Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Introduction

Writing this review has been harder than I expected, not because I’m unsure of what to say, but because everything about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 demands to be praised. From the opening moments, it gripped me. By the end, it left me in awe. This isn’t just a promising debut for a new IP; it’s a bold, beautiful redefinition of what a turn-based RPG can be. I’m giving it a 10/10, not lightly, but because it has earned every point.

Many of you will have already read or experienced how Expedition 33 and the fledgling studio behind it, Sandfall Interactive, proudly wear their inspirations across their chests. Quite right too, as not only were all these elements fully realised and felt at home in this new RPG, but the developers found ways to modernise them, making this game fresh and exciting as well as familiar to some of us. I found myself marvelling at this game throughout, from its world and monster designs, to its acting and narrative pacing, all while feeling fully engaged with the game’s deep character building and involved combat system. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a true tour de force, and I want to talk about why.

Premise

For those of you who are unaware of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s premise, here is a quick rundown. After an event known as the Fracture threw this world into chaos, a giant and enigmatic being called the Paintress now sits at the base of a huge monolith. On this structure, the Paintress paints a number, and each year she repaints it but one digit lower, like a countdown. The result of this is that anyone of the age painted is erased from the world. Ever since this started, what is left of humanity has set off on expeditions across the world to stop the Paintress and end the cycle that dooms them to extinction. With the number on the Monolith now repainted to 33, you play as the next Expedition, hoping to finish what those who went before them could not.

What struck me most about Expedition 33’s story wasn’t just its originality, but how confidently it trusts the player to absorb it. This is a game that refuses to over-explain or interrupt your experience with unnecessary exposition. It doesn’t hold your hand or pause for a lecture — instead, it unfolds through atmosphere, action, and inference. You come to understand this world by witnessing it, not by being told how to feel or think about it.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the game’s prologue, set in the city of Lumière, the last bastion of humanity. As Gustave and Maëlle make their way through the streets, you’re introduced to the world not with codex entries or tutorials, but by simply being there. The city is alive with conversation and celebration, and you walk its winding paths, talking with old friends, including Gustave’s former partner, Sophie. It’s peaceful, almost too peaceful, and then the Gommage begins.

The Paintress rises. She repaints the number on the towering Monolith from 34 to 33. And people start to vanish.

Sophie is among them.

It’s a stunning sequence; beautiful, tragic, and delivered with complete narrative confidence. At no point does anyone stop to explain what the Gommage is. Why would they? In this world, it’s common knowledge, so the characters never ask questions purely for the player’s benefit. The moment is left to speak for itself. You’re trusted to feel its weight, to infer the rules of this world from the fallout. It’s sensational, devastating, and a perfect example of how Clair Obscur treats its audience with intelligence and respect.

Themes and World Building

It is a high bar that the game never dipped below during my 50-plus hour playthrough, and it extends to the characters and greater worldbuilding that awaits you after this exemplary prologue. Death defines the world of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but it never dominates it. The presence of the Paintress and her annual Gommage hangs over everything, much like the huge rock shards that float in the sky, a constant reminder of the Fracture, inescapable, but not all-consuming. You’d expect a setting like this to be grim or joyless, yet the opposite is true. Lumière and the wider world feel alive, vibrant, even hopeful.

That duality is everywhere. This is a world shaped by loss but not hollowed out by it, a place where growth persists alongside decay, where light coexists with shadow. Instead of surrendering to despair, its people live with purpose. Life is short, and that knowledge has forged not just fear, but a kind of collective defiance. The characters joke about death, not out of callousness, but because it’s the most familiar thing they know. Sayings like “Tomorrow Comes” or “When one falls, we continue” are spoken, not with solemnity, but with a practiced, defiant hope. There’s levity even in tragedy, because everyone knows the rules of this place. Life is short. People vanish. And still, they press on.

It’s this emotional texture, mournful but never miserable, that gives the world of Clair Obscur its depth. You don’t just explore the remnants of a civilization; you meet people who continue to build lives, make choices, and seek meaning, even as the countdown draws closer to zero. It’s a game about endings, but also about endurance, and the beauty of continuing despite everything.

