Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 would be a huge coup of a Switch 2 port. When the game arrived in April 2025, it made an enormous impact. You just don’t tend to see AA turn-based RPGs anymore, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was immediately clear that this one had all the ingredients to go down as a genre great: a deep and engaging combat system, a sublime soundtrack, and some of the most emotional storytelling in recent gaming memory.
It’s a title that, as yet, Nintendo-only gamers have missed out on, but it seems that’s set to change. In a recent X post from industry insider NateTheHate, the leaker declared, “Exp 33 is coming to SW2.” This isn’t officially confirmed, but it’s immediately clear that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 could be a great fit for the handheld.
Expedition 33 Is an Epic Adventure That Suits Switch 2’s Hybrid Setup
It can be extremely difficult to dedicate as much time to gaming as we’d like. Sometimes, you might be able to commit most of an afternoon to a much-anticipated new title, while some days you can only fit in a half-hour or so at the end of the day before begrudgingly shutting off your system. Many have found that the Switch family’s two main modes of play fit in with this nicely, because you can play on the TV when you have more time or pick up the system in handheld when you’ve got just a few spare moments. From a great cozy game in handheld mode to a more intense experience on the bigger screen, the system can deliver both.
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Choose cover art to complete the equations.
Easy (15s)Medium (10s)Hard (5s)
Expedition 33 is the deep and engaging story of Lumiere, a city that has dispatched several desperate expeditions in an attempt to vanquish the Paintress. It pulls on the heartstrings right from the intro, confronting the player with the yearly Gommage and then ramping up the personal stakes even higher for the Expeditionists that form the party of playable characters. It’s one of the most touching and genuinely affecting stories I’ve played through in years.
Throughout a runtime of approximately 30 hours for the campaign, it threw curveball after curveball at me, and the revelations about the Paintress and other characters’ true roles in events left me speechless. For this, just as much as its refreshing and dynamic take on turn-based battles (there are some critical skills you’ll want to prioritize to excel in them), it’s a title that genre fans among Nintendo players would surely appreciate the chance to play on their favored system. For me, though, there’s much more that makes the game such a good potential partner for the Switch 2.
This isn’t officially confirmed, but it’s immediately clear that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 could be a great fit for the handheld.
Its structure lends itself so nicely to combined docked/undocked play. In my PS5 playthrough, there’d be some sessions where I’d spend hours teasing out secrets from a larger area (and practicing parrying different enemy types, because I was awful at it until I really focused on getting better at the timing), and others where I’d simply sit at a given Expedition Flag for around an hour, tinkering with ability loadouts, dreaming up new battle strategies, and swapping around Pictos. The versatility of Nintendo’s console would fit like a glove.
Expedition 33 Would Also Slot Perfectly Into Nintendo Switch 2’s Catalog
Of course, a potential Switch 2 port doesn’t mean that everyone will play in handheld mode. While I personally don’t dock my system much at all, there are many who rarely remove theirs from their snug slot-in homes. Even if you’re a Switch 2 owner who doesn’t care for the portability aspect, it would still be an enormous plus for the game to release on the hybrid at all. After all, it’s almost the perfect console, but every great game helps.
For too long, Nintendo systems have been derided for their lack of third-party support, and while the original Switch saw high-profile ports ranging from the relentlessly fast Doom Eternal to Overwatch, it was often only the “miracle ports” that actually provided great ways to play those games. Sometimes, the compromises have been too heavy for me to enjoy a port.
As such, Expedition 33 simply coming to Switch 2 is a very different prospect to it doing so in a technically worthy, enjoyable state. It’s a masterpiece that demands to be done justice. Fortunately, times are changing as Nintendo is moving on from the original hybrid’s aged hardware. Switch 2 is still relatively new on the scene, but it’s already demonstrating that it can deliver brilliant versions of some of the latest multi-format releases (there’s a lot riding on the upcoming Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition to do just that).
Even if you’re a Switch 2 owner who doesn’t care for the portability aspect, it would still be an enormous plus for the game to release on the console at all.
Resident Evil Requiem, for instance, hit the system on the very same day as on PlayStation 5 and the Xbox family, and an incredibly solid port of one of 2026’s best games so far it is too. 2025’s Expedition 33 would be a later addition to the console, but it’s a Belle Epoque beauty that would be an excellent fit for the system’s library.
- Released
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April 24, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Sandfall Interactive
- Publisher(s)
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Kepler Interactive
