Hailed as 2025’s first bonafide game-of-the-year candidate, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 released on April 24 from out of absolutely nowhere. More surprisingly, its gameplay and narrative, heavily influenced by Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs), were crafted by a team with little to do with Japan at all.
Developed by French studio Sandfall Interactive, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sets the player in a Belle Epoque-inspired world devastated by an enigmatic apocalypse that annually culls survivors of progressively younger ages. As the game begins, the lone bastion city of Lumiere gathers to bid farewell to all 33-year-old residents as well as Expedition 33, the latest in a long line of doomed task forces charged with traveling to a distant continent where, it’s believed, lies a solution to the deepening crisis.
You’d be right for thinking none of that sounds particularly Japanese, but make no mistake: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a JRPG, a genre that has outstripped the geographical limitations its name might suggest, but it’s quite possibly the best JRPG of the decade to date.
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