Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s Biggest Area to Improve: Accessibility

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the best games I have ever played. Period.

As a lifelong fan of JRPGs and especially as someone who’s been writing about the hybrid evolution of turn-based combat for almost a decade now, I knew this game was going to be one of my most hype releases – ever.

Never mind 2025 GOTY, Expedition 33 could very well find itself sitting in my top games of all time once the dust settles.

And because I love what developer Sandfall Interactive has done with this game, I’m now sitting here writing about it for the second time in as many weeks. I’ve already talked extensively about the legacy this game has inherited as a hybrid turn-based JRPG and you can check that out here if you’re curious.

But no game is perfect – even one as momentous and celebrated as Expedition 33. And as someone who has now spent nearly 100 hours with this game from launch day to platinum trophy and beyond, it’s clear to me that the number one area where Expedition 33 could improve is accessibility and player quality of life.

Of course, I want this and future games from the extremely talented team over at Sandfall to succeed. But I also want Expedition 33 to be accessible to anyone who wants to play it. This is the kind of experience that no one should have to miss.  

From blind/low vision to deaf and hard of hearing players, to gamers with motor restrictions and cognitive disabilities, there are a lot of ways I think Expedition 33 could improve accessibility and make it a clear, open invitation: if you want to play, come try it.

To that end, let’s talk about how Expedition 33 could be more accessible. I’ve organized my thoughts into three key areas listed out below, so feel free to jump around to whatever topics you’re most interested in:

• Menus & UI

• Exploration & Traversal

• Combat & QTEs

Also, just a quick note of housekeeping, I’m using resources like the recently announced Accessible Games Initiative introduced by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) in partnership with EA, Google, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Ubisoft which lists accessibility tags that devs can use to describe what forms of accessibility their games offer.

Menus & UI

One of the first and most ubiquitous things to note, especially for blind/low vision players, is the amount of small text and icons built into Expedition 33’s menus, UI, and HUD.

The game does offer basic options to adjust the size of subtitles, but that seems to be it; the rest of the text is unaffected. You can turn on speaker names for dialogue, and another helpful option is to color code individual speakers too.

Even more impactful for increasing subtitle visibility though would be the option to include a background for subtitles. Not only does this help increase general readability, but the game features several white, snowy environments where the white subtitles become essentially unreadable.

At one point, speaking with some non-human characters who don’t use normal speech and voice acting, there were several lines of dialogue that I completely missed because it was white text on a white background and I couldn’t rely on listening to their speech to understand what a certain character was saying.

This sort of background option wouldn’t just benefit the subtitles though; I could see it potentially helping with the game’s reticle too. Both in and out of combat you have the ability to use a “free aim” shooting mechanic. The reticle starts out white and turns red while hovering over a key target, but sometimes it can be hard to see where the reticle is regardless, so maybe having a slightly opaque background behind the reticle could help with the visibility.

Beyond the text and the reticle, Expedition 33 also has a lot of small icons built into its UI. Some really important examples pertain to the different abilities or combat mechanics for each of the playable characters.

One thing that Sandfall really nailed is how unique each character plays – each with their own set of mechanics that distinguishes their gameplay style. But this means that each character has unique menu icons to keep track of, and these tend to be really small and hard to see – especially in the combat UI.

Some key examples are for Maelle and Monoco. Maelle is like a fencer, and shifts through offensive, defensive, and virtuose stances – each of which affects her damage dealt and received. Which skills players use on Maelle’s turn will determine which stance she moves to next, and this is indicated by a very small icon for each of her skills in the menu.

Likewise, Monoco rotates through different combat phases – albeit masks instead of stances in his case. Using a skill of the corresponding mask type he’s currently wearing can have various buffing effects, and which move players use will determine which mask he switches to next. His skills have a number indicator that shows how many spaces it will turn his mask wheel to let you know which type you’ll land on next – but again, these turn icons are very small.

Also, with Monoco’s masks being color-coded, that’s a good segue to talk about some options that Expedition 33’s accessibility menu does include: colorblind mode. While this is tough for me to test since I’m not colorblind myself – and even if I was, there’s a spectrum of different sensitivities – having the options there is great to see.

Taking it a step further though, I would love to see something like a high contrast mode. Admittedly, this wasn’t even an option that was on my radar until I saw it in Stellar Blade last year, but it can greatly enhance visibility for players who need it.

And even though vision isn’t a huge issue for me personally, I still found myself potentially wanting a feature like this during certain gameplay segments – most notably a Gestral volleyball minigame where I found it incredibly difficult to see the incoming targets I was supposed to deflect. I even found myself kneeling in front of my tv with my nose to the screen because I was honestly struggling to see.

Finally, I’ll wrap up this section with a couple of other really helpful features that would be great additions to the game:

First, something I’ve seen increasingly in narrative-heavy games that would be great across all RPGs is a chat log or dialogue history. Not only does this benefit players with vision, hearing, cognitive, reading comprehension, or memory disabilities, it can also help mitigate environmental distractions too that can cause any player to miss key information.

Second, while I know it’s tricky to implement, a screen reader or narrated menus can help alleviate issues when a game has a lot of small text like this.