Characters and Performance

The cast of Expedition 33 also carries that same complexity, a blend of light and dark, each one explored throughout their journey across the Continent. While they are all united in their goals and many of their ideals, they have their unique perspectives and burdens, dreams, and regrets. And the writing never flinches from giving them space to grow, to disagree, to hurt, and to hope.

The strength of the cast lies not only in how they’re written, but in how they’re performed. The voice work throughout is stellar — subtle, expressive, and perfectly in tune with the material. Emotional moments hit not because the script demands it, but because the performances sell it with nuance. There’s a restraint to many of the game’s key scenes that makes them all the more powerful. No one is reading lines at you; they’re speaking to each other, and you’re witnessing it.

I honestly cannot pick a favourite character from the cast, or the relationships that form and grow between them. They all bring something different to the story, and I found myself compelled to learn more about each of them whenever the opportunity arose. Again, this is not explained to the player, but shown to them in moments both great and small. The game trusts its characters — and the player — to connect the dots. And in doing so, it delivers some of the most grounded, affecting character work I’ve seen in a turn-based RPG in years.

That emotional authenticity isn’t limited to dramatic scenes. One of my favourite character moments comes much later, when two characters you meet deeper into the game are reunited. Their interaction plays out with quick, mischievous energy, like siblings who’ve fallen right back into an old rhythm. The dialogue is sharp, but it’s the cadence that sells it: fast, familiar, funny. It’s a brief moment, but one that captures exactly how Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 allows its characters to simply be with each other. Not every exchange needs to be plot-critical or overwrought — sometimes, it’s enough to show warmth, history, and personality in how two people talk. It’s little scenes like this that elevate the entire journey.

Get ready for a gear shift, because we are getting into the mechanics and structure of the game; what you do and how you do it. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has its roots in the traditional JRPG design of turn-based combat, party progression, and third-person exploration, but blends and evolves many of them in exciting and complementary ways.

Just before we get into this section, I want to make it clear that the game is incredibly well paced, especially in how it introduces new mechanics to the player. So, while what is about to follow is a rather lengthy look at the gameplay of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I hope you don’t find it overwhelming. Also, the game does have difficulty options, making it a more approachable experience.

Combat

Combat consists of up to three characters facing off against various enemies with differing attack patterns, strengths, and weaknesses. Each character and enemy acts according to their place in the turn order, which is based on everyone’s Speed stat. On a player character’s turn, they can do a regular attack with the weapon they have equipped, use a support item, or expend a certain amount of AP to perform one of up to six equipped abilities. Understanding how to gain more AP to spend on more powerful abilities is just one part of Expedition 33’s combat system. When using an ability, you will have to press a button at the right time to continue a combo, improve the ability’s effect, or avoid a negative outcome. This active participation during your attacks keeps the player engaged, imbuing a feeling that you had an impact and haven’t just delivered orders to your party.

Enemies can also be “broken” by filling a bar below their health through attacking them. Once they break, they become stunned and receive increased damage from attacks for a few turns.

Each character has their own playstyle that, when mastered, allows players to make incredible builds, dealing incredible damage or providing infinite healing. For example, Lune is the party’s magic wielder, using a floating charm as her weapon as she hovers a few feet off the ground. Using one of her abilities will give her at least one elemental Stain, from fire, ice, earth, lightning, light, and dark. She can have up to four Stains active, and they can be spent when using other abilities to enhance them. This is just one of the unique systems each character has, and I found getting to grips with each, to the point of having my party work cohesively as one to devastating effect, incredibly rewarding.

Of course, your enemies aren’t just going to stand there and take a pummeling, but you’re not a sitting duck, either. During an enemy’s turn, you’re given the chance to time a dodge to avoid incoming damage. Time it perfectly and you’ll glide out of harm’s way, but mistime it and you’ll eat the hit. Even better is the parry system, which lets you tap a button at the moment of impact to not only negate the damage, but if you successfully parry every hit in an enemy’s combo, you return the favour with a satisfying counterattack. It turns what would otherwise be passive defence into a thrilling, skill-based gamble that makes every enemy encounter feel personal.

