background Shuhei Yoshida, former PlayStation As the head of a global studio, it’s always fun to be at the top of a company, so we were curious to find out what the veteran Sony executive wanted to report to the Sandfall team ahead of its launch. Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33claiming that the game will If it were presented as a turn-based RPG, it would risk being overlooked standard.
During the 2026 Busan Indie Music Festival in South Korea from August 14th to 16th, Yoshida held a meeting in which he painted several works Backstory While working at PlayStation, he found himself involved in some interesting things, particularly when he met the developers of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
The meeting took place shortly before the game’s release in April 2025, and Yoshida was particularly impressed with the quality of what would become the game. best game of the year Provide services to many professional newspapers.
Many people share a common fear
“It’s very well done,” Yoshida told Sandfall’s developers, “but it’s better not to call it a turn-based RPG,” the former head of Sony Worldwide Studios advised at the time, “because that it may cause people to ignore it”.
Yoshida’s warning did come shared by many people The title of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was particularly inspired by that period, especially in the Japanese context.
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It is generally believed that JRPGs with turn-based combat Can no longer attract people’s attentionwhich has also led publishers who are experts in the field, such as Square Enix, to develop new structures and gameplay mechanics to overcome what is now considered an outdated setting.
Yoshida was impressed by the game, particularly its “combination of turn-based JRPG mechanics with real-time action reminiscent of Dragoon Legend,” he said, but he worried that association with such games would Kicked away player.
In fact, while Sandfall has never hidden the inspiration behind its gameplay and the context of its combat,Open Puller Editor Trying to confuse things by talking about “reactive turn-based combat” or some weird definition like that.
However, in the end Sandfall Challenge Definitely Wins: A rework of a classic JRPG mechanic that is very successful and shows that turn-based combat can still be a lot of fun, perhaps surprising Shuhei Yoshida himself.
Recently, we saw that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 might be coming to Nintendo Switch 2, and we’re awaiting any confirmation.