Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a truly remarkable turn based strategy game set in a
Belle Époque inspired fantasy world, replete with some of the most imaginative and engaging adventures and battles that the player gets to experience alongside some of the most believable and often times relatable characters in recent memory.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was developed by Sandfall Interactive, which makes the game all the more impressive as it was created by a team of about 30 people made up partly by former Ubisoft developers, starting its life cycle in Unreal Engine 4 but later being finished in Unreal Engine 5 to take advantage of the higher quality graphical capabilities. Sandfall’s aim was to elevate turn based combat games into the more modern AAA gaming space, inspired by classics like the Final Fantasy and Persona series’, the team at Sandfall found a way to breathe new life into the genre in a way that to me was equal parts unexpected and greatly welcomed.
This game’s combat is ACTIVE! I found myself constantly engaged as battle after battle unfolded, ushering me from one story beat to the next, but rather than hindering the experience of progressing through the world, I found these combat encounters added a certain gravity to the situation I found myself in, but more on that later. I’d like to first talk about the world itself.
The world Sandfall has created is every bit as jaw dropping as the likes of the worlds in Elden Ring or Dark Souls. Clair Obscur features an incredible variety of environments from gorgeous sandy beaches, frigid snowy mountains, and expansive fields and forests painted with every color on the palette, to dark and grim gore filled caverns, cataclysmic ruins of once great cities, and sprawling manors akin to something straight out of a Resident Evil game.
If you don’t like a character’s outfit or haircut, you’re in luck because there are tons of cosmetics to unlock through side quests, relationship building, buying from merchants, defeating powerful bosses, and unlocking through progression, that range from intentionally ridiculous to unironically badass.
The game opens on our starting protagonist, an expeditioner named Gustave; A Robert Pattinson lookalike voiced by Charlie Cox of Marvel’s Daredevil fame. Among the other expeditioners are industry favorites like Ben Starr who voiced Clive in Final Fantasy XVI, and Jennifer English who voiced Shadowheart in Baldur’s Gate 3, as well as many other wonderful performances by a host of talented actors, all of whom only seem to choose to speak French when they’re upset. The lines were read with such believable emotion, the attempts at humor were actually funny and heartwarming at times where they were desperately needed to serve as a break for the player from all of the great tragedies and misfortunes that unfold around them.
This cast of well-realized characters make up the expeditioners who have banded together to once again try and save the world from an event called the “Gommage” which is a French term that essentially means to erase, which is precisely the problem. As the player begins their journey they are informed that there is a godlike woman referred to as the Paintress, who erases anyone from existence over a certain age every single year, and with each Gommage the age decreases one year. By the time the game begins, the residents of Lumière (this game’s fantasy analog for France, complete with its own distorted Eiffel Tower) will be erased by the Paintress if they are over the age of thirty three, hence “Expedition 33.”
The expedition’s mission, and the mission of the expeditions for the previous sixty six years, is to travel across the “the continent” and defeat the Paintress to stop her from erasing anyone else. This mission becomes the player’s central focus throughout the course of the game, though many unexpected events both horrifying and hilarious, will throw the player off course and lead to a fantasy adventure the likes of which many gamers haven’t gotten to experience in quite some time.
How’s the combat? The combat is incredibly fluid, and along with access to the initially overwhelming amount of weapons, buffs, skills, and magical abilities, lends itself to some mind blowing encounters. Often times these encounters leave the party battle damaged, leaving them covered in blood and gore after particularly damaging combat encounters which only adds to the immersion. The animations for each different attack are so unique and varied that I found myself trying out dozens of different skill and weapon combos, as well as organizing my party in such a way that all of their strengths benefited the other members of the team fighting beside them.
In Clair Obscur there are slottable buffs called “Pictos” that grant stat boosts like health and critical chance, while also providing passive bonuses to things like damage to enemies on fire, increased counter-attack damage, and so on. Once a picto is slotted on a party member for four successful fights, it becomes a ‘Lumina” and can now be slotted to any and all characters at the same time if you wish, dependent on if they have enough available Lumina slots (which can be increased with consumables as well as when leveling up). This becomes especially useful with things that increase damage based on elemental types; For example, I used a picto/lumina configuration for a while that gave everyone increased critical chance to burning enemies as well as general damage to enemies that were burning, then outfitted the party with fire element weapons and magic abilities, and watched those damage numbers climb. By the late game I found myself using mostly counter-attack buffs, as most enemies could practically one hit me at the level I was at, but with proper timing and learning enemies’ attack patterns, the game allowed me to dodge, parry, and jump to avoid incoming damage and punish my enemies with righteous critical counters.
This game gives the player tons of freedom to explore new avenues for party builds, as there are plentiful respec items that return all previously spent stat points, and allow the player to alter each characters’ role on the team. Some characters benefit more from speed as this gives them the ability to attack sooner and more often, getting in early debuffs on the enemies, breaking shields, or buffing the team before the remainder of the team has their turn to strike. Other characters should be focused as strict damage dealers or healers, putting stats into might and luck for increased damage and critical chance, or vitality and defense to allow them to tank damage and stay in the fight. Each character is well defined enough that they will each organically fall into a role, but are adaptable enough that when new weapons and Pictos are discovered, they can change the part they play in combat.
My main gripes with this game are similar to those of any game of this ilk. I have never enjoyed farming for experience, which in Clair Obscur isn’t entirely necessary for beating the main story, but it does become more of a necessity when tackling the late game content and NG+. I also don’t like having to fight infinitely respawning monsters when I am backtracking to areas where I’ve already defeated everything, though I know it is necessary in games like this where the player needs enough enemies to kill to level up and so on, but it still irks me no matter how fun the combat is. I had a few bugs and graphical hiccups which were more funny than anything. Those types of issues were few and far between though.
All in all I came away from my time in Clair Obscur with a great sense of wonderment. The game showcased its artistry through a beautiful music score that set the tone for wonderfully realized and varied environments, an innovative combat system that was equal parts fun and challenging, and a masterfully crafted story with some of the best characters I’ve seen in recent years. It was a game for fantasy fans, turn based combat fans, and fans of quality storytelling as a whole, that only seemed interested in doing one thing, being a quality game and a fun experience for the player.
