Summary
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creative director Guillaume Broche has praised Persona 5's combat visuals and UI.
- Sandfall Interactive tried to put its own spin on Persona 5's combat UI while making Clair Obscur.
- These efforts are still ongoing even today, with Sandfall continuing to work on refining the game's UI a month following its release.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director Guillaume Broche has heaped praise on Persona 5's user interface design, calling it "the best game in the world" in that regard. His comments were offered along with some additional insights into how Atlus's iconic JRPG influenced Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
With a 92 average rating and a 97% reviewer recommendation rate on OpenCritic, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is currently the highest-rated game of 2025. It has received immense praise for a wide variety of elements, including compelling turn-based combat design that's reminiscent of contemporary Persona games, featuring cinematic camera movement and a straightforward UI that maps actions to buttons rather than forcing players to scroll through a menu every time they need to decide whether to attack, use a skill, pull out an item, or perform some other action on their turn.
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In a recent interview with Japanese outlet Denfaminicogamer, Sandfall Interactive CEO Guillaume Broche confirmed that the game's Persona 5 similarities are very much intentional, identifying the 2016 JRPG as part of the "long list" of inspirations that influenced Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Elaborating on this notion, Broche—who served as the game's creative director—called Persona 5 "the best game in the world when it comes to UI and combat visuals," according to Automaton West's translation of the interview. "The way the camera shifts dramatically with each action from the player, making it feel like you’re watching a movie, left a huge impression on me," Broche explained.
Sandfall Is Still Refining Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 UI
Impressed by these qualities, the creative director set out to incorporate Persona 5's combat camera into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but while putting his own spin on it. Sandfall Interactive’s RPG also draws clear inspiration from Persona 5's combat UI. Broche noted he is still not fully satisfied with the interface, explaining there is “so much more” he hopes to incorporate from Persona 5. As a result, the development team is “actually still continuing to refine [the UI] even now,” a month following the game's release, he said.
The way the [Persona 5] camera shifts dramatically with each action from the player, making it feel like you’re watching a movie, left a huge impression on me.
Clair Obscur Was Inspired by Many More Games Besides Persona 5
Speaking of other influences, Broche confirmed that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 consciously drew from a wide variety of iconic JRPGs. That list includes Final Fantasy 6–10 and Lost Odyssey, as well as the Atelier and Suikoden series, among many others.
Clair Obscur Aimed to Borrow, Not Copy
While he cited combat UI as a specific element of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 influenced by Persona 5, Broche said it was difficult to pinpoint exactly how other games shaped Sandfall Interactive’s debut title. That’s largely because his goal wasn’t to copy them, but to borrow some of their ideas and reinterpret them through his own creative lens. He emphasized that directly replicating established mechanics is something he actively avoids, believing such an approach leads only to “inferior copies.”
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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
