You might have heard about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which in 2025 became a breakout hit and won a slew of awards, including Game of the Year at several major shows. This was especially impressive for Sandfall Interactive, a new studio working with a modest AA budget.
Hype vs. Reality: First Impressions
This is one of the things I’d heard about the game before playing it. The other was basically this: it’s a love letter to classic turn-based RPGs and also a major step forward for the genre! The gameplay, story, music, setting, and art are all amazing!
When I hear that kind of praise from my gaming friends and the gaming world at large, my ears perk up. What could make everyone so excited? Can it possibly live up to the hype? Happily, for me, it did live up to my sky-high expectations. I was drawn in by every aspect of the game and tore through it without getting bogged down in a dull grind like often happens at some point, even with good RPGs, like FFVII Rebirth.
Experiencing the Story Without Spoilers
My review below avoids story spoilers because the story is incredibly spoilable at multiple points, and it would be a shame not to experience the intended revelations. But the opening scenario is this: the protagonists live in a literally shattered alternate ~1900 Paris (Lumière) under the shadow of a distant, looming monolith upon which a giant Paintress has scrawled the number 34. Each year, she repaints it one number lower (hence Expedition 33), and bad things happen. Our heroes embark on a desperate journey to stop this, like many doomed compatriots before them.
Combat and Gameplay Innovations
If you have a great story but the gameplay sucks, just make a movie, please; don’t slow it down with crappy play or make me click through all the dialogue. Expedition 33 is turn-based with one major twist: powerful real-time dodging and parrying. Enemy attack animations vary massively in predictability/dodgeability, and occasional special attacks require two alternate dodge/parry types (for a total of four). Dodging is easier than parrying, but offers fewer rewards. This mini-arsenal of reactions makes the enemy’s turn exciting and strategic, incorporating soulslike real-time combat elements into a turn-based system.
For a middle-of-the-road soulslike player like me, the dodge/parry system worked well. I mostly dodged, except against attack animations I felt confident parrying, which gave me a mix of low and high rewards, while my mistakes cost me health and status effects. If dodging is more of a struggle for you, there are options: Story mode, grinding, and/or dodge-avoidant party builds involving tanking, healing, or special perks.
Building Your Party: Customization and Strategy
Several character and party customization systems make a non-dodge playthrough workable: Weapons offer different perks and stat boosts. Leveling up gives points you can apply to five core stats. Character Skill slots offer character-specific power attacks of different power levels (and each character has a signature combat style).
Three Pictos slots per character add other perks or gameplay alterations, and you can use Lumina points to pay for additional Pictos effects beyond the three ‘free’ slots per character. For much of the mid-game, I applied ‘Inverted Affinity’ to my party, gaining a 50% damage boost but causing any healing to become damage instead, a reckless offense-and-dodge-focused approach.
Toward the endgame, I switched to Pictos that add healing when you attack, so I could passively heal without wasting turns. This was great against enemies I had a hard time dodging. And even if characters get KOed, there’s an ecosystem of Pictos options based on gaining benefits at the time of KO or revival. The strategic customization was broad but generally not overwhelming.
Exploration That Rewards Curiosity
There’s also plenty of grinding, but it rarely spams your to-do list, so it feels less like a completionist compulsion than games that prominently list side quests on the journal and map and lure you into a box-checking slog you have to shake yourself out of. Here, I explored side areas out of curiosity and for challenge.
It was a real thrill to go into an overpowered area (with a ‘Danger!’ notice) and dodge/parry my way through a fight I otherwise had no business winning (and reap the rewards). When I was truly out of my league, it was immediately apparent, because enemies got ten turns for every one of mine (based on their Agility stat).
On a gameplay level, the Expedition 33 loop was massively satisfying to me as a fan of turn-based RPGs past and present. This was equaled by the quality of the art and music.
Aesthetic Experience: Art and Music Highlights
My feeds tipped me onto the music long before I played the game, and it quickly won its way onto my workflow playlists. Once I started playing, the mix of classical and hard rock got even deeper in my head, and I found, to my delight, that the devs put out a free (at least on Bandcamp) mini-soundtrack of 22 tracks as a thank you to the fans for the game’s massive success (in addition to the not-free 154-track main soundtrack).
Art and Setting: The art is just as compelling and thematic as the music. The French devs set their game in an alternate Belle Époque world (late 1800s up through WWI), and the horizon is dominated by an invented monolith and an Eiffel Tower frozen mid-melt or explosion. The world’s strangeness clearly follows some (at first) mysterious principles, so everything you see sparks curiosity and offers small clues to the story’s mysteries.
The French historical setting is unusual, interesting, and thematically effective. Beyond that, the world is simply beautiful. For example, the Flying Waters area you visit early on feels underwater, with water bubbles floating up through the air, even as seaweed and shipwrecks sway around you. The enemy and NPC (Gestrals!) designs are similarly inventive, cool-looking, and thematic. The PC designs are good too, but the AA budget stumbles a bit here compared to the nuance of bigger-budget character animations.
The game is fun to play, fun to listen to, and fun to look at throughout, with creativity, thematic relevance, and variety. I also appreciate that it doesn’t overstay its welcome like some bloated open-world RPGs: My playthrough took about 30 hours, with another 30-40 hours of optional material available (but not intrusive).
Narrative Depth and Emotional Impact
Expedition 33’s world and narrative are thoughtful, exciting, original, and moving. The game has at least three points (early, middle, and late) that deliver major twists or revelations, all of which feel earned rather than cheap and are developed meaningfully. The game sticks the landing, too: for days after completing it, I was compelled to reflect on and talk with friends about its implications and what-could-have-beens. If you’re not into dark existential crises, this game may not be for you.
The darkness of this journey is evident from the opening scenario and indeed from the title, French for the artistic technique of contrasting ‘darkness and light’ known in English as chiaroscuro. If a journey through darkness of both character and world isn’t a turnoff for you, though, you’re in for a unique ride.
Expedition 33 is a must-play for fans of turn-based RPGs and anyone who loves inventive storytelling, striking art direction, and a healthy challenge. If you enjoy dark, atmospheric journeys and want a game that rewards strategic play and curiosity, this one belongs on your list.
About the Author
Brandon Perton is the founder of The Old School Game Vault, which has been buying and selling retro video games online since 2008. He writes about classic games, modern releases, and the collections that come through his hands.