Lead writer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Jennifer Swedberg-Een, explained that she did not consider the project as a role-playing game. She had a different approach
The game has become one of the biggest in 2025, and its victories at the Golden Joysticks and The Game Awards are being discussed online. Much of the success is due to the plot, which, according to Swedberg-Een, arose thanks to the team's non-standard approach.
When asked if it helped that many team members had no experience in the gaming industry, she replied:
Of course, this creates difficulties because we are new. But we were able to bring our tastes and views accumulated outside of games and apply the best from other areas in the game.
Often we just said: “Why not?” and challenged each other.
Swedberg-Een has hardly played video games and was inspired by TV series and books:
I love science fiction and epic fantasy with huge worlds and living societies, and I transferred a lot of this into the game. I didn’t think about writing an RPG. I thought of it almost as creating an HBO drama.
