'I love stories where you go and venture into the unknown': Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creative director Guillaume Broche opens up on the RPG's brilliantly bonkers plot

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a new turn-based RPG coming in 2025, sees its hero character Maelle attack a demon with a sword — (Image credit: Sandfall Interactive)

I caught the recent reveal trailer for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and proceeded to make finding out exactly what's going on in the new RPG's dark fantasy world, which is dripping with the sort of 'end of days' vibe commonly found in Final Fantasy and Persona games, a top priority as, simply put, it's a bit bonkers. As such, recently being able to sit down with the game's creative director, Guillaume Broche, to see the game in action and ask him about it was a real boon.

In Expedition 33's city of Lumière, once a year the mysterious and seemingly all-powerful being called the Paintress wakes up and, approaching a large monolith in the middle of everything, paints upon it a cursed number, ticking it down. As soon as the Paintress paints it, everyone of that age turns to smoke and fades away immediately.

The Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 RPG team venturing forth into the unknown to defeat the Paintress — The Expedition 33 team venturing forth to find and defeat the Paintress. (Image credit: Sandfall Interactive)

As such, the population's maximum age is in decline. To solve this, an expedition from the city is tasked with venturing forth into the unknown every year to try and find this Paintress and destroy her, ending her annual culling. However, to date none of these expeditions have been successful, leading to the operatives of Expedition 33, the upcoming age group next to 'die', heading off on their hail mary mission. As such, Expedition 33 finds itself on a race against time to find and end the Paintress.

So how and why did Broche land on this plot about Expedition 33 venturing forth into the unknown?

"I love this question," laughs Broche, "because I don’t think there is a particular thing where it came from one morning, like, 'Oh, why don’t I do that?' Basically, I love stories where you go and venture into the unknown, and you really have to go with this kind of fear, and you have no idea what this goal exactly is, and you have no idea what is in between you and this goal. You just go and hope for the best. You just go around, being like, 'What’s like happening?' [These are] really the kind of stories that I like.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hero Gustav fights a demon in the turn-based RPG's combat system — Expedition 33's combat is turn-based but with action elements, such as optimising attacks with well-timed button presses. (Image credit: Sandfall Interactive)

"I like the group dynamic. They go with a goal, but nothing is clear except the goal. And you’re like, 'I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do, or where I’m supposed to go.' I think this sense of discovery is really something that we wanted to bring here."

I can vouch for that air of discovery, too, after seeing the game in action. Nothing is clear at the beginning in terms of plot, such as the Paintress' identity, the fate of the other expeditions, why the population's being culled, and even reality itself—with environments sporting many surreal elements. But as the journey of Expedition 33 progresses, the player begins to discover more and more about the world, characters and gameplay possibilities.

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If you haven't caught the reveal trailer yet for Expedition 33, then it can be watched directly above. The game is due to drop sometime in 2025, so one to keep an eye on as we progress into next year, and especially so if you're a fan of turn-based RPGs like me.

Rob is editor of PC Gamer magazine and has been PC gaming since the early 1990s, an experience that has left him with a life-long passion for first person shooters, isometric RPGs and point and click adventures. Professionally Rob has written about games, gaming hardware and consumer technology for almost twenty years, and before joining the PC Gamer team was deputy editor of T3.com, where he oversaw the website's gaming and tech content as well its news and ecommerce teams. You can also find Rob's words in a series of other gaming magazines and books such as Future Publishing's own Retro Gamer magazine and numerous titles from Bitmap Books. In addition, he is the author of Super Red Green Blue, a semi-autobiographical novel about games and gaming culture. Rob loves riding motorbikes, too.