We’re a tad late to the party with this one, but all things come to those who wait. It’s something of an honour to be approved to provide coverage for one of the biggest and most highly coveted games of the year, and so we need to do this right. Let’s take our time to digest one of gaming’s most intricate stories. It’s finally time to dive into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
You might recall that Clair Obscur made our list for the most highly anticipated games of 2025, and rightly so. It’s hard to believe that this pretty game that looks and feels so much like a classic JRPG, isn’t actually Japanese. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a product of France, which can be added to the country’s best exports, alongside expensive wines, cosmetics, and kickass cars.
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Introduction
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the highly-anticipated role-playing game developed by French studio Sandfall Interactive and published by Kepler Interactive. The development team sought to create a high-fidelity turn-based role-playing game, which they felt was neglected by triple-A developers. The team was heavily inspired by popular JRPGs, including Persona 5, Lost Odyssey, and the Final Fantasy series. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was released for PlayStation 5 on 24th April, 2025.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 takes place in a dark fantasy setting which is revealed to be the dystopic future of France, confirmed by visible distant ruins of iconic landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomph. In the distant, forgotten past, the land was shattered by calamity and divided by the sea, isolating the island known as Lumière. This isolation grants Lumière the advantage of the populace now being safe from the nightmarish abominations known as ‘Nevrons’ now plaguing the lands beyond.
However, the people of Lumière remain vulnerable to a ghostly, witch-like entity known as the ‘Paintress’. The player controls a party of Expeditioners exploring a distorted, post-apocalyptic version of reality infused with fantasy elements. Our party is composed of a ragtag handful of members of ‘Expedition 33’ as they set out to destroy the mysterious Paintress, a being causing the yearly ‘Gommage’, which erases all those of or above a specified age, which decreases by one each year.
Story
Every year for the past 67 years, the people of Lumière have feared and suffered the catastrophic annual ‘Gommage’, where the Paintress paints an ever-decreasing number on a monolith which towers in the sky, and all humans with an age equal to or above that number disappear. After the Gommage, Lumière sends an Expedition of volunteers to head to the mainland in an effort to slay the Paintress before she can paint a new number. This squadron is mostly composed of those now in their final year of life.
Expedition 33 is the latest to set out. On the day of the Gommage, 32-year-old engineer Gustave (Charlie Cox) bids farewell to his former lover, Sophie, who has turned 33 and perishes along with everyone else of the same age. Joining Gustave for the mission are Maelle (Jennifer English), the youngest member of the Expedition and Gustave’s foster sister; Lune (Kirsty Rider), a brilliant scholar and mage; and Sciel (Shala Nyx), a cheerful, cool-headed warrior.
While all those before have failed to slay the Paintress, Expedition 33 remains hopeful that their advancements in technology will allow them to succeed where the others failed. However, the party will soon learn the real dangers they face, finding catastrophe shortly after making landfall, attacked by an army of monstrous creatures and bio-mechanical sentries. Survival is already unlikely, while victory is near-impossible, yet the party must succeed lest humanity face extinction.
Gameplay
In Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the player controls a changing party of characters from a third-person perspective, exploring uncharted areas and engaging in combat. Coupled with its turn-based mechanics are real-time aspects, such as combat quick-time events. The game features six playable characters, with each having unique skills, weapons and combat styles.
On their turns, players select whether to use an item, perform a melee attack to gain Ability Points, or spend accumulated Ability Points to use ranged attacks or Skills. Ranged attacks are aimed freely, similar to a third-person shooter. When using a Skill, a quick-time event can be completed for improved effects. During enemy turns, the player can dodge, parry, or jump over attacks in real time to avoid damage. Parrying is more difficult than dodging but provides Ability Points and the opportunity to counterattack.
Combat encounters reward experience points, currency and upgrades. Each time a character levels up, they will gain three attribute points, which can be spent on increasing five core character stats: Vitality (health), Might (attack strength), Agility (attack frequency), Defense (damage reduction), and Luck (critical hit rate). As players explore, they will also collect Chroma Catalysts, which can be used to upgrade weapons to higher levels at the camp for increased base damage.
