Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lead says “anyone who’s a fan of our story” should check out one of the RPG’s biggest inspirations, but you’re gonna have to learn French first

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creative director Guillaume Broche has revealed another of the game’s inspirations, but you’ll need to know French to check it out.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 clearly has a lot of inspirations, with Verso’s moveset being one big Devil May Cry reference, while Final Fantasy, Shadow Hearts, and Persona inspired its classical JRPG elements. And of course there’s a good 40-odd years of JRPG and action game greats to be inspired by – even if the game that made Broche fall in love with the medium was Sega‘s 1988 stinker Altered Beast (definitely a guilty pleasure for some, no judgement).

However, it wasn’t just games that inspired Expedition 33. According to Broche, “One major inspiration is a French novel called La Horde du Contrevent.” He explains, “It tells the story of a group of explorers – or an expedition – travelling across the world to find the source of the supernatural wind that sweeps across the world. Their tale, and the human stories of the team and their discoveries as they travel the world, were also an inspiration for us as we developed a story of our own expeditioners traveling across the world.”

Scott has been freelancing for over three years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He’s typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.