In a world where the human lifespan is annually reduced by one year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the bleakest, most hope-devoid gaming experiences I've ever embarked upon. It's also astonishingly camp, peppered with stylistic flourishes and melodrama that might ordinarily distract from said doom-and-gloom.
But I'm glad that it doesn't. By combining JRPG elements with punishing dark fantasy in the vein of Bloodborne, Expedition 33 establishes itself as something new entirely. The effect makes for an incredibly moving, high-stakes story, unflinching from its own darkness rather than masquerading it as something else. I don't think there's ever been a Western RPG like this one, targeting the mechanical strengths of JRPGs while tempering its tone with games like Elden Ring, but I hope it's not the last.
Breaking boundaries
When talking about Western versus Japanese RPG sensibilities, I'm focusing on iconography. Defining features that would usually set each apart, brought together in Clair Obscur to reveal why the jarring tone of JRPGs can so often fall flat for newbies like me.
Having played and loved Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal, I do get the hype to an extent. Party-based combat is a good time, and it's something I grew very much used to after spending the whole of 2024 playing Baldur's Gate 3. But Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is less D&D, more Persona 3.
It features the same sneak-attack system as the Atlus JRPGs, allowing you to go first in the coming battles after cornering an enemy while exploring a much larger and realistic outdoor environment – and with a similar strengths and weaknesses system in place too, I can tell I'm going to have to write up another cheat sheet to keep track of the matchups.
But JRPGs tend to embrace a layer of de-realization. The Persona brand is especially flashy and unserious, a bubblegum-bright onslaught of wide-eyed teenage damsels in short skirts fighting alongside edgy, rail-thin boys while blaring pop tunes evoke dance battles instead of fatal encounters. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but it's interesting that Expedition 33 was inspired by something so tonally… different.
That's because while Sandfall Interactive's debut does sport a lot of Persona traits, right down to an objectively good-looking cast donning sophisticated matching outfits that wouldn't be out of place on a catwalk, it has a stubborn attitude about it.
Goodbye kawaii
With the precise parry and dodge timings in the real-time portions of combat encounters, I have Dark Souls on my mind...
In contrast to the best JRPGs it borrows from, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is deeply confrontational about how miserable it is. The people of Lumiere have found themselves in the most desperate of situations, and after 67 years of failed expeditions, things are looking none the brighter.
While peppy overtones serve as distractions from the inherent darkness of Persona games, Clair Obscur does not let you hide from it. The introduction alone brings up questions of morality – why are people having children and feeding this broken cycle of early death? This is answered with defiance – because someone out there, someday, might actually succeed.
All of this is finally punctuated by Gustave's childhood sweetheart literally disintegrating in his arms while a roaring, elegiac piano mourns her 34th birthday. The stakes have been set, and they are dramatically high.
It's interesting that Expedition 33 was inspired by something so tonally different.
It's the kind of "damned if you do, damned harder if you don't" framing that works so well in the best FromSoftware games. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 presents an overwhelmingly hopeless premise, but you have no choice but to press on in spite of it.
Not only do I see elements of Bloodborne – and Lies of P, to that end – in its tone, I can taste it in the realistic setting. This twisted, Victorian gothic vision of Belle Epoque France is a living nightmare in shades of black, blue, and inky purple, and with the precise parry and dodge timings in the real-time portions of each combat encounter, I have Dark Souls on my mind more often than JRPGs.
It's the most bizarre of comparisons on paper, but in practice, Sandfall has achieved the unthinkable. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 dampens the kitsch of its genre inspo while sacrificing none of the flair, all thanks to the punishment of Soulslikes echoing throughout.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has fast become one of the best games to play in 2025 so far, and there's plenty more besides
