Sandfall Interactive assembled a transcendent RPG experience in 2025 with a beautiful story, compelling characters, and deeply enjoyable gameplay.
There are a lot of people who had their head in the sand on how many good RPGs are out there over these last couple years, but Sandfall Interactive can be credited in 2025 with dislodging them from the dirt and injecting electricity into the genre with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. We’re not going to go as far as saying Clair Obscur “saved RPGs” or anything, but it surely was an incredibly well-designed title from top to bottom, earning it the Shacknews Best RPG of 2025 award in a stacked year.
The realm of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is infinitely curious and compelling. A being known as the Paintress has created a world of monsters and ma…
Sandfall Interactive assembled a transcendent RPG experience in 2025 with a beautiful story, compelling characters, and deeply enjoyable gameplay.
There are a lot of people who had their head in the sand on how many good RPGs are out there over these last couple years, but Sandfall Interactive can be credited in 2025 with dislodging them from the dirt and injecting electricity into the genre with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. We’re not going to go as far as saying Clair Obscur “saved RPGs” or anything, but it surely was an incredibly well-designed title from top to bottom, earning it the Shacknews Best RPG of 2025 award in a stacked year.
The realm of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is infinitely curious and compelling. A being known as the Paintress has created a world of monsters and magic. Every year, from her far off abode, a number counts down and everyone of that age fades out of existence. After so many attempts to stop her, Gustave and his friends are the latest to try, and it takes players on a deeply emotional journey, asking strong questions about fate, life, and death along the way.
Clair Obscur portrays this dire situation with absolute visual mastery. The Paintress’s world is a gorgeous display of color and light that all sorts of twisted creatures inhabit, and it’s all accompanied by the incredible music of Lorien Tesard and Alice Duport-Percier, which adds enormous emotional depth throughout the game.
The gameplay a solid gold win for Clair Obscur, as well. Every character has a satisfying set of unique mechanics to explore and arrange with the Picto passive ability system and the various upgradeable weapons. Figuring out how the various tools work to optimize your characters was always a satisfying puzzle in Expedition 33, even before we got to battle. And once in the fight, we were treated to a vibrant display of combat supported by an engaging dodge and parry system that allowed us to play with intense risk/reward elements against the game’s toughest foes.
Sandfall Interactive’s debut game gave us a tidal wave of conversation about the nature of RPGs and what makes them work. If you’re in the know, you’re probably aware there have been plenty of good RPGs to talk about outside of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in this year alone. Still, for the people it inspired to try more of these types of games, Sandfall deserves full commendations. That’s why Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is our Shacknews Best RPG of 2025.
Senior News Editor
TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on BlueSky @JohnnyChugs.
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