One of our most-anticipated JRPGs for 2025 was being made "just for fun in the beginning" and "everybody was working for free"

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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has scrappy origins

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
(Image credit: Sandfall Interactive)

JRPG love letter Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is coming in hot next year with a full release that looks on par with plenty of other AAA games, though its origins are far more indie.

Speaking to Edge in issue 404 (on sale now), creative director Guillaume Broche recalls writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen joining very early on as a voice actress before quickly becoming a co-writer and lead writer. "Then it built very organically - just for fun in the beginning. Everybody was working for free," he says.

Thankfully, once the team settled, they raised the funds to create a vertical slice that secured them a publisher in Kepler Interactive, "who generously gave us enough money to finish the game."

Since its reveal, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has continued to grab eyes – mine especially – for a few reasons. At first, it was the impressive level of graphics slapped atop a turn-based RPG because, hey, as Persona frequently shows, being modern doesn't have to mean leaving that combat style behind. It also has oodles of vocal talent, from Daredevil himself, Charlie Cox, to mocap magician Andy Serkis.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creative director put parrying in his turn-based RPG after playing Sekiro and thinking "Why can't I parry in my game?"

Iain Harris
Iain Harris
News Editor, Games

I joined GamesRadar+ in May 2022 following stints at PCGamesN and PocketGamer.Biz, with some freelance for Kotaku UK, RockPaperShotgun, and VG24/7 thrown in for good measure. When I'm not running the news team on the games side, you'll find me putting News Editor duties to one side to play the hottest JRPG of 20 years ago or pillaging the depths of Final Fantasy 14 for a swanky new cloak – the more colourful, the better.