Summary
- The Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 team was “assembled in very random ways,” according to its director.
- During development, the team embraced “stupid ideas” to see how they played out.
- Sandfall Interactive was mostly formed by juniors, and the studio encourages input from everyone on the team, regardless of experience.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director Guillaume Broche compared the game’s development team to an “RPG party” because its different members were “assembled together in very random ways,” and explained that a big part of the studio workflow is thinking about “stupid ideas.” Instead of an all-star team of renowned people in the industry, Sandfall Interactive started working mostly with juniors, which ended up playing out really well, as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the biggest surprises of 2025.
Released on April 24, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 became a massive success in less than a month, selling more than 2 million copies and receiving a wave of positive comments from players and critics alike. The game is a turn-based role-playing game—available on PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S—set in a dark fantasy world inspired by Belle Epoque France. Its obscure and captivating story, combined with a hybrid combat system where players can dodge, parry, and time attacks during enemy turns, has made it one of the highest-rated games of 2025. Now, the game’s director has shared some interesting details about the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 journey.
The True Hero of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Isn't Who You Think
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 leaves a lot of its story open to interpretation, and that especially includes who the true hero of the narrative is.
In an interview with Pirate Software, game director Guillaume Broche shared details on the development workflow and the particular way in which the team came together to create the massively popular Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. According to Broche, the process was pretty straightforward: “I just send a mail to someone, and this person instantly says, okay,” explained the director, while comparing the studio to an RPG party. He said that the team came to be in random ways and revealed that most of them were juniors whose first big project was Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, such as the lead writer, who was found via a Reddit audition for voice actors.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Was Built on 'Stupid Ideas'
But how the team was assembled is not the only interesting aspect of Sandfall. Broche explained that the ideas for the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 mechanics and content came from thinking “about stupid ideas.” During lunch, the team gathers and comes up with tons of “silly” ideas that they just try out to see how they work. That's “our best way of making cool content,” stated Broche, and it has turned out well for Sandfall so far.
This flexible approach, Broche emphasized, allows anybody with a fun idea to try it out and see what happens once it's added to the game. “We are super open to everybody's ideas,” said Broche, adding that Sandfall allows every team member to put their personal touch on the game. For now, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has no plans for DLC or new content, though Sandfall has said players should expect further improvements to the base game.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 92 /100 Critics Rec: 97%
- Released
- April 24, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Sandfall Interactive
- Publisher(s)
- Kepler Interactive
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Genre(s)
- Turn-Based RPG, JRPG, Fantasy
