Clair Obscur Has a Future, But the Expeditions May Not Be in It

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 almost immediately cemented itself as a groundbreaking RPG when it launched last spring, and developer Sandfall Interactive seemingly wants to take advantage of that. Indeed, Sandfall has more or less confirmed that a Clair Obscur sequel or spin-off is on the way, making it clear that the studio isn’t done telling stories in this world just yet.

One of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s best and riskiest narrative moves is its Matrix-esque twist, which reveals that the world of the Expeditions is nothing but a fading simulation created by a young Verso before his tragic death at the hands of the Writers, about whom we still know very little. It would have been easy for this “it was all a dream” twist to have trivialized the Clair Obscur world, but it actually expanded it, introducing a larger, more mysterious conflict between different artistic clans in a “real world.”

Future Clair Obscur Games Probably Won’t Feature Expeditions and Lumiere

Now that we know that Lumiere, The Paintress, and every character save Maelle/Alicia are manifestations of Verso’s painted world, the illusion of the Expeditions is thoroughly broken: the citizens of Lumiere are not “real,” and that dream of conquering the Paintress is depressingly futile. She isn’t even the one making Lumiere’s people die younger and younger—she’s trying to prevent this phenomenon.

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Thus, any narrative centered around another Expedition is doomed to be underwhelming and derivative. This is especially true when you consider that, regardless of which Clair Obscur ending is made canon, Expedition 33 is the last of its kind: the canvas is either destroyed, or it lives on, but without the need for Expeditions. It might be interesting to see, for instance, Verso’s relationship with prior Expeditions, but this concept would generally not be conducive to an interesting, or even comprehensible, narrative. Indeed, whatever route Clair Obscur’s sequels take moving forward, it’s extremely likely that the Expeditions, including beloved characters like Verso, Gustave, and Esquie, will never return—at least not in any traditional sense.

What Path Could Future Clair Obscur Games Take?

The most obvious next step for the Clair Obscur franchise would be to explore the enigmatic Writers and their conflict with the Painters. This is the most salient and pressing conflict in the game’s world, and is very much not resolved by the end of Expedition 33. Since the Writers’ assault on the Dessendre household, and the ensuing death of Verso, is essentially the catalyst for everything that happens in the game, exploring the feud further would arguably make for the most satisfying and logical continuation of the story. And again, we now know that all the conflict within the canvas is, for want of a better term, fake, so it makes sense to follow the “real” conflict moving forward.

The Writers’ powers aren’t well-defined yet, but we might assume that they have powers similar to the Painters’ powers of creation. Maybe they can craft advanced simulations from books rather than canvases, for example. The next Clair Obscur game could focus on characters like Alicia and Clea as they continue to fight against the Writers, maybe getting lost in a deep, labyrinthine Writer simulation along the way. Naturally, this sort of development would have to be a massive departure from the first game, as the in-universe world building of the canvas would be irrelevant. Clair Obscur writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen has said that there is no “canon” ending, so maybe the next games will be more like spin-offs than direct sequels—these are unlikely to feature Expeditions.

How Future Clair Obscur Games Could Still Feature Expeditions

For the sake of speculation, it’s worth discussing the ways in which Expeditions could return in a future Clair Obscur game—the potentially interesting ways, at least. One possibility that comes to mind involves making the A Life to Paint ending canon. This is strongly implied to be the “bad” ending, as Maelle succumbs to the delusion of the canvas being real and descends into insanity, keeping the false world going against the will of her family and at least one of its inhabitants. It might be interesting to invert the Expedition 33 dynamic in a sequel, following the familiar faces from the first game as they attempt to defeat the now-crazed Maelle and bring an end to their doomed existence.

Alternatively, the characters from Expedition 33 could return through a simulation crafted by the Writers. If the Writers were to get wind of Maelle/Alicia’s adventures on the canvas, they could taunt, manipulate, or psychologically torture her by crafting renditions of these same characters in a new simulation. The possibilities for recontextualization are nearly endless here, and such a narrative premise could help deepen Clair Obscur‘s comments on the nature of reality.

That said, my gut still tells me that the next Clair Obscur project will offer a clean break from the Expeditions, as they’ve already served their purpose. When discussing the possibility of future Clair Obscur games last summer, Sandfall Interactive founder Guillaume Broche said, “Expedition 33 is one of the stories that we want to tell in [the Clair Obscur] franchise,” suggesting that the journey of this particular cast will be tethered to its eponymous game. With Clair Obscur’s lore being expanded so much by the end of Expedition 33’s campaign, the sky’s the limit for more inventive storytelling, and all signs point to Sandfall trying something new with upcoming sequels or spin-offs. This is a good thing, since this philosophy is what made Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 so beloved in the first place.

Released

April 24, 2025

ESRB

Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence

Developer(s)

Sandfall Interactive

Publisher(s)

Kepler Interactive