Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director Guillaume Broche was beforehand a model improvement supervisor and narrative lead at Ubisoft, however left to discovered Sandfall Interactive in 2020 when he discovered himself “bored” and “eager to do one thing totally different,” as he instructed BBC.
Broche had a hankering for an RPG formed, as co-founder François Meurisse instructed us earlier this 12 months, by a “heritage of JRPGs” like Ultimate Fantasy 7, 8, 9, and 10. For its reactive turn-based fight system, the crew additionally stood on the shoulders of video games like Sekiro, with different systemic bits from deckbuilders added in for texture.
That dreamed-up RPG developed into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the highest-rated new recreation of 2025 (numerically tied with Blue Prince on Metacritic, however with extra critiques solidifying its rating) and a massively profitable debut for Sandfall.
Clair Obscur bought over 1 million copies in three days – an excellent launch for nearly any recreation wanting GTA 6, and particularly so for a brand new, comparatively small studio.
There may be some unfairness within the narrative that every one it’s a must to do to make the sport of the 12 months is depart Ubisoft – Murderer’s Creed Shadows is notably good and doing fairly properly – however there’s additionally no denying that AAA factories like Ubisoft aren’t identified for placing out wild, experimental video games like Clair Obscur.
More and more, refreshing and year-defining hits like Palworld, Balatro, and Astro Bot are discovered outdoors the AAA sphere. Ex-Blizzard dev Chris Kaleiki instructed us earlier this 12 months that the AA recreation house is due for a comeback, because it’s more healthy and infrequently extra enjoyable than making the AAA “colosseum,” and he is not the one one who thinks so. And Broche was clearly “bored” for a motive.
Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida describes Clair Obscur, a $50 recreation, because the “good stability” of AAA constancy and ambition however smart scope, and argues it is “the trail the business ought to be pursuing” as unsustainable manufacturing budgets pile up elsewhere.
Broche tells BBC that a lot of his success comes all the way down to the Covid recreation growth and a few “large luck,” together with some luck in Sandfall’s hiring course of. As one instance, the sport’s lead author was first employed as a voice actor after she “noticed a submit on Reddit” calling for auditions.
“We now have, I believe, a tremendous crew principally of junior folks however they’re so extremely invested within the venture and gifted,” Broche mentioned. “In some way it labored, which nonetheless is mindless to me in any case these years.”
Sq. Enix is “in all probability kicking itself” seeing the success of life like turn-based JRPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, analyst says, after being “reticent to do it with the Ultimate Fantasy collection.”
