Clair Obscur Director: Prejudice Against Turn-Based RPGs Still Exists

Creative director of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 states there’s still prejudice against turn-based RPGs.

Despite Clair Obscur‘s commercial and critical success, Guillaume Broche told website Automaton (via VGC) that he believes his game and others like Persona are exceptions to the rule, and there’s still a long way to go before JRPGs become as popular as they once were.

“I could talk about the prejudice forever,” Broche laughed. “Personally, I feel Japanese turn-based RPGs were hugely popular until the Xbox 360 era. But when open-world games started gaining popularity through gaming media, [they] began being labeled ‘boring’.”

He added: “though they still sell significant numbers, with the Persona series being a prime example, I sense bias against turn-based RPGs hasn’t completely vanished.”

Broche also emphasized that adding parry and dodge mechanics in Clair Obscur was purely a design choice rather than an attempt to attract turn-based RPG detractors. “It’s not like we implemented the parry system and crafted this narrative experience to avoid prejudice against our game,” he explained. “We did it simply because we wanted to.”