Review

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Every year the Paintress paints a number, and everyone of that age vanishes. Expedition 33 sets out to stop her in a fantasy world inspired by the Belle Époque. Turn-based combat is combined with real-time dodges and parries, and the story, art direction and music have been widely praised. Is it your kind of game?

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Games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

9/10

Game Avant verdict

A debut that reinvents turn-based combat as a test of reflexes and nerve, then backs it with a story and a world that earn every one of the tears they ask for.

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By GameAvant · Published Sep 30, 2026 · Updated Oct 9, 2026 · 14 min read

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IGDB

89%

965 ratings

Steam:

95%

182,078 reviews

Fits you if

you want a strong story and turn-based combat that demands good timing.

Skip it if

you want an open world or dislike mechanics that need quick reactions.

Availability

Where to play

Steam

$39.99

Buy

Facts

Platforms: Xbox · PC · PlayStation
Release date: April 24, 2025
Length: About 41 hours
Difficulty: 5/5 (estimated)
Genres: Role-playing (RPG) · Turn-based strategy (TBS) · Adventure · Indie
Themes: Action · Fantasy
Perspective: Third person
Modes: Solo only
Languages: 3 languages
Text in your language: Yes
Steam Deck: Verified
Microtransactions: None

More about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 opens with a number and a countdown, and refuses to let either one leave your peripheral vision for the entire game. Sandfall Interactive's debut title is built around a premise that could easily have tipped into melodrama in less careful hands: the world itself has a visible expiration date, and every character, every side quest, and every quiet conversation back at camp happens in the shadow of that fact. Instead of softening it, Sandfall leans all the way in, and the result is a game where the stakes never feel abstract, because the story never lets you forget exactly how much time is left. The setting is Lumière, a continent cut off from the rest of the world sixty-seven years earlier by a catastrophe its people call the Fracture. Since then, an enormous, unexplainable figure known as the Paintress has appeared once a year at a monolith overlooking the city and painted a single number onto it. Anyone whose age matches or exceeds that number vanishes in an event called the Gommage. The number has been dropping for decades, and it is now low enough that entire generations disappear at once rather than individuals. Expedition 33, the game's title and its cast's namesake, is the latest in a long line of expeditions sent out to reach the Paintress and stop her, each one named for the number on the monolith the year it departs. Every expedition before this one has failed, and the game states that plainly rather than hiding it, which sets the tone for everything that follows. Where Clair Obscur earns its reputation is in combat, which fuses genuinely classic turn-based RPG structure with a real-time layer of parries and dodges that most turn-based games never bother to include. Enemy turns are not something you watch passively while deciding what to do next; timing a parry or a dodge during an opponent's attack changes the outcome directly, which means every encounter demands the same kind of reflexes a real-time action game would ask for, layered on top of the strategic planning a turn-based RPG has always rewarded. That combination is rare enough on its own to make the game stand out, and Sandfall executes it well enough that it never feels like a gimmick bolted onto an otherwise traditional system. The writing matches the ambition of the mechanics. Expedition 33 asks a lot of its audience emotionally, built as it is around grief, loss, and a yearly culling that nobody in the world can stop, and it earns that investment rather than demanding it. Few debut titles arrive this fully formed across both their core systems and their storytelling, and this is one of the most complete RPGs the decade has produced so far, a first game from a new studio that plays like the work of a team that has been making this exact kind of game for years.

The thing you'll love. Or hate.

A parry system with real consequences

No map in most areas

Deep, stackable builds

Not quite for you?

Three alternatives, one line each on why.

Shorter

Similar, but noticeably shorter.

With co-op

Similar, but playable together.

Cheaper or free

Similar, for less money.

Frequently asked questions

How long is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?: About 41 hours to finish the main story.
Which platforms is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on?: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available on Xbox · PC · PlayStation.
Does Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have co-op?: No, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is single-player only.
Does Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 run on Steam Deck?: Verified
What does Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 cost?: $39.99 on Steam.