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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a turn-based role-playing game set in a fantasy version of Paris where portions of the population are erased once a year by "The Paintress". It is the expedition's goal to destroy her and end the cycle.
Overview
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a turn-based role-playing game developed by Sandfall Interactive (Company) and published by Kepler Interactive (Company) for PC (Platform), PlayStation 5 (Platform), and Xbox Series X|S. Lead the members of Expedition 33 on a quest to destroy the Paintress so that she can never paint death again. Explore a world of wonders inspired by Belle Époque France and battle unique enemies in this turn-based RPG with real-time mechanics. Clair Obscur was originally designed to run on Unreal Engine 4 (Concept), but was ported to UE5 before release.
As of April 2026, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has sold 8 million units, received numerous accolades, and topped various publications' lists of best games of 2025. It became the most awarded title in the history of The Game Awards (Concept), winning nine of the record thirteen nominations it received at The Game Awards 2025 (Concept), including Game of the Year.
Plot
67 years ago, a disaster simply known as "The Fracture" tore the city of Lumière away from the rest of the continent. Every year since then, somewhere on the mainland, a being called The Paintress paints a new number on top of a large monolith, and all humans with an age at or above that number disappear in an event called the "Gommage." Every year, Lumière sends an Expedition force of volunteers to the mainland to slay the Paintress before she can paint a new number. However, none of the Expeditions have been successful. In the present, Lumière is now down to Expedition 33, led by a clever engineer named Gustave who designed his own mechanical arm, in hopes of finally stopping the Paintress.
Act I: Gustave
After bidding farewell to his ex-lover Sophie during the latest Gommage, Gustave sets out with a group of volunteers including his foster sister Maelle, the wise mage Lune, and a cheerful farmer named Sciel. However, shortly after making landfall on the continent, Expedition 33 immediately comes into contact with an old, white-haired human, who proceeds to slaughter them. Gustave, believing he is the only survivor left, considers shooting himself to join his fallen comrades, but is stopped at the last moment by Lune, who convinces him to keep going. The two of them find a message that hint at other survivors, and continue on until they eventually reunite with Maelle, who was rescued by a strange being called The Curator and taken into a mansion separate from normal space.
After reuniting, the three look for a way to cross the sea to reach the monolith, and their journey takes them through the home village of the violent yet friendly Gestrals, where they find Sciel has also survived, and has been an attraction in their fighting arena. After Sciel rejoins the Expedition group, the Chief of the Gestrals tells them where to find Esquie, who can help them get closer to the monolith where the Paintress sits. The group then finds the cave where Esquie lives, and he offers to help them cross the sea, but needs a special rock to go swimming. So the group dig around in some caverns to the north of Esquie's home, defeat a monster called the Lampmaster, and manage to find the special rock Esquie wants. However, the white-haired man from the beach makes another appearance, and kills Gustave, saying he did it for his own family. Before he can attack Maelle, a different man intervenes, holding him off with his sword while the ladies of Expedition 33 ride Esquie to safety.
Act II: Verso
The rescuer reunites with Esquie and the survivors of Expedition 33 at their camp. He says his name is Verso, the old man is his former commander Renoir, and they are both from Expedition 0, the very first Expedition that set out to challenge the Paintress. Somehow, they were able to avoid aging and being taken by the Gommage, but over the years, Renoir didn't want to lose his life or what family he had left, so he decided to protect the Paintress by destroying every Expedition force he came across. Verso finally decided he could not stay idle, and decided to take Gustave's place on the team.
Verso leads the team north through a historical battlefield, where some of the previous Expeditions made, though they were wiped out by a powerful Nevron. The team encounters the imposing Duallist, but manage to defeat it. Maelle buries Gustave's mechanical arm, the only piece of him she was able to save, among the ruins where other Expeditioners lie. Later that night, Lune gives Verso a 33 armband in a mock ceremony to make him an "official" member of the team. Afterwards, Verso leads the team further north to the snowy mountains, where they meet with Monoco, a Gestral friend who he taught to speak the human language. A few fights later, Verso convinces Monoco to join the team, with the promise of future fights to entertain him. Monoco's son Noco also joins, wanting to become the Greatest Merchant Ever.
