Expedition 33 Will Make Turn-Based RPGs Mainstream Again

I don’t really like turn-based RPGs, or rather, I don’t really like them anymore. Growing up, turn-based RPGs were inescapable. Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and Pokemon Red & Blue – these games aren’t just classics of the genre, they’re some of the biggest games of their era. In those early days, RPGs proved that video games could tell rich, compelling stories, handle mature themes, and offer a more intellectual experience than anyone – at least at that time – gave video games credit for.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Preview – Turn Based Romanticism

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a wonderfully crafted homage to legendary JRPGs.

But as technology evolved and tastes changed, turn-based RPGs have become more and more niche. Games no longer need to be slow-paced or 100 hours long to tell interesting stories, and broadly speaking, the mainstream gaming audience vastly prefers headshots and parries to spell books and command menus. There are incredibly popular modern turn-based RPGs out there like Persona, the newer Like a Dragon games, Octopath Traveller, and my beloved Mario & Luigi series, but those games never crack $10 million in sales, and if you asked any random casual gamer about them, they likely would have never heard of them. Tbased games – even the best ones – just don’t find much mainstream success anymore.

Pokemon is the exception of course, but at this point, Pokemon defies genre. It’s not a turn-based RPG, it’s Pokemon.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Is A Turn-Based Game That Feels Like An Action Game

a closeup of verso with his facial scars clearly visible in clari obscur: expedition 33.

This month’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has the potential to break containment. Just as Baldur’s Gate 3 made the cRPG mainstream, Expedition 33 has the gameplay, production value, and ingenuity to bring players back to this foundational gaming genre.

Mario & Luigi is actually a great place to start. The long-running turn-based series is known for its active battle system, which gives the plumbing brothers the ability to dodge incoming attacks and power-up their own abilities with well-timed inputs. This mechanic adds a layer of mechanical skill to turn-based battles, which helps to alleviate the monotony of the typical turn-based RPG grind.

Expedition 33 takes that kind of active battle system in an even more action-focused direction. Not only can you dodge incoming attacks, you must. Surviving battles in Expedition 33 requires you to complete well-timed dodges and parries, and know when to use one or the other, just as you would in any Soulslike action game. Not only can you enhance your attacks with well-timed inputs, but you can also spend your action points to pull out a gun, aim, and shoot it at a monster’s weak spot as if you were playing a third-person shooter.

Plenty of games have blurred the line between turn-based and real-time combat, but what makes Expedition 33 unique is that it is firmly a turn-based game with real-time mechanics, rather than something like Final Fantasy 7 Remake or Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth that combine both styles of combat into one new type of battle system. Expedition 33 sticks to its roots, and in doing so it manages to deliver a pure turn-based RPG experience with the appeal of a modern action game.

A Game You Can’t Look Away From

Word of mouth will be important for Expedition 33’s success, just as it was for Baldur’s Gate 3. French studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive aren’t yet familiar names to players, and as much as I’m rooting for it, ‘a turn-based RPG that isn’t boring’ still isn’t a very strong pitch to the turn-based averse. Luckily Expedition 33 has two strong value props to help get someone’s foot in the door: one, it’s a Day One Xbox Game Pass Ultimate title, and two, it looks unbelievable.

Graphics aren’t everything, but if they were, Expedition 33 would be a shoe-in for Game of the Year. The detail in the characters’ faces, the natural movement of their bodies, the horrific design of the enemies – everything about Expedition 33 is extraordinarily eye catching. If you gravitate towards dark fantasy settings it would be impossible to ignore the presentation of this game, even if turn-based isn’t your vibe.

It’s not just the realism, but the direction as well. Battles are incredibly dynamic, with big sweeping camera moves that support the intensity of each attack, dodge, and parry. Battles are just as exciting to play as they are to watch.

Directing this much money and talent towards a traditionally niche genre is going to draw a lot of attention, and if it’s as good as it looks, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 could be a massive hit that sets a new benchmark for modern turn-based RPGs.