The abilities of the Expeditioners are further customised with equippable ‘Pictos’ which add a variety of perks and further improve a character’s stats. Each character can equip three Pictos at a time. Players can master the use of Pictos after using them in combat several times, unlocking passive bonuses known as ‘Luminas’ for other Expeditioners to use. Each character also has Lumina Points, which dictate how many Luminas they can equip at a time.
Graphics/Sound
The art design is absolutely stunning. Development began using Unreal Engine 4 but later switched to Unreal Engine 5, providing rendering improvements. The advantage here is a truly next-generation experience. The twisted world in which we find ourselves is a canvas of both beautifully realistic and bizarrely fantastical sights. The bright and colourful will intentionally and frequently clash with the dark and mundane to make you question the reality itself.
Combat encounters feature impressively detailed creatures straight out of Lovecraftian horror, while human character models are equally superb, with every effort made in attention to detail and enough grit and personalisation to bring reasonable diversity to the party. Eyes have impressive realism and emotion in their motions, and equally realistic body language and movements.
The only issue I could find was that the lip-synching just doesn’t work as it should, with speech regularly appearing out of time. However, the voice acting itself was outstanding throughout, featuring stellar, natural performances from big names, including Charlie Cox, Ben Starr, Shala Nyx, and the legendary Andy Serkis.
The fully-orchestral soundtrack is absolutely breathtaking, featuring several memorable songs and a regular vocalist throughout, Alice Duport-Percier, who delivers an exceptional performance. Music tracks will constantly swap in and out on the fly, with different dungeons having not only their own background themes but also their own battle themes.
Replayability/Trophies
The game is set in arguably linear levels, however players can explore off the beaten path where they will find hidden resources, side-quests, collectables, costumes, merchants, and optional secret bosses. Levels in the game are connected by a large 3D overworld map, referred to as “The Continent”. Players gain access to fast-travel locations early on, but later unlock new traversal abilities, allowing flight, swimming, and underwater diving.
These new traversal abilities are essential for players to not only advance the story, but access optional secret areas. A standard playthrough without an overly completionist mindset will likely take around 50 hours. This will unlock roughly two thirds of the trophies along the way. The game has multiple difficulty options and a New Game+ mode, however all trophies can be obtained in a single playthrough, even on ‘easy’ mode.
The remaining trophies require some collectables, however most rely more on combat challenges and skill levelling. The trophies cleverly push you towards extra content which you might otherwise miss, which is a nice touch. You’re looking at around 70 hours if you’re hunting the platinum trophy, including some grinding. There are also a couple of missable trophies, and so a guide will come in handy, as is usually the case with big RPGs and JRPGs.
Conclusion
Clair Obscur is worth the hype it receives. It’s a big deal. The game pays homage to a lot of JRPG greats in its themes. JRPG aficionados will frequently see familiar elements which bring pleasing feelings of nostalgia. Expect the occasional water-cooler-time comment like “The combat menu looks just like Persona 5”, or “The combat camera looks like Lost Odyssey” and “The QTEs in battle are like Legend of Dragoon”.
This isn’t to say Clair Obscur lacks identity of its own. With the exception of the solid British voice acting, the game looks and feels like vintage France, right down to the regular culturally-appropriate themes of fashion, music, romance, and camaraderie. This makes for an aesthetically beautiful journey into the unknown, revealing a chaotic outside world which also combines the charmingly eccentric worlds of Tim Burton with the supernatural horrors of H.P Lovecraft.
Exploration is no easy task though, and is complicated further by the complete lack of a map. While a fully detailed environmental map of uncharted territories wouldn’t really make much sense, the absence of even a hand-drawn mini-map to accompany our compass in finding our bearings doesn’t feel like too much to ask, yet no such thing exists here. Those of us with poor sense of direction will often find ourselves wandering aimlessly and hoping for the best.
Still, the missing map feature isn’t the end of the world; it just means total completion and treasure hunting are trickier than first thought. I’m reminded of those awkward times where total mastery of a JRPG required the additional purchase of the official strategy guide, since we’ll absolutely need some help mastering Clair Obscur. It’s fortunate then that this particular journey is absolutely breathtaking from start to finish.
Joys
- Incredibly emotional storytelling
- Fun characters with fantastic voice-work
- Visually stunning from start to finish
Cons
- The lip-synching is all over the place
- No mini-map
