Review | Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - A Journey Unlike Any Other

There’s something almost intangible about how good Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 actually is. It feels like an anomaly, a game that slipped into our hands from another universe, and it certainly makes an impression as the debut game for Sandfall Interactive. There’s a bold creative vision here that does far more than pay homage to genre titans; it blazes its own trail in a way that I could have never expected. It takes the nexus of so many that came before it and manages to do so without ever feeling lacking in its own identity — from the outset, Expedition 33 sets out to deliver a game that’s uniquely mature and not drowning in melodrama. It’s a fabulous achievement and a testament to the importance of creativity and the drive to create something new, and it’s sat with me for days since finishing the main story. 

You take control of the titular Expedition 33 on their quest to kill the Paintress and stop the encroaching threat of the Gommage. Every year, the Paintress erases her number and reduces it by one, leading to the death of anyone who is that old. At the start of the game, this changes from 34 to the all-important 33.  Expedition 33 wastes no time in situating the player in the grim reality that the citizens of Lumiere find themselves trapped within; during the prologue, each facet of the game’s universe is put to the test and explored. Most notably, conversations about the ethics of bringing children into a world where they might barely live to see their teenage years begin. Despite the fantastical and gorgeously abstract interpretation of Paris, there’s a gritty reality here that captured my attention early on.

This foreboding sense of mortality punctuates the entire narrative and hangs over you constantly, yet it avoids feeling truly overwhelming and stifling.  The world of Expedition 33 is one that invites you to explore and lose yourself within it, with just as much hope as there is despair. It’s a delicate balance that is maintained throughout the opening stanza of the game and well beyond into its latter portions.  Each character reacts believably to the fantastical world around them, and I found myself getting wrapped up in each of their struggles. The cast of Expedition 33 aren’t one-trick ponies; each one is complex and has deep personal connections to the expedition that are uncovered throughout the journey.

The story of Expedition 33 is full of twists that constantly have you rethinking the truth of what you’re actually seeing, and it’s simultaneously a blessing and a curse. I can’t begrudge a game for having ambitious ideas in its storytelling, but Expedition 33 teeters on overwhelming at points in how readily it pulls the rug from underneath the player as it upends the script. Despite this, everything is intentionally placed for effect. There isn’t a part of this game that feels like a second thought, even if it might seem so at a glance. Even if the story veers off in wild directions, the foundation built early on is essential to the theme Expedition 33 is trying to highlight. This is a love letter to the greater RPG genre and the way that we as audiences embrace them into our lives.  

The concepts at play here are timely; our dependence on art during times of strife as a form of escapism is something that many are reliant on at the moment, and this game sets out to explore the broader implications of that relationship. 

You can’t talk about Expedition 33 and not discuss the groundbreaking performances of everyone in the cast. All of the actors let loose with their characters across both high-intensity and intimate conversations that demonstrate an enviable range. Worthy of particular praise in my eyes is Jennifer English as Maelle, who many will recognise as the voice of Shadowheart from Baldur’s Gate 3. But that would be a disservice to every other talent on this cast, who manage to express the nuance of their characters while still being engaging and thoroughly entertaining throughout. Charlie Cox is a particular highlight as Gustave, whose earnest yet mature attitude to the journey grounds the expedition in reality.

More than other games I’ve played in recent memory, Expedition 33 marries its narrative and gameplay in a union that strengthens itself constantly. Each main area of the game unfolds in a pretty linear fashion, with a defined beginning and end. Dotted throughout each area are flags from previous expeditions, which remind you that these roads have been well-travelled before. Each area is host to secret encounters and items to uncover should you go off the beaten track, but each area largely leads you down a pretty straightforward path. 

More than just serving the function of a checkpoint, the flags lend the feeling of cohesion to a world that otherwise leans into the abstract; each flag indicates that there’s a story to tell, a story that you can often find through the classic audio log. With the knowledge that each one is the chronicle of a failed expedition before you, some of them were particularly nasty.  

These linear areas are stitched together by a classic RPG overworld, where scale is thrown out the window as you explore a diorama-esque representation of the greater continent, navigating enemies and steadily unlocking the ability to traverse to places you hadn’t previously. It’s a very traditional way of making progress, yet it feels totally right in Expedition 33, and made me realise just how much I miss being able to cross a world map in just a few minutes rather than recreating the thing to scale. 

