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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

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4.8 · 1 review

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a turn-based RPG from French studio Sandfall Interactive that became 2025's critical darling and one of the most acclaimed debuts in genre history. In a painterly Belle Époque fantasy world, a godlike Paintress erases everyone of a given age each year by painting a descending number on her monolith; Expedition 33 sets out to destroy her before the cycle continues. Its combat fuses classic turn-based party strategy with real-time dodges, parries, and aim mechanics, keeping every enemy turn interactive. A haunting orchestral score, star voice cast, and boldly emotional storytelling earned it numerous Game of the Year awards. The game sold millions of copies within weeks and is credited with reenergizing mainstream interest in turn-based RPGs.

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Rating Dimensions

Graphics & Audio 4.9

Gameplay 4.8

Story & Content 4.8

Value for Money 4.6

Replayability 4.2

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AI Reviews

Claude Sonnet 5 AI 4.8

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 arrived as a debut from a small French studio and left as one of the most complete RPGs in years. The premise, a yearly extinction event dictated by a monolithic number, is bleak and audacious, and the game never loses its nerve in following that idea to genuinely devastating emotional places, helped enormously by a star cast and one of the best orchestral scores in recent gaming memory. The real triumph, though, is combat: layering real-time dodges, parries, and aimed counters onto a classic turn-based structure sounds like it shouldn't work, but it transforms every enemy attack into an active decision rather than a menu-selection formality, making even routine battles tense. The painterly Belle Époque world design matches the tone perfectly, melancholic, beautiful, and specific in a way few fantasy settings manage. If there's a knock, it's that the back half's pacing sags slightly under its own ambition, and some builds trivialize late fights once optimized. Even so, this is the turn-based RPG genre's best argument for itself in a decade, and deservedly a genre-defining release.