Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the debut game from Montpelier studio Sandfall Interactive, was first revealed to us back in June 2024 with a wild trailer showing a turn-based RPG set in a world being slowly destroyed by a giant, unfathomable paintress. During today’s Xbox Developer Direct, we got another, longer look at the surreal RPG, and while its world might not be any less inscrutable, we know to expect its launch in just three months.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is set in an alt-history 19th century Belle Époque France—you know, like Lies of P—67 years after a massive, unfathomable entity called the Paintress appeared. Each year, she paints a number on her monolith. Each year, every person past that age dies. Seems bad!
Thankfully, Expedition 33 is on the case, by which I mean they’ve set out to kill the Paintress before she snuffs out the rest of humanity. If you discount the previous 32 doomed expeditions, I’m sure their chances are great.
You’ll control the expedition’s members in what Sandfall Interactive calls “reactive turn-based combat,” which incorporates realtime actions into your traditional RPG turns. By timing perfect parries during enemy turns, you’ll negate the damage from their attacks; by hitting quick-time prompts during your own party’s flashy attack animations, you can boost their damage.
The characters composing Expedition 33 are “flawed, but care deeply about each other,” according to Sandfall, with their own drives and story arcs. As you travel across a series of warped, uncanny landscapes—seemingly leaking in from other realities in the wake of the Paintress’s arrival—you’ll add new party members to the Expedition’s ranks, each with their own mechanics, skill trees, and passive effects you can cobble together into bespoke builds.
One is Monoco, a sort of monkey-esque puppet man described as “a friendly but kinda bloodthirsty philosopher.” You’ll also meet Esquie, a massive, delightfully bulbous balloon golem that Sandfall says is “one of the oldest and, lore-wise, one of the most powerful creatures in the verse.”
I don’t understand any of that any more than you do, but I’m thrilled nonetheless. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has a fascinating visual style, and it’s painting with a palette of inscrutable imagery that I admire. Plus the big balloon guy can fly by flapping his little arms so he can carry you around the game’s overworld. Good stuff, that. No notes.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will launch on April 24.