The group makes their way to Old Lumière, where the Paintress' Heart supposedly resides, but Monoco accidentally blows up an old building too close to the group and splits them up. One group of Monoco, Sciel, and Lune makes their way through the ruined city and stumbles upon some secrets from the diary of Expedition 49. The other group, with Verso, Maelle, and Noco, makes their own way through the city when Verso briefly disappears. Maelle comes across a large mansion in the middle of the city, where a couple of strange women are inside. Verso attempts to use the opportunity to get inside the mansion, but is rebuffed by Renoir, who defends the mansion. The first group rejoins the others, and they attempt to defeat Renoir, but he is too powerful for them, as he unleashes a burst of Chromatic energy that kills Noco before he disappears along with the mansion.
Verso curses his luck, as his best chance to destroy the Paintress appears to have vanished. Back at camp, the group confronts Verso about two important pieces of info they found from Expedition 49's log: First, Verso is Renoir's son. He does not deny that, but claims he has no love for his father anymore. Second, that the group could craft a spear capable of penetrating the magic shield that protects the Paintress. Verso says that to gather enough Chroma to power the magic spear would be almost impossible, but not totally impossible. It requires killing a few of the most powerful Nevrons in the continent, known as Axons, to harvest the necessary Chroma. With no other options present, the group decides to hunt the Axons.
Act III: Maelle
Gameplay
The player navigates their party through various overworld environments. Players can run, jump, grapple onto specific points, climb up ledges, and more to traverse the various maps. In the World Map, the party can ride Esquie (Character) to reach places faster or islands where they can't normally reach by walking. They can also set up camp almost anywhere on land in the World Map, allowing the party to rest, refresh their Tints and Elixir, upgrade themselves or their equipment, or build up social links.
Anywhere outside of battle, the party can drink a Chroma Elixir that will instantly recover the full health of the party, but supplies of the Elixir are limited and can only be refreshed at a save point or camp.
Battle System
Battles are fought in a turn-based system with some extra unique mechanics. When it is a party member's turn, the player can choose one of multiple actions:
- Attack: A simple melee attack with the character's equipped weapon, recovers at least 1 AP.
- Free Aim: Switch to a ranged attack. Can be used to inflict critical damage on an enemy or remove their shields without using up the character's turn, but each shot uses up 1 AP from the character's pool, so it can't be used if the controlled character has 0 AP.
- Skills: Use one of the character's equipped skills (up to six at any time). When executed, most skills will involve a simple Quick Time Event (Concept) for extra damage or status effects.
- Gradient Attack: Unlocked after meeting Monoco. The Gradient Charge gauge is filled up with every AP the party uses. With at least 1 full charge, any allied character can unleash a unique Gradient Attack. Doing so does not cost AP or a turn, but it will drain the gauge for everyone.
- Items: Use one of three Tints on an allied party member.
- Healing Tint: Recovers HP
- Energy Tint: Recovers AP
- Revival Tint: Revives a fallen party member with a small amount of HP.
- Flee: During most normal battles, the party will have the option to run from the enemy, but must stay alive long enough while they search for an escape route.
- Skip Turn
On defense, when an enemy attacks, players have a few options to deal with the attack instead of relying on statistical calculations, like in other turn-based RPGs.
- Dodge: With correct timing, players can dodge the coming attack and take 0 damage.
- Parry: Parrying has a much smaller window of time for success than a dodge, but successfully parrying all hits of an enemy's attack will allow the character (or the entire party) to automatically counterattack for extra damage.
- Chromatic Parry: Learned later in the game, countering a heavier strike from an enemy that briefly drains color from the screen with heavier counter-attack damage as well on a successful parry.
- Jump: Allows players to both dodge an enemy with a ground-based attack and counter-attack for extra damage.
System Requirements
PC
| PC Minimum | PC Recommended |
|---|---|
* OS: Windows 10
|
* OS: Windows 11
Processor: Intel Core i7-12700K / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Memory: 16 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT 16 GB DirectX: Version 12 Storage: 55 GB available space Additional Notes: SSD required. Recommended specs allow for 1080p 60FPS high settings gameplay. |
External Links
- [https:/www.expedition33.com Official Site]
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- Name
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Release Date
- April 24, 2025
- Platform
- PC (Platform)
PlayStation 5 (Platform)
Xbox Series X (Platform) - Developer
- Publisher
- Genre
- Role-Playing (Genre)
- Theme
- Fantasy (Theme)