Article / News

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Prepares a 2025 Voyage You Won’t Want To Miss

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Artwork of five characters in a battle-torn landscape facing a hunched figure on a stone throne

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is developer Sandfall Interactive’s first game and few companies released information about their original IP this weekend with more of a bang than they did.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33‘s reveal was one of many highlights from the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase that featured names like Dragon Age, Starfield, and Fable. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 draws inspiration from classic fantasy JRPGs as well as action games. Its attempt to set itself a part from the aforementioned titles? A Thanos-like villain that turns swaths of people a certain age into dust and a uniquely immersive, reactive, turn-based battle system.

Below you can find more details including the official reveal trailer, quotes from the creative director, and the first screenshots!

Once a year, the Paintress wakes to paint a cursed number upon her monolith and everyone of that age instantly turns to smoke and fades away. Year by year, that number ticks down. Tomorrow she’ll wake and paint “33.”

Join Gustave, and his fellow Expeditioners as they embark on a desperate quest to break the Paintress’ cycle of death once and for all. Retracing the steps of dozens of failed Expeditions before them, players will overcome powerful enemies and fight to save the future of their world.

Set in a dreamlike world, the story unfolds as fantasy and art converge, backed by an enchanting soundtrack to create a breathtaking story unlike any other. 

“We poured our hearts and souls into creating the game of our dreams, something that would feel fresh and new, so we sincerely hope you will enjoy discovering the world and characters we crafted with love,” said Guillaume Broche, Founder of Sandfall Interactive and Creative Director of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

“With an incredible and epic story, a unique reactive turn-based system, and a vast hand-crafted world to explore, we gave our all to make the journey in ‘Expedition 33’ one that you will never forget. We can’t wait to share more with you as we get closer to release!” 

Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, or ‘Expedition 33,’ is an innovative reactive turn-based RPG with immersive real-time offensive and defensive commands to enhance combat, making battles more engaging than ever.

Players will master their offensive skills and magical abilities, dodge, parry and counter enemy assaults in real time, and target enemy weak points using a ranged free-aim system to overcome seemingly overwhelming odds.

Furthermore, players will be able to customize each character’s unique stat growth, skill tree and gear alongside a wide range of learnable passive traits, offering endless opportunities to fine-tune their preferred strategies. 

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Screenshots

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is slated for a 2025 release on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, and will be a day one Game Pass release.

Take off that Infinity Gauntlet and stay awhile. We’ve got more of the latest gaming showcase news than you can shake a time stone at! So click yourself over to the RPGFan main page and see what other awesome titles are making waves during summer showcase season!

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Kyle Cantelon

Kyle Cantelon

Kyle is just embarking on his main quest at RPGFan and couldn't be more excited to join the team. He discovered the RPGFan community a couple of years ago and, after growing up in Western Canada as a "jock," was thrilled to realize that there were others in the world who learned roman numerals as a teenager thanks to the Final Fantasy series. Contributing to the news team is his main objective at the site and it is his goal to project the confidence of Ron Burgundy while keeping everyone from realizing he might just be Brick Tamland.

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