It’s no secret that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, one of the most successful releases of 2025, draws inspiration from major JRPG franchises like Final Fantasy and Persona. But Sandfall Interactive CEO and creative director Guillaume Broche recently shared some insights into how specific Japanese titles helped shape Expedition 33’s game design in an interview with Denfaminicogamer.
Broche has been playing JRPGs since childhood, to the point that they have helped form his personal sense of what makes a video game entertaining. Due to this influence being so varied and largely internalized, the director finds it hard to point to specific titles and game mechanics that he drew from when designing Expedition 33. However, Broche singles out Final Fantasy VI through X, Shadow Hearts, Suikoden, the Atelier series, Lost Odyssey, and the Persona series as a few examples from his “long list.”
“Persona 5 in particular is,” Broche comments, “what I consider the best game in the world when it comes to UI and combat visuals. The way the camera shifts dramatically with each action from the player, making it feel like you’re watching a movie, left a huge impression on me.”
Persona series developer Atlus is famous for its sophisticated and unique UI design, and 2016’s Persona 5 has received recognition not only from players, but from industry veterans too. Smash Brosh. and Kirby series creator Masahiro Sakurai named Persona 5 as a prime example of stylish UI design, even calling it his favorite game UI on his “Creating Games” series on YouTube.
As for Expedition 33, Broche explains that he wanted to incorporate the qualities he recognized in Persona 5’s camera work and presentation while adapting them to the game and adding his own touch. “There’s still so much more I want to incorporate from Persona 5, especially into the UI, so we’re actually still continuing to refine it even now.”
On the flip side of discussing his JRPG influences, Broche brings up another interesting point – the importance of building upon influences, rather than just imitating. “In the West, you sometimes see games that just copy aspects of popular titles on a surface-level, aiming to recreate their success. However, this only leads to inferior copies – and that was exactly the kind of game I wanted to avoid making.” Instead, the director strove to evolve what he’d learned from JRPGs into something original, reflecting his own style.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available for the PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
