The Review
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 released in April 2025 to widespread critical acclaim and became an instant word-of-mouth phenomenon. Sandfall Interactive, a small French team, built a turn-based RPG where every enemy attack can be dodged or parried in real time - a mechanic that sounds gimmicky but fundamentally transforms how you engage with the combat. Failing a parry isn't just missed damage; it reframes the entire fight.
The world is soaked in melancholy. Each year, a mysterious Paintress writes a number on a monolith, and everyone of that age dies. Expedition 33 is the group sent to stop her. The premise is elegant and the execution is emotionally committed - characters die with weight, and the score by Lorien Testard is among the best in games this decade. The art direction pulls from French Art Nouveau and surrealist painting in ways that feel genuinely novel.
The criticism is largely structural: the back half of the game leans harder into a twist that not every player found satisfying, and some optional boss fights have difficulty spikes that feel poorly calibrated. But these are minor clouds over an extraordinary debut. Expedition 33 is the rare RPG that makes you feel like the genre's possibilities are wider than you remembered.
