The old-school Expedition 33 looks like the turn-based AAA JRPG Square Enix refuses to give me with Final Fantasy, and it's out this April

Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 was an unexpected highlight at last year's Xbox Games Showcase. I was already intrigued, and the big info dump at today's Xbox Developer Director has me downright excited, especially since it looks like French developer Sandfall Interactive is about to deliver the turn-based AAA JRPG that Square Enix refuses to make with Final Fantasy.

You'll be able to pick up Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on April 24, 2025 across PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X. As you might expect from a game so heavily marketed at Xbox events, it will be available day one with Game Pass, as well.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | Release Date Trailer | Developer_Direct 2025 - YouTube

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"Since the day I started working on this project in Unreal engine, I wanted a world map," Guillaume Broche says on the Xbox Wire. “I feel like it’s such a cool thing that has almost completely disappeared from the face of the gaming industry. Like, nobody does that anymore, and for me it was such a crucial and important part of what made the old-school JRPGs unique. It’s this sense of travelling and [indicating that] we are an expedition… and we wanted the player to feel like they’re going on a grand journey."

I'm just glad a game that looks this good and plays this old-school is coming our way in 2025. I've enjoyed most of the modern Final Fantasy games to at least some degree, but you can count me among the many who are disappointed that the series has seemingly fully abandoned turn-based combat in favor of action-based or hybrid systems.

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida said that turn-based combat can be a poor match for graphically detailed games, but I'd argue the success of Baldur's Gate 3 suggests that's not really the case. Regardless of the direction Square Enix goes from here on out, I'm beyond excited that a game that looks as good as Expedition 33 is willing to stick with such old-school game systems.

Check out our guide to all the biggest new games for 2025 and beyond.

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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.