Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 became one of 2025’s biggest surprises, and the team behind it has no interest in playing it safe. In a run of new interviews, the role-playing game’s director pushed back on the idea that games should chase perfection, and argued that its rough edges are there on purpose.
Speaking to PC Gamer, the director did not hold back. “Games that try to be perfect, that try to fix all their flaws, they’re usually just really boring,” he said. This is a small studio openly rejecting the polished, focus-tested feel that so many big-budget releases aim for.
Why the studio backs its rough edges
The point is not that the team got sloppy. It is that personality matters more to them than a spotless checklist. The director compared perfect games to people with no character, technically fine but easy to forget. For Sandfall Interactive, the French studio behind the game, feel comes first.
That thinking carries into how the game plays. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is built on turn-based combat, a style some players still treat as dated. The studio’s lead disagrees strongly. He told GamesRadar that calling turn-based role-playing games “old-school” is “total nonsense,” and said the format is “incredibly satisfying” in a way action combat cannot match.
The results back him up. The game launched in April 2025 and quickly became one of the year’s breakout hits, winning over players and critics who did not expect a debut studio to deliver a role-playing game this assured. If you enjoy story-driven RPGs, our breakdown of Final Fantasy is a good companion read.
A bold next game is already coming
Sandfall is not coasting on that win. According to reports from Eurogamer and Push Square, the studio has already signaled that its next project will take real risks. The team said its follow-up will make some “drastic decisions,” and openly accepted that “maybe people won’t like it.”
That is a rare thing to hear from a studio fresh off a hit. Most teams would run the same formula back. Sandfall sounds more interested in trusting its instincts than guarding a winning streak, which is the same mindset that made Clair Obscur stand out to begin with.
Is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 turn-based? Yes. It uses a turn-based battle system, and the studio has firmly defended that choice as deliberate and satisfying.
Who made Clair Obscur: Expedition 33? It was developed by Sandfall Interactive, a French studio, and released in April 2025.
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