Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, indie game top of Metacritic’s 2025 review list
From independent French studio Sandfall Interactive, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is inspired by Final Fantasy and Belle Époque-era France
Independent French studio Sandfall Interactive’s first video game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, only launched worldwide on April 24 but has already built up a solid community of fans eager to discover its post-apocalyptic fantasy world.
According to Metacritic, which aggregates video game reviews, the turn-based role-playing game had a 92 out of 100 “universal acclaim” score based on critic reviews – the joint-highest so far this year.
One of the studio’s three co-founders said the high numbers – rare for a game developed by an independent studio – were “extremely encouraging”.
“We are coming to the end of four years of production and even longer for some of us,” Francois Meurisse said a few days before the game’s release. “We’re now at a crucial moment.”
Sandfall Interactive’s 20 or so employees sit serenely behind a bank of screens on the first floor of an art-deco-style mansion in the southern French coastal city of Montpellier, where the company was set up in 2020.