Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025)

Wasn’t really feeling my first session with this even though I like how the prologue sets up the world narratively. They’ve done a fine job going for a AAA-like realistic look, but some things about it look “off”. I see weird artifacts of some kind, lipsyncing isn’t right, and some other animations like the super-fast running in particular feel very out of place. The default audio mix also has the music much too loud, which when combined with the aforementioned visual quirks like an NPC instantly speedily running away from you gives the game a somewhat unpolished and awkward first impression. (Luckily the audio can be tweaked.) As for the initial taste of gameplay, I don’t initially like the infusion of so much timing and aiming into turn-based combat. QTEs on offense can be set to auto-succeed, but the game is still based around dodging and parrying in a way that feels odd and unwelcome to me. (You could go to easy mode to dial this down, otherwise it’s seemingly a trial and error practice thing which is fine but still probably not what I’d want in a turn-based game.) Otherwise it seems okay, lots of systems to get acquainted with up front and stuff to equip and all, and I guess I’m not in the mood for that and not really hooked by the early tastes of the story. I expect to be more excited by a turn-based RPG with this much acclaim, but I guess it may need more time and energy invested to really shine or may just not quite be for me.

I’m impressed with how well this runs on Steam Deck, especially since UE5 and the Steam Deck are not always happy bedfellows. I’m getting a solid 45fps without hiccups in handheld mode. It is running at what seems to be fairly low graphical settings and there pop in and aliasing that I didn’t get at the highest settings on PC. Sandfall has configured the game to run with custom launch configuration that’s supposed to improve performance on Steam Deck. But it does limit graphical menu options. I think by disabling that launch configuration I can access a few more sliders and improve the visuals further if I drop down to 40 or 30fps. But even if I don’t this is a great way to ply the game on the go or when away from the TV. It definitely runs very satisfactorily on Steam Deck and I think the main reason it’s not listed as verified is because there is a C++ runtime installer that is required at initial launch, and this can only be run from desktop mode. Once run the game is smooth sailing from console mode. Hopefully Sandfall can better integrate this process in a future update so they can get that steam Deck verified status.

If I have one early criticism of the game it’s that there is really very little attention paid to non-white characters (so far). During the opening town square sequence with Sophie there are a large number of people standing around. There is a decent amount of character variety, with multiple white character models, including children. Yet I count only two black character models, one male and one female presenting while white character models are repeated to fill out the crowd there is variety there in hair, face and clothing design. The black character models only have one face each and one haircut (bald for the men and a buzz cut for the women), and for the most part only wear a total of three outfits. This makes the fact that they are repeated in the crowd highlight the deep lack of character nuance and variety invested in the black background characters compared to the white ones. Perhaps this trend will change as the game progresses.