security.

Based on what I've seen so far, Sandfall's debut game looks incredibly impressive, bringing unique and novel ideas to an extremely storied RPG genre, and carving itself out a space alongside major genre releases like Dragon Quest, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Greedfall 2, and many more. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 arrives at some point next year in 2025 across PC, PS5 , and Xbox Series X /S.