Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review: Until the end of the world

We find art when we’re meant to; the right thing, created by the right people, at the right time, can pass into the hands of someone who needs it most. What happens next varies; it can remind you of a love you’d thought lost, light the path to new discovery, and alter the way you think. Art can make us feel seen. It can restore a piece of our soul. The video game industry, particularly now, particularly in the AAA space, doesn’t make much art like this anymore. Instead, games are focus-tested until anything interesting is sanded down or smoothed off, designed not to offend, to appeal to everyone and please no one, engineered to keep us addicted and ready to open our wallets at the sight of the next set of jingling keys. The industry is Pavlov, and we are his dog. And then you find one that surprises you, that is unique and utterly assured of itself, and inspires our curiosity. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of those games, the kind that pulls you out of the dark and rekindles belief in the form. And I cannot tell you how much I needed it now, in this moment in time.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s setup immediately demands your attention. 67 years ago, an event called the Fracture broke the world and flung Lumiere into the sea. With the Fracture came the Paintress. Each year, the Paintress awakens and paints a number. When she does, everyone of that age turns to dust in an event called the Gommage. Each year, the number gets one lower. And each year, Lumiere sends a volunteer Expedition of people with one year left to live on an impossible mission with one goal: to go to The Continent across the sea and kill the Paintress so she can never paint death again.

Expedition 33’s opening is a story of loss. Gustave, who is about to head out on Expedition 33, spends the day with Sophie, who will die when the Paintress wakes that night and paints her next number. They loved each other, but could never agree on whether or not to bring children into a world like this, and split up, to their mutual regret. Now, they’re out of time.

Last evenings on Earth

As you walk through Lumiere together, you begin to understand the cost of the Gommage. Friends and lovers struggle with their goodbyes. Parents prepare their young children for lives without them, and those children prepare to spend their lives with guardians, if they’re lucky, and in an orphanage if they’re not. Some get drunk to deal with the pain. Others dedicate themselves to small moments of service. Finishing a painting. Delivering a uniform. Friends ask one another for help for the last time. Those about to have their Gommage wear necklaces and crowns of flowers given by people close to them. When those set to Gommage pass, the air is full of flowers and dust. It’s strangely beautiful.

Openings like this don’t always work, but Expedition 33’s is slow enough to give you time to absorb what’s happening to these characters and to appreciate the scale of the loss they’re about to endure. Every death is a tragedy, the death of a world, a secret language shared between a few people, a closing of possibilities. One is hard enough; how do you deal with a whole city, still broken from the Fracture, dying young, all at once, every year? How do you absorb that much grief without breaking yourself? Can you? And what do you become if you can? By the end, you understand Gustave’s need to volunteer for Expedition 33, and those who are angry with him for going, and Maelle, Gustave’s much younger foster sister, who cannot stand to stay in Lumiere, and is determined to go with him.

When Expedition 33 meets for a farewell party after the Gommage has done its work on everyone whose number was painted, celebrating what may be their last night on earth before they head to The Continent to try to vanquish the Paintress, you understand these people, and your heart aches for them. That Sandfall Interactive developer accomplishes all of this — introducing these characters, making sure we understand who they are, and ensuring we feel the depth of the loss that drives them a couple hours in — is a testament to how strong Expedition 33’s storytelling is. And it never lets up.

Best laid plans

When they arrive on The Continent, things immediately go sideways. I’ll spare as many details as I can — you really should experience as much of Expedition 33 blind as possible — but the long and short of it is that many of them are killed, and Gustave finds himself traumatized and alone, walking through the corpses of many of his friends. He’s about to shoot himself when he’s found by Lune, another member of Expedition 33. She convinces him to continue even though they both know they’re going to die. You see, Expedition members swear an oath: “When one falls, we continue.” As long as a single one of them stands, their fight isn’t over.

It’s an example of what makes Expedition 33’s writing so strong: these characters feel like real people; they fight and argue and tease one another, and they are not always their best selves. They can be awkward and loving, afraid and determined, confident and uncertain. They’re people, and like all people, they are flawed. But that’s what makes their relationships work. And whether they are arguing about what to do, comforting one another, or simply sharing a small moment at the end of a day in camp, they are never less than compelling. I have to take a moment to praise the excellent voice cast here; it’s one thing to script a scene, but the actors performing it help it find its soul, and the performances in Expedition 33 are excellent across the board.

It is at its best in the small moments, like when Maelle teases Gustave for being old, when Lune fangirls over meeting a Gestral, a mythical being she wasn’t even sure was real, or when Gustave records what he’s seen in his journal for his apprentices. To live, to keep fighting, is an act of defiance in this world. To believe that your apprentices will live long enough to read your stories, or that you will return to tell them yourself, is to believe that the world can be saved. Expedition 33’s story has plenty of twists and turns, and you won’t see all of them coming, but it is a story that believes in its characters first and foremost, and that’s where it finds its strength. What’s more remarkable is that it never fades throughout its run time. It’s amazing what a story can accomplish when it believes in itself. There is remarkable power in conviction, and Clair Obscur does not stray from its path. It can be a bit too earnest at points, but they're rare, and easy to forgive.