On top of all that, each character has a free-aim ranged attack that can be used to hit specific enemy weak points — sometimes high on their body, sometimes hidden — or reach flying enemies who are otherwise out of melee range. This again gives you active control within your turn, especially in fights where picking off weak points can disrupt charging attacks or stagger foes before they unleash devastating abilities.

I’ll stop there and let people discover some of the more bombastic elements for themselves, but it’s safe to say that all of the combat in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn’t just layered — it’s alive. It demands focus, rewards experimentation, and constantly gives you new ways to engage with your party’s tools. I often found myself planning several moves ahead while also staying alert for the moment-to-moment input challenges. Whether it was stacking elemental Stains with Lune, switching Maelle to a particular Stance, or chaining together team-wide buffs and heals, I was never just issuing commands; I was executing a plan in motion, and it felt great.

Progression

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s progression systems are also full of opportunities for deep character customisation, letting you create the perfect party for any encounter. Characters level up once they have gained enough experience points from battles, rewarding them with 3 stat points a level to be allocated across their Vitality, Attack, Speed, Defense, and Luck. They also earn one ability point, which is used to unlock more abilities on a unique skill tree for each character, giving more options for ability loadouts. I can only imagine the number of ability loadouts that people have already found, and relish every time I discover another potent combination.

Each character has a weapon of choice, like Lune’s charm, and throughout your playthrough, you are likely to find several to choose from, all bestowed with different elements and perks. Weapons can be upgraded using certain resources found in the world or earned through combat, improving their damage and unlocking perks at certain weapon levels. Each weapon has its pros and sometimes cons, and many of their perks can be crucial to completing a character build.

But the most interesting and exciting element of progression to me is the Picto/Lumina system. Each character can equip up to 3 Pictos, buffs that can be found and earned throughout Expedition 33. These can have up to two stat increases, improving a character’s health, critical hit chance, speed, and more. Along with these stat boosts, each Picto applies its buff to that character, which further broadens character build options. However, it doesn’t stop there. After having the Picto equipped for several battles, the Picto is mastered, allowing every party member to equip the Picto without using up a Picto slot. How is this done, you ask? Using Lumina, a currency that lets each character equip Pictos they have mastered until all their Lumina is allocated. One Lumina point is earned per level, but it can also be found in the world, so you want to find as much of it as you can to equip more Picto buffs to your party.

I will admit that my fondness for this system stems from my love of Final Fantasy IX, which had a very similar, albeit simpler, system compared to Expedition 33’s Pictos and Lumina. It’s this evolution of mechanics that is so impressive, not just the amalgamation of multiple inspirations. While people may have been put off during the game’s marketing, seeing huge lists of buffs to equip, you won’t have that many until much later in the game. The team at Sandfall Interactive is not ignorant of the fact that a lot of these mechanics will be new to people, and has made sure to make them approachable and something you want to engage with.

Exploration

You spend most of your time exploring meticulously crafted regions, filled with imaginative points of interest, side areas to investigate, items to pick up, and monsters called Nevrons wandering the environment. Expedition flags left by previous attempts to take down the Paintress act as rest stops where you can heal your party and refill your support items, spend stat points, and unlock new abilities. Expedition 33 makes exploring these areas rewarding, and you would do right to veer off the main trail. Sometimes you may stumble across an enemy far too powerful to take on at that moment in time, but you can always come back later; the game gives you that choice. You will also visit small regions that consist of a single area with a fixed camera. They are another wonderful throwback to classic JRPGs, like little dioramas, often striking in their design and containing a special item or collectible to pick up.

I am sure many of you have already seen the online discourse about the lack of a mini-map, and I’ll just say this: people want a mini-map for familiarity, not because it will make the game better. I find it hard to believe that people are getting “lost” in these environments, at least to the point where it negatively affects the experience. No region is so large that you can be going the wrong way for longer than 20 seconds before realizing your mistake. Maybe it’s because I spent so much time stopping to look around and take in my surroundings, but I never felt the need for more UI to show me where I was going.

