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Once a year, the Paintress paints a new number on her monolith. When she does, everyone of that age gets the Thanos finger-snap. It’s a game premise so metal that Cradle of Filth should do the OST. You’d expect it in a gothic FPS, but this isn’t Doom: The Dark Ages. It’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a turn-based strategy game set in Belle Époque France. Blending old-timey fashion and deranged lore with exciting twists on turn-based combat, Clair Obscur hits hard. Even its UI kicks like an Evoker. After getting hands-on time with the game’s opening hours, I think Sandfall Interactive might have something extraordinary.
Paint by Suffering
Stopping an eldritch murder-god from painting the deaths of everyone with the misfortune of being 33? Sounds like a job for Gustave and the rest of Expedition 33, a group of reluctant heroes as fashionable as they are traumatized. The world of Clair Obscur is grim, with some similar story beats to Persona 3. Suicide and other violence drag weighty themes onto centerstage. From what I saw in the first few hours, however, Sandfall Interactive handles its difficult subject matter with appropriate seriousness.
The epic fantasy art and story harken to everything from Vagrant Story to Ogre Battle 64. Graphically, Unreal 5 more than pulls its weight. Battles, cutscenes, and third-person exploration sequences look equally good. Clair Obscur also has one of my favorite UI’s this side of Metaphor: ReFantazio. Mechanically intuitive and pretty as a painting, that UI is a victory in itself. That’s no accident. Sandfall’s unique blend of turn-based and real-time action demands a specific look and feel to work. From Maelle’s fashion to the shattering impact of Gustave’s pistol, it clicks.
Parries and Weak Points in Clair Obscur
When a battle begins, the game shifts from exploration speedy traversals to a more traditional turn-based system. Here, however, Clair Obscur challenges convention. It’s not such much that it rejects strategy RPG expectations, but rather that it pushes those expectations beyond their traditional limits. Yeah, you can choose between using items and skills or attacking, the way you can in a million other RPGs. You can also just have Gustave draw his pistol, free-aim, and shoot that magical automaton in its stupid gem face.
There’s an initiative order, and every character acts in turn, but this isn’t your typical turn-based combat. Timed button inputs are frequent, whether to enhance an attack, to dodge, or to parry an enemy. Combined with the free-aimed ranged attacks against enemy weak points, it makes combat feel furious and fluid. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen enough of the skills, Lumina, and other loadout options to know how much build variety there is. That said, what I’ve seen so far encourages me. It’s difficult to overstate how much the attractive and intuitive UI adds as well.
Frightful Fantasies
The flintlock fantasy genre has gotten lots of love, but its darker corners remain mostly unexplored. That’s doubly true on the turn-based side of things. If my hands-on time with the demo is anything to judge by, Clair Obscur is a welcome exception. It’s a game that’s hellbent on delivering a fun and polished experience, even as it pushes the boundaries of the expected. The clock moves forward. The Paintress draws and draws again. You can join Gustave and Expedition 33 when Clair Obscur releases for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S on Apr 24, 2025.
