Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the biggest surprise gaming hits of 2025 and a traditional turn-based role-playing game that reminded many fans of the golden-era of PlayStation 1 JRPGs they still pine for. Some have even gone so far as to argue that the next Final Fantasy game should be more like Clair Obscur. Maybe Square Enix agrees. The publisher recently invited the game’s developers to its headquarters in Japan.
“Guillaume Broche, Francois Meurisse, Tom Guillermin from Sandfall, and Alexis Garavaryan from Kepler—creators of Expedition 33—visited the Square Enix office for a creatively rich exchange of visions and ideas,” Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi wrote on social media on Thursday. He even shared a picture of everyone standing next to a cardboard cutout of Cloud and his iconic Buster Sword. Producer and longtime Final Fantasy veteran Yoshinori Kitase was there too. It wasn’t the team’s only stop in Tokyo either. They also visited Kojima Productions so they could sign copies of the game for the Death Stranding 2 director.
While Final Fantasy has moved toward big open worlds and action-based combat, Clair Obscur features high graphical fidelity but old-school mechanics like turn-based combat (albeit with some rhythm based parries and dodges) and an overworld map for exploring in-between dungeons. The game’s developers have also not been shy about how much of the game is a tribute to their own love of older Square Enix games. There are nods to Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VIII, and more all within the first hour of the game.
The result has been message boards, subreddits, and TikTok feeds full of JRPG fans arguing about what Final Fantasy can learn from Clair Obscur. The debates come as Square Enix retools its development pipeline, and some fans worry the publisher’s marquee franchise has lost its creative vision and sales potential amid trend chasing. The company was even asked at a recent shareholder meeting if the next Final Fantasy would go back to being turn-based, given Clair Obscur’s critical and financial success. Square Enix said it was “aware” of the game but declined to hash out the design document for the sequel in public.
Whether they’re taking the suggestion seriously or not, it’s nice to see developers from competing teams coming together to break bread and learn from one another. While all eyes will be on what Square Enix takes away from the Sandfall Interactive team, I’m just as interested in what lessons the Final Fantasy team can impart to the new kids on the block.
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