The world and all that’s in it

The world is no slouch, either. There are branching paths with hidden grapple points, platforming, goodies and secrets to find, and tough optional enemies to take on, but Expedition 33 isn’t an open-world game. It reminds me, in many ways, of Final Fantasy X: environments are open enough to make exploration compelling and closed enough to make it manageable, even without a minimap. And why should they have one? Expedition 33 is venturing into uncharted territory; these characters are just as lost as I am. The places you’ll go, however, are never less than gorgeous, whether you’re overlooking the ruins of a human civilization, traipsing through a forest of red trees, or traversing falling water, watching whales swim above as you walk the surface below. You even go from place to place by overworld map. The inspiration from the RPGs that came before is always obvious, but Expedition 33 is never less than its own beast.

Clair Obscur’s combat also captivates. This is a turn-based RPG, yeah, but it isn’t a DVD menu. You don’t just select commands and watch canned animations play out while you wait for your next turn. There’s plenty to keep you engaged in every fight. Every character has both a melee and ranged attack, the latter of which you aim manually, which is useful for targeting weak points. Melee attacks build AP and ranged attacks spend it each time you fire.

You’ll also need AP for Skills, unique attacks that each character has in their arsenal. On top of that, each character has a unique battle mechanic. Gustave can use skills to build up stacks of Overcharge, which he can channel into his artificial arm for a devastating attack; Lune’s spells grant elemental Stains that can supercharge her other spells for additional effects and damage; and my favorite, Maelle, can switch between three different stances offering buffs to attack, AP generation, and defense. There are other characters, but I don’t want to spoil anything. Suffice it to say, managing your AP, ensuring your characters are working together, and planning ahead matters; like FFX, the turn order is displayed on the left side of the screen, so you can plan every turn in advance, but a winning strategy isn’t enough. You’ll also have to execute in key moments.

Like a flowing stream

When an enemy attacks, you can dodge, parry, or jump to avoid them. Dodging avoids damage, but the real trick is parrying, which awards you a counter-attack and generates AP, allowing you to use more skills on offense. The downside is that it has a tighter window. You can often recover from a missed dodge in time to dodge again; missing a parry means you’re getting hit. One of my favorite things here is that you can parry attacks that hit your whole squad, and if you do, they’ll strike back with a beautifully choreographed counter-attack. Landing these never gets old, and it’s a thrill to fell foes who are much more powerful than you are simply because they can’t hit you.

Expedition 33 is no slouch when it comes to building your characters, either. In addition to attributes that you can level up and weapons that also level up and share affinity with those stats and become stronger when your build and the weapon you wield are in sync, each character can also equip Pictos and Luminas. You can equip up to three Pictos to any character, which provide effects like “shooting this enemy might light them on fire” or “basic attacks do more damage” or “perfectly timing a dodge grants AP” or “if you’re at low health, you’ll automatically cast a protective spell” as well as stat upgrades.

Win enough battles with a Picto equipped, and you can have everyone equip its effects, minus the stat bonuses, provided they have the required points as a Lumina, Lost Odyssey-style. This allows for some really incredible build options. I like to equip Gustave with a Picto that had a chance to set enemies he shot on fire, and then have Maelle use a Skill that switches her into her all-powerful Virtuose stance (where she does 200% damage) if the enemy is burning, but there are dozens of combinations here. You can make Gustave a parrying powerhouse so he essentially never has to use a basic attack to restore AP, or a Lune that excels at buffing their party members, and so on. Once you learn how the systems work, the options are essentially limitless.

When one falls, we continue

As a result, battles in Expedition 33 are never boring, and always force you to make interesting decisions. Do you avoid healing a character and bet it all on being able to parry the next attack, or do you spend one of your limited health items to bring them back? Where do you spend your stats points, and what weapons do you equip? Which skills are you equipping? Who gets what Picto to benefit from the stat bonuses? What do you spend your Lumina points on? There are no wrong answers here, and I loved being able to experiment at any time.

The magic of Expedition 33 is that it never gets old. You’re always discovering something, meeting new characters, learning skills, finding secret areas, battling hidden bosses, or discovering remarkable places. Through it all, Expedition 33 tells an incredible story of defiance in the face of impossible odds, discovery, loss, love, death, and belief. It’s the kind of game that reminds you what games can be, the kind with characters you’ll remember long after the credits roll. Sometimes art comes into your life when you need it. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a story I needed in a world that feels like it’s falling apart. Things are not always what they seem, and there's always hope, no matter the odds. A better world is possible; you just need people willing to fight for it. When one falls, we continue.

This review is based on a PC key provided by the publisher. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 releases on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 on April 24th, 2025.

Will Borger

Contributing Editor

Will Borger is a Pushcart Prize-nominated fiction writer and essayist who has been covering games since 2013. His fiction and essays have appeared in YourTango, Veteran Life, Marathon Literary Review, Purple Wall Stories, and Abergavenny Small Press. His games writing has also appeared at IGN, TechRadar, Into the Spine, Lifebar, PCGamesN, The Loadout, and elsewhere. He lives in New York with his wife and dreams of owning a dog. You can find him on X @bywillborger.