The world of Expedition 33 is a hostile one that has hardly been tamed by the brave people who went out in vain; we’re just lucky enough to use the fruits of their labour and learn some of their stories without meeting them ourselves. It reminds us that the world is far bigger than just the one we experience. 

In an interesting choice, there’s no minimap to guide you through these areas as you go, instead forcing you to rely on your own sense of direction to discover secrets and hidden nooks. Initially, this was something that I got frustrated with; I was worried that I was missing key items and losing out on upgrades. Admittedly, this fear comes from me being far too used to games that do spell out their areas and signpost their secrets. Expedition 33 wants you to not only go through the world, but explore and learn about it, and the lack of a map means that you’re constantly surveying your surroundings to find the way forward. 

This occasionally led me to running around in circles for a few minutes at a time or encountering enemies who were much higher level than my party, but I told myself that this was the right way to learn. I still sometimes felt the itch for convenience, though. 

Each area is themed around a totally unique aesthetic that goes well beyond the standard RPG fare of “forest”, “ancient dungeon”, “city” and digs deep into the painterly aesthetic to deliver some truly exciting locales. One of the very first areas you go to is a riff on the classic “water level”, where you find yourself at the bottom of an ocean, looking up to see various wreckages above you, with an accompanying score that’s defined by almost sonar-like instrumentation. 

To call Expedition 33 a visually striking game would be the understatement of the century, but these visuals are supported by a soundtrack that has quickly made a mark in my daily playlist. It manages to take a cultural heritage and translate it into a distinctive soundtrack that has been a more than adequate backdrop to writing this review. It’s that good. Lorien Testard’s debut work on this game is unprecedented and is just another facet of why it’s so special in the first place. Atmospheric environmental scores and impactful combat tracks are punctuated by haunting vocals that lend a truly unique identity that I’d never experienced quite like this. This is an all-timer soundtrack. 

For how visually stunning these areas are, it’s the battle system of Expedition 33 is where the game truly comes into its own as an astonishing new experience, and one that has quickly become a favourite of mine. It takes the bombastic UI-stylings of modern Persona, the action-command system of Super Mario RPG (and other games in the Mario RPG subseries), and the turn forecast of Final Fantasy X to make for something truly unique.  You’re given an immense amount of control and agency over the battles you fight throughout Expedition 33, and it truly feels like you’re the one dictating your chances of victory, rather than RNG or luck.

According to the turn forecast on the left of the screen, turns play out at your pace. You have access to a base set of actions that are consistent for each character. You can make use of a replenishing stock of items, aim at specific weak points on an enemy, or spend Action Points (AP) to use a character-specific skill. If you’re familiar with the RPG genre, this foundation will feel familiar to you. Where Expedition 33 manages to subvert expectations is within the action-oriented dodging and parry system. 

The parry and dodge system means that you’re always engaged with the battle at hand. You’re situated in the arena you fight in, and you’re paying attention to the way your enemies move in order to land the perfect parry to counterattack and deal massive damage. For enemies you’ve just come across, you might prefer to use the more forgiving dodge manoeuvre, giving you more room for error at the cost of not being able to counter. In a series of attacks, you’ll sometimes have to parry upwards of 5 individual strikes to land just a single counter, so you’ll be constantly weighing up the risk of going for the extra damage against surviving to the next turn. Each successful parry gives you one more point to spend on actions, so you’re encouraged to gently ease into parrying enemies where you can to give yourself an edge on your own turn. 

On the base “Expeditioner” difficulty (the equivalent of Normal), I could feasibly get through the game without much need to parry absolutely everything and still do perfectly fine. On the highest difficulty, however, it becomes a requirement to survive even one turn in some battles. Memorisation is key, and you’ll inevitably get the hang of how enemies move. As someone who notoriously struggles with most parry systems (and even struggled with this game in the early hours), I found myself sometimes parrying upwards of seven attacks in a row with enemies I had never encountered. 

Parrying and dodging are a vital part of succeeding in battle, but under the hood, Expedition 33 hides one of the most granular customisation systems that I’ve seen in an RPG of this type. It takes the same fabric as the Final Fantasy VII Materia system, dials it up to the max, and practically challenges you to snap the game in half as soon as you possibly can. Pictos effectively fulfil the role of “equipment” in the ecosystem of Expedition 33, with each one offering significant buffs to attributes that are clearly listed. As well as flat stat buffs, each Pictos offers a unique ability that is specific to it and the character you initially equip it to. These are where the potential for unique builds come in. Some Pictos emphasise only having one person in the active party, increasing defence when they’re the last stand. Others add extra hits onto your basic attacks and therefore increase your ability to save up AP for special skills. 

