Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Developer Surprised at How Many Players Do Side Content Before Final Boss

While many have spoken about how brevity has been one of the strongest traits of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the title still has its fair share of side content, including optional bosses. Doing too many of these, however, also has the side effect of making the player’s team much stronger than the designers intended for the later parts of the main story. Addressing this, lead game designer Michel Nohra has spoken about how one of the few regrets he feels about the award-winning RPG is that it doesn’t warn players that they might be getting too strong for the final boss if they have been doing a lot of side content.

Speaking to Edge Magazine’s issue 419 (via GamesRadar), Nohra noted that players tend to partake in side content before they finish the main story of a given game. This is because finishing a game takes away a lot of the motivation to return for any side content, and this was something Nohra admitted to having underestimated.

“Often, people don’t want to finish the game, so they do all the side content before finishing it, because once the story is over, you’re usually less motivated to do the side content,” said Nohra. “And that’s something I underestimated, which made people that wanted a challenging end boss fight feel a bit disappointed. I don’t regret doing it the way we did it, but [we could have] had more explanation about your choice [in Act 3].”

Adding to Nohra’s sentiment, lead programmer Tom Guillermin said that the relatively low challenge level for the final boss in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 comes down to the fact that Sandfall Interactive didn’t expect the RPG to be so beloved that players would try and do all of the side content. Instead, the studio expected most players to focus on finishing the main story.

“We weren’t sure if our game was going to be that good,” said Guillermin. “And if it’s not, people may just want to see the story and go directly to the end of the story. So it was a surprise for us [that] people were doing every single thing there is to do in the game before going to the final dungeon. We’re happy about that, but we didn’t see it coming.”

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was released back in April 2025 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and quickly went on to become a success with positive critical and commercial reception. The title would also go on to win several awards, including the Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2025. You can check out more details about it in our review, as well as our thoughts on its “Thank You” update. In the meantime, Sandfall Interactive has started thinking about its next title, and studio COO François Meurisse has acknowledged the pressure that the studio is facing going forward.

“We’ll have time to get really focused into the next game,” said Meurisse. “We have some great ideas we’re so excited to explore, and we don’t start from the same point. The team already has five more years of experience. So maybe we can do some great stuff.”