The 2025 Game Awards was an unconventional event. Most were indifferent about the world premiere trailers and such that were shown, but there was one part that stood out. When it came to awards, a name popped up a lot: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Many were surprised by just how many awards it won. In fact, the game ended up winning the most awards in The Game Awards history, a whopping nine awards, this is beating out the previous winner, The Last of Us Part 2, which won seven different awards at the event. Many were upset about the awards, but those who were fans of the game implored others to give the game a chance. After the awards show, when the steam winter sale was activated, I decided to find the game and grab it.

When I purchased the game, I knew only the basic background. It was developed by Sandfall Interactive, a team located out of France, made up of ex-ubisoft employees. I also knew that the game was a story heavy, turn-based RPG (Role-playing games are usually experiences that try to immerse the player with a story) with an emphasis on parrying and dodging. The last thing that I was aware of was that the goal was to destroy a character called the Paintress who seeks to kill humanity.

It should be noted that I did not fully play through the game. My review is coming from a single hour of playtime. I only really stopped playing due to lack of time and storage space.

Pros:

• The premise is great. Each year, the Paintress writes a number, and all who are above that age disappear into nothingness.
• The combat was fair, yet challenging. The parrying takes quite a bit of skill even on the default difficulty.
• The characters felt well-written and authentic.
• The games music is breathtaking.

Cons:

• On the Steam Deck and lesser hardware, the performance can drop heavily in some areas.
• The version on Steam Deck makes it feel like a Nintendo Switch game graphically.
• Depending on how much free time you have, the game can be really long.
• Map design is difficult to deal with at the best of times. There were multiple times where I was unsure where to go or got turned around for some reason.

Generally, it’s hard to feel any certain way about the game fully. Ultimately, I ended up stopping due to already having a great backlog of similarly long games. I enjoyed Expedition 33 a lot, however, and would recommend it to anyone who wants a great story about grief, death, and our own mortality.