Highlights
- Microsoft and Sandfall Interactive unveil new reactive turn-based RPG, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, at 2024 Xbox Games Showcase.
- Sandfall Interactive, a new studio with industry veterans, aims for high production value in their first major title, Clair Obscur.
- While Expedition 33 will be a multiplatform title, it will be available to play for Xbox Game Pass subscribers as well.
During the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase, Microsoft and Sandfall Interactive reveal a new reactive turn-based RPG called Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The annual Xbox Games Showcase arrived to plenty of excitement, with rumors and speculation swirling in the days and weeks leading up to June 9. Similar to other industry events, leaks are fairly common, spoiling big reveals ahead of schedule, such as Dragon Age: The Veilguard news arriving a few days ahead of its official reveal. .
In terms of Microsoft, there has been plenty of discussion online with what the company could be showing at its annual summer event. Summer Game Fest kicked things off earlier in June, though to the surprise of many, Microsoft barely had any presence at all, leading many to speculate that the company was planning to hold its anticipated announcements for the Xbox Games Showcase happening just days later. While some announcements may have been spoiled earlier, fans were still treated to a number of big reveals, including a visually impressive RPG from Sandfall Interactive.
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Being developed by a relatively new studio based in France, Sandfall Interative is a company made up of industry veterans from studios like Ubisoft who aim to deliver games with a focus on production value. Revealed at the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase, Sandfall’s first major title is Clair Obscure: Expedition 33, described as a reactive turn-based RPG with a style based on France’s Belle Époque.
What is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?
The 2-minute trailer revealed a world under the control of someone named the Painteress, a deity-like person that paints a cursed number on a monolith on an annual cycle. For the people that live there, many are erased from existence, leaving a shadow of death hanging over those who remain. Players will take up arms against the Painteress as Expedition 33, a group of survivors attempting to break this cycle of death, using real-time combat mixed with turn-based action with various characters that can be customized through different builds, gear, and skills. While the game will be multiplatform on PS5, PC, and Xbox, it will be available at launch for Game Pass subscribers as well.
Alongside these new reveals, the Xbox Showcase also revealed a few more surprises, like the revamped Perfect Dark from The Initiative. A game that has had no shortage of development issues, many likely didn’t expect to see Perfect Dark at this point, with rumors indicating that it may still have a long road ahead of it. However, the trailer now only showed off the game, but revealed some potentially interesting story details that may be of interest to longtime fans of the series, namely that Joanna Dark seems to be hunting her former boss, Daniel Carrington.
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