Kepler Interactive and Sandfall Interactive revealed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will launch on April 24, 2025.
In a new trailer revealed as part of today’s Xbox Developer_Direct, Sandfall shared details about the project and introduced new gameplay elements.
The team working on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 also revealed two new playable characters: Monoco (played by Rich Keeble) and Esquie (played by Maxence Cazorla). Monoco the Gestral joins the party, transforms into enemies, and uses their abilities against them. Esquie is described as an “unusual character” and helps the party explore the playable world. As the story progresses, Esquie unlocks additional abilities and lets the Expedition climb, traverse, swim, and soar across the overworld map.
“We didn’t want the game just to be a pretty face”,” Guillaume Broche, CEO & Creative Director, told us. “We wanted it to be like a game that feels like a real game. So every character has their playstyle, and you can play them in many different ways. However, they also feel very different from each other, and they all have their unique mechanics and skill tree.”
You’ll have access to Pictos, modifiers for gear, which evolve with passive abilities called Lumina after four battles.
Revealed as part of the presentation, one character, Lune, has a mechanic where she can cast a skill, then “Stain,” up to four times. She can then consume the Stains in battle, amplifying her abilities. Each character has their mechanic, such as Gustave’s Overcharged arm or Schiel’s use of Sun and Moon Foretell charges.
You’ll change your equipment often and earn more Lumina, so by the end of the game, you’ll have a list of passive abilities you can turn on or off, leading to build opportunities. Builds can lead to combos, which the developers hope will make players break the game.
It also confirmed the difficulty modes that are crucial to the gameplay experience. “So you’re not supposed to parry everything, of course; that would be far too hard. So we have difficulty options in the game, and depending on the difficulty options, the parry window and dodge window will be bigger or smaller… if you are playing in Hard mode and don’t dodge at least 50% of the attacks, you will have some trouble. If you are in Normal, it’s a bit more [forgiving] than that, and if you are in Easy… if you build your characters correctly, at least, you will go by without having to be a master dodger.”
A world map was confirmed during the presentation, revealing that it had been part of the plan and intended from the start of development. Given that your characters are on an expedition, you needed a world map to get a sense of travelling the world.
This leads the developers to reveal that the world is vast and that there are many levels to find hidden bosses on the world map. You’ll also discover many secrets that make the world map feel even more unique.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launches for Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, and PC on April 25, 2025. It is also coming to Game Pass.
