The director of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was ‘craving fresh turn-based RPGs’ and believed that if he desired them, there must be others eager to experience his creation.

I had the chance to talk to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 producer François Meurisse during the 2025 Game Developers Conference, and the Sandfall Interactive COO got down to brass tacks about how the game draws on JRPG history, the types of stories that can be told with these mechanics, and how the ambitious Expedition 33 has more in common with previous JRPGs than it might seem.

Meurisse told me that the game came about because Sandfall founder and Expedition 33 creative director Guillaume Broche “was kind of starving for new turn based RPG games when he started development as a passion project in early 2019.”