Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director Guillaume Broche was beforehand a model growth 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 completely different,” as he advised BBC.
Broche had a hankering for an RPG formed, as co-founder François Meurisse advised us earlier this yr, by a “heritage of JRPGs” like Closing Fantasy 7, 8, 9, and 10. For its reactive turn-based fight system, the staff 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 sport of 2025 (numerically tied with Blue Prince on Metacritic, however with extra opinions solidifying its rating) and a massively profitable debut for Sandfall.
Clair Obscur offered over 1 million copies in three days – a great launch for nearly any sport wanting GTA 6, and particularly so for a brand new, comparatively small studio.
There may be some unfairness within the narrative that every one you need to do to make the sport of the yr is depart Ubisoft – Murderer’s Creed Shadows is notably good and doing fairly nicely – 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 exterior the AAA sphere. Ex-Blizzard dev Chris Kaleiki advised us earlier this yr that the AA sport 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 cause.
Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida describes Clair Obscur, a $50 sport, because the “excellent steadiness” of AAA constancy and ambition however wise scope, and argues it is “the trail the business needs to be pursuing” as unsustainable manufacturing budgets pile up elsewhere.
Broche tells BBC that a lot of his success comes right down to the Covid sport increase and a few “large luck,” together with some success 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 publish on Reddit” calling for auditions.
“We’ve got, I believe, an incredible staff largely of junior folks however they’re so extremely invested within the undertaking and proficient,” Broche stated. “In some way it labored, which nonetheless is not sensible to me in spite of everything these years.”
Sq. Enix is “in all probability kicking itself” seeing the success of lifelike turn-based JRPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, analyst says, after being “reticent to do it with the Closing Fantasy collection.”