All these regions are spread across a vast and immersive world map, something the developers were very excited to share during the game’s marketing build-up. It’s another staple of the JRPG genre, and stands as evidence of the team’s creativity and vision. You start out only able to walk on dry land, but once you meet a certain character and progress in the story, you unlock more traversal options such as swimming across oceans, and eventually flying in the game’s final act. These abilities are handled brilliantly, awarded to the player at the appropriate times to open up the game and offer more exploration and side content. By the end of the game, nearly the whole map is accessible, offering huge amounts of worthwhile endgame content, which I am still discovering and enjoying even after finishing the story.

From the world map, you can visit the expedition’s camp to rest up and listen to the music records you have found along your journey. You can also talk with members of the party, gaining more insight into each character as their relationships develop and bonds grow. It’s a lovely repose, a period of downtime to relax, the Monolith looming on the horizon.

Visuals

The world, characters, and creatures of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are bursting with creativity and panache. Every design feels intentional, not just visually striking, but cohesive within the world’s dreamlike logic. There’s a level of consistency across environments, costumes, and character models that speaks to deep artistic direction, the kind where no visual feels like an afterthought. Each region has its own surreal identity, layered with painterly flourishes and strange architecture, all unified by a sense of melancholic beauty.

Your party members, for example, wear outfits that feel like curated ensembles tailored not just for battle, but to express their histories and personalities. Their silhouettes are strong, distinct, and their gear always feels like something they chose to wear, not just fantasy cosplay. In contrast, the Gestrals are a race of flamboyant, living dolls. They sport expressive masks, exaggerated proportions, and tufts of wiry hair, making them feel both eerie and endearing. Their designs are as unruly as their personalities, bursting with colour and attitude.

Enemy designs range from the sinister to the surreal, and sometimes even the downright goofy, often mixing elegance with the grotesque. You’ll encounter monsters that look like walking nightmares, corrupted mannequins, and absurd creatures that wouldn’t be out of place in a fever dream. But even the silliest foes feel deliberate, like they belong in this fractured world of distorted reality.

It’s not just the designs themselves that impress, but how they move and react. Animations throughout Expedition 33 are fluid and expressive, whether it’s a subtle shift in posture during dialogue or a flourish of a weapon in battle. Characters feel alive, grounded by believable weight and motion that bring nuance to both cutscenes and exploration. Combat, in particular, is a visual feast. Each ability is paired with vivid particle effects and impactful animations that offer clear, satisfying feedback. Explosions of elemental energy, trails of light, and bursts of colour help communicate not only power, but intention, making every action feel responsive and rewarding. It’s a vital part of what keeps combat so engaging — you’re not just watching numbers go up, you’re feeling the impact of your decisions.

Sound

Like with the game’s visuals, the sound design heightens every movement, especially in combat. Every blast of magical power, slash with a blade, or well-timed parry is accompanied by a satisfying aural flourish.

Finally, the music. Oh, the music! Expedition 33’s entire soundtrack has just as much character and expression as the rest of the game. From the quiet melodies that follow you through regions, the various explosive battle themes, to the epic orchestral scores that elevate the game’s cutscenes to these monumental moments. There is a wealth of styles and genres as well, to the point where I am still hearing new songs from the game’s soundtrack. I don’t think I’m rocking the boat too much when I say the track Lumiere will be the song of 2025.

Conclusion

Funnily enough, I have Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to thank for helping me understand what a 10/10 game truly means to me. It’s not just about technical excellence or hitting every mark — it’s about a game that defines its genre, that lingers in your thoughts long after the credits roll, that you name without hesitation when someone asks, “What’s a great video game?”

I firmly believe Expedition 33 is the new gold standard for the JRPG. Across every facet, from its mechanical design and narrative confidence to its striking art direction and masterful score, Sandfall Interactive has crafted something truly special. This isn’t just a promising debut; it’s a genre-defining work that I believe will shape game design for years to come.

It is, without reservation, a masterpiece — and one of my favourite video games of all time.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was reviewed on Xbox Series X via Game Pass.