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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 players face a gommage of their own as the French JRPG's update makes its hardest bosses even nastier: "I had to figure out how to parry attacks on the hardware level"

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By Anthony McGlynn published 16 December 2025

Sandfall Interactive is really testing seasoned expeditioners

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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lead Gustave faces a gommage
(Image credit: Sandfall Interactive)
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Fresh from winning a record number of awards at The Game Awards, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 just got an update for experienced players. Reworked bosses and a new area were added to the RPG, and if you were looking for a challenge, you’ll find one, because these fights are taking a toll.

The Thank You Update takes encounters from Clair Obscur's main game and tweaks and buffs them, with the battles ultimately "designed to be even more challenging," say the patch notes. This may be underselling what developer Sandfall Interactive has done here, since the likes of the Doullistes, Lampmaster, and Simon are basically gommaging seasoned expeditioners.

"It took me 20 hours to beat them all," writes one commenter on Reddit. "A quarter of it was that bitchass Lampmaster, another quarter for Duolliste, and then 10 whole hours for fucking Clea because her attacks destroyed my fps and I had to figure out how to parry attacks on the hardware level."

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  • Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 screenshot of Verso, a man with black hair with white streaks running through his fringe Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 update nerfs the "hardest boss" of Verso's Drafts - a little red lifebuoy
  • An RPG party strolls through a whimsically colorful fantasy landscape. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's new update is loaded with JRPG references
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | Thank You Update Trailer - YouTube Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | Thank You Update Trailer - YouTube
Watch On

Parrying is a theme among complaints, as bosses are now faster and more powerful to the point you need to utilize every defensive opportunity available, in some cases altering people’s playstyles entirely.

"Now not only does Simon invalidate a whole defensive playstyle in shields but breaking him fast causes him to go invulnerable," another commenter writes. "You are basically forced to learn his parries and thus the final superboss of this RPG is no longer a superboss in an RPG but a superboss in a rhythm game."

The amount of stamina and endurance needed is aggravating those who already found some fights a chore. "Sadly they decided to give each of [the Doulliste's] turns like a 20 hit long combos and sometimes the boss gets multiple turns in a row," a Redditor adds, "so have fun potentially parrying 20 - 60 attacks before getting to play yourself, on top of the boss already being tanky AF."

But even in the few days since this update went live, players have managed to conquer these buffed monstrosities, meaning there's hope yet. If that sounds too stressful though, you can just jump into the photo mode either.

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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 player boosts Maelle's damage by over 1 billion during the game’s toughest boss with new post-update build: "The Queen of damage is back”

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Anthony McGlynn
Anthony McGlynn
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Contributing Writer

Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.

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An RPG party strolls through a whimsically colorful fantasy landscape.
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