2 weeks Ago By Carver Fisher
Despite having a relatively small development team of just a couple dozen core devs, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has released to overwhelming critical praise and has become one of the top rated games of all time. French studio Sandfall Interactive released their first game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on April 24, 2025. And, though there was some hype from previews, people weren’t too sure just how good the game would be when it finally released.
After all, this is Sandfall’s first game. They’re a relatively unknown studio trying to compete with AAA giants while having a relatively small dev team. Turns out, that’s all they needed to make what’s shaping up to be one of the greatest RPGs ever released.
Clair Obscure Expedition 33 debuts as all-time RPG great So, who actually worked on Expedition 33? Surely this studio isn’t just a bunch of first-time game devs coming together to make something fantastic. Sandfall Interactive is stacked with former Ubisoft talent, with CEO and Creative Director Guillaume Broche working on the Might & Magic series as a Narrative Lead and doing some contributing work for Ghost Recon Breakpoint before starting his own studio. He brought some other Ubisoft alum with him, but the core dev team is made up of only 33 people.
And one special dev. They have a dog named Monoco listed as their “Happiness Manager”. It seems like Monoco works pretty hard there, so we’ll call the number of devs 34.
Every employee at Sandfall has their favorite games listed , so it’s easy to see were the inspiration for the RPG comes from. For instance, Broche has his top 2 favorite games listed as Persona 3 and Devil May Cry, and Expedition 33’s combat feels like a marriage of turn-based and hack-and-slash elements. Related Best Lune build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 This direction is clearly something players have loved, with Expedition 33 releasing as one of the highest rated games of all time and 2025’s best game so far according to Metacritic.
“We are currently the top reviewed game on Metacritic for 2025. Speechless. So many incredible games have been released this year.
Thank you,” they said. This score also makes them the 159th best game of all time in terms of Metacritic aggregate scoring . And, considering just how many video games there are out there, that’s not too bad for a first outing.
Given that the game is a couple dozen hours long, there’s a chance more reviews could come in that boost the score even higher. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 just came out, but it’s safe to say people are already excited to see what this studio does next..