After four battles with a Pictos equipped, that ability then becomes available to every member of the Expedition, with the use of Lumina points. You steadily collect items to increase your Lumina budget throughout the game, and each ability comes with a specific cost; you’re encouraged to experiment and really create synergy where you can. While early game builds may be slightly limited, they fan out into some seriously cool customisation that puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to breaking the mechanics. It’s a testament to how well thought-out this system is when you can end up beating bosses in one turn if you stack buffs right and play cleverly. 

Each member of your main party has their own speciality when it comes to their initial loadout. Lune is your given “mage” archetype, with access to various elemental abilities that feed into one another to increase damage output through “stains”. Maelle is a character who goes through various “stances” that impact her attributes. “Offensive Stance” puts emphasis on dishing out damage while leaving herself vulnerable to attacks, while “Defensive Stance” is built around building up for bigger offensives in subsequent turns. Her character is built around applying plenty of burn stacks and slipping into “Virtuoso Stance”, which immediately increases her damage by 200%, before any other buffs. She’s a glass cannon by definition, and she’s deeply rewarding to build your party around as a result.

What I’m trying to get at is that Expedition 33 respects your intelligence and gives you the agency to play how you like, and beat the game as you like. If I had to dock the game for anything, it would be just a slight lack of transparency when it comes to higher-level challenges. Despite having a pretty robust levelling system, it’s never properly explained how dangerous particular areas are before you go in. You’ll frequently discover that your most powerful party member can barely make a dent in an enemy's health bar before they smear you across the battlefield in a single blow.

While it’s easy enough to reload your previous autosave, I would have preferred a bit more of a heads-up than a “danger” flag on the game’s overworld. More than once, I kept myself away from new areas, totally in the dark about how strong I should actually be before attempting to enter them. It’s frustrating.  

Act One Spoilers Ahead:

My main gripe with Expedition 33 comes down to small things that seemingly undermine the wonderful world that Sandfall Interactive have created. There are some truly standout moments throughout that end up feeling suffocated by the game pushing an even bigger moment just a few hours later. Talking early game spoilers, the death of the protagonist is treated like a shock, and is clearly meant to shake the foundation of your experience.  

It clearly evokes the death of Aerith Gainsborough, but it falls short in one key aspect. Gustave is utterly and completely replaced by Verso within the same cutscene, a character that almost totally eclipses him in both narrative importance and gameplay strength. You never get the chance to feel the loss, thanks to how Verso emerges as almost an identical archetype with a marginally different battle gimmick. Unlike Aerith, who is mechanically irreplaceable in the game she dies in, Gustave is the total opposite.

For a game about the weight of loss and the tragedy of death, this was a moment that managed to undercut its own potential for impact. Expedition 33 spends hours setting up an emotional blow, only to turn its attention to New Gustave two minutes later.  

For how well Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 manages to present itself, and how ambitious it is with its story, it feels like the game is close to bursting at the seams with the themes it's playing with. I see the vision of a team who have been desperate to say everything they possibly can, and I can’t help but wonder if they get close to trying to say a bit too much. 

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swings big and aims for the fences, and lands it the vast majority of the time. Mechanically speaking, the game is a marvel. The battle system is rich, layered and positively begging for players to get creative with builds. And while the story is similarly rich, I couldn’t help but feel like it overreaches at times, crowding out moments that deserved just that bit more space to breathe. 

What’s here is ambitious, and it’s written very well. I just wish the game was a bit confident in letting its quiet parts really breathe. In the fine details, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 shines. In an ironic twist of fate - and maybe in an intentional confrontation of its themes - it was these fine details that I wanted to enjoy the most. The disruption to these details throughout the main story feels intrusive, and I sit here thinking, “Was that the point”? 

As I sit staring at a mirror, thinking about my own relationship to wanting to escape into fiction. Maybe that’s what I should be feeling? Maybe that’s the true genius of Expedition 33.  An intentional disruption of its own fiction to share a bigger story. 

This is a game that will leave a mark and will be discussed for years, there’s no denying that. It isn’t flawless, but it’s utterly singular.