Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an upcoming turn-based RPG by French studio Sandfall Interactive. Main as much as it April 24 launch, recreation producer and studio co-founder François Meurisse spoke about among the video games that have been influential in designing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Chatting with GamesRadar at GDC 2025, Meurisse revealed that early Closing Fantasy video games, together with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice have been big sources of inspiration.
Whereas the turn-based fight of the sport being impressed by among the earlier Closing Fantasy titles is perhaps fairly apparent, the Sekiro affect is available in close to how Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 handles the participant’s defensive choices. Gamers can time button presses with the intention to parry incoming assaults, primarily turning the sport right into a turn-based tackle Sekiro‘s parry-centric gameplay.
“These are massive childhood video games for Guillaume [Broche], our recreation director,” Meurisse mentioned, speaking about Closing Fantasy 7, 8, 9, and 10. “He wished to have like form of feeling that he imagined would have remained in fashionable Closing Fantasy-like video games, if that they had saved doing turn-based stuff. However he blended additionally a lot of totally different inspirations. Undoubtedly Closing Fantasy and JRPGs are the preeminent gameplay heritage now we have. The protection system is extra impressed by Sekiro and From Software program video games. It has this type of rhythm ingredient and a extra real-time part in it. Extra skill-based.”
Meurisse additionally spoke about different inspirations, together with from indie deckbuilding video games that make use of distinctive mechanics, just like the strict constraints on mana that can be utilized to play playing cards in indie card-based roguelite title Slay the Spire, for instance.
“There are additionally a lot of totally different smaller inspirations,” mentioned Meurisse. “For instance, the thought of getting motion factors for expertise within the battles is extra impressed by deckbuilding video games than having the same old like magic factors scores or mana in RPGs.”
Whereas video games by Japanese builders might have had an enormous affect on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on the gameplay facet of issues, in terms of visuals and aesthetics, Meurisse mentioned that the studio didn’t wish to mimic anime or manga artwork types.
“The gameplay is from a heritage of JRPGs, however from the very starting, we wished to make our personal recreation with our personal artwork inspiration,” Meurisse defined. “On the artwork fashion particularly, we didn’t wish to mimic Japanese video games, making extra stylized manga-like or anime-like graphics. We wished to make some artwork path that was based mostly on our personal affect. That’s how we got here up to do that early twentieth century Belle Époque inspiration with artwork deco parts blended with excessive fantasy. We had just a few iteration on that to attempt to discover our personal uniqueness within the artwork, but it surely actually helped us to construct our personal distinction.”
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Sequence X/S. PC gamers which might be curious concerning the recreation can try the PC necessities that have been revealed again in January. Within the meantime, try the newest trailer from earlier this month that showcases one of many recreation’s characters, Gustave, who additionally occurs to be voiced by Charlie Cox of Daredevil fame.
