Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creative director speaks candidly about the new RPG's respect for Final Fantasy and Persona: 'We are definitely not hiding that there are influences'

After watching a recent hands-off demo of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which in my opinion looks like one of the most interesting new RPGs incoming in 2025, I was particularly taken by what I perceived to be the game's indebtedness to the great turn-based RPG series, Persona, and specifically its latest and greatest release, Persona 5 Royal.

From the strike first or be struck initialisation of combat in the real-time world, through the team and turn-based combat as well as monstrously unique enemy designs, and even onto the similar camera angles and slick menu animations, when I looked at Expedition 33 I saw a dark fantasy western take on a Persona game. So, being in the room with the game's Creative Director, Guillaume Broche, I naturally asked him about it.

«Yeah. We are definitely not hiding that there are influences from the big Japanese genre,» Broche noted. «Actually, [though], I wouldn’t say that Persona is the biggest influence on what we do. I don’t hide my love of action for the Final Fantasy 8, 9, and 10 era. I think a lot of the core of the game definitely takes inspiration from that. Not directly. It’s not like we take it from the games. The game is more like [what] I grew up with, and kind of built my creative tastes on. So I would say we take a lot of influence from them but not directly trying to pick things from them.

»And on the Persona side, yeah, we definitely took a look at what they were doing in terms of the camera movements, and the menus, and how everything has been created dynamically, and trying to do something that really feels dynamic, but is also more like our own thing, in a way. Because, also, we have a very different art style. We just wanted to do it our own way."

It was not only refreshing to hear from Broche that my gut feeling was correct, but also that Expedition 33 is looking to use such acclaimed games as a base for what its doing, which very much feels like a unique western dark fantasy take on the traditional turn-based