And third, while the game does have fairly generous autosaves, it doesn’t actually have a manual save function that enables true “save anytime” capabilities. Even if a game wants to offer only a single save slot per playthrough, enabling players to trigger a manual save whenever they need to can help mitigate situational disabilities and environmental disruptions, ranging from having to unexpectedly step away from the game to a hardware failure.

Exploration & Traversal

The exploration is one of the most common points of criticism I’ve seen amongst the community for Expedition 33, most often citing things like the absence of mini-maps or the game’s jump mechanics. Digging deeper into this though, a number of factors in the game’s approach to exploration and traversal negatively impact its accessibility, even including some of the cool and exciting design choices.

For example, I think JRPG fans the world over universally cheered when we saw Expedition 33’s overworld map. Not only is it absolutely stunning and gorgeous, but it harkens back to the classic JRPGs of the 80s and 90s, especially with that first step out moment when you leave a town or a forest and walk out onto the world map for the first time.

However, because of the zoomed-out perspective, this approach to world design and exploration creates a few visibility issues. It can be difficult to navigate or even find certain areas on the map, and finding really small or hidden items likewise poses a challenge.

I have a few ideas that could potentially aid with this, especially for blind/low vision players. For one, you could add an option for discoverable items to give off a dial tone or sound when a player gets close to one. Items within the individual towns, dungeons, etc. do a better job of cluing players in by giving off a notable sound, but this benefit fails to translate as well on the overworld map itself.

Another tool could be to implement a waypoint system. The game offers just a basic compass showing the cardinal direction you’re facing in the overworld, but it doesn’t have a linear compass at the top of the screen or a way for players to drop waypoints to help guide them towards a designated point of interest.

A similar system with the option for players to turn on mini-maps inside the game’s towns, dungeons, etc. would likewise be beneficial to many different types of gamers – from blind/low vision to cognitive and beyond. If the creative intent is to prioritize organic, unguided exploration, the default could be set as the game is now. But having the option there to aid players who want or need those tools would be great to see added in.

One final note on the map, it would also be great to see some sort of option to turn on completion tracking. Currently, the game doesn’t have a quest log or any indication of how many collectibles you’ve found or challenges you’ve completed in each area.

Again, if the intent is to encourage organic exploration and discovery, defaulting to this stripped back approach to completion is completely valid. Many of us classic JRPG fans relish in the lack of guidance or hand-holding when it comes to finding collectibles, completing quests, and so on.

But for players with cognitive disabilities, memory issues, or even just busy schedules and time away from the game, not having a way to keep track of what you need to do and where you need to do it can be problematic or discouraging.

Moving on from that, I’m going to mention something that could be a little contentious… the idea of “yellow paint.” Now, I know it’s become a running meme to dog on a game for using too much yellow paint to guide a player and say, “go here, climb this!”

But that sort of design element can honestly enhance accessibility, again addressing a range of needs from blind/low vision to cognitive capabilities. But it doesn’t always have to be egregious or in your face if you don’t want or need that sort of assistance.

Many games have started to include difficulty settings that don’t just change how hard an enemy hits, but rather turn up or down the difficulty of exploration and puzzle solving by affecting how much elements like yellow paint appear in the environment. I think the first time I recall seeing this sort of environmental tuning was in 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Natively, Expedition 33 does have some equivalents to “yellow paint” – most notably, climbing holds appear on walls with a sort of scarring or cracked effect on them. Again, having this as the default is fine as the intended experience for most players – but also including an option to turn up the intensity of visual cues like this can help those that need greater assistance.

And pushing even further, much like the idea of items on the world map having an option to give off a proximity-based dial tone, a similar option could be implemented for climbing or grapple points for players who need the audio assistance beyond essential visual aids for navigation.

I will say that the in-area exploration is already aided by several audio cues like the aforementioned items or collectibles giving off a noticeable sound when you’re close enough to them. Additionally, enemies give off a clear sound when they notice you and aggro.

One final point I’ll make for this section comes down to the actual act of traversal. I don’t know if it’s intentionally hard by design – a certain Gestral tower climbing challenge points resoundingly to “yes” – but while your character will sometimes grab ledges effectively, the jump itself can still be a little frustrating.

It’s especially noticeable to me that even for small drops or jumps taken from a standstill, never mind a walk or a run, can cause the player character to roll forward and fall off small ledges or platforms easily. This sort of finnicky or imprecise movement can create various frustrations and barriers to players with motor limitations.

Combat & QTEs

This final section is arguably the most important to focus on specifically for Expedition 33 and the games that are likely to follow in its wake. Like the other hybrid turn-based RPGs that came before it, Expedition 33 employs Quick Time Events (QTEs) to bring real-time action into its turn-based combat framework.

When you attack using characters’ unique skills, QTEs will pop up and prompt you to time one or multiple button presses correctly in order to maximize damage. And conversely, when enemies attack, you have options to either dodge or parry incoming strikes.

While dodging has a more forgiving window, the game increasingly incentivizes learning how to parry because parrying every hit in an enemy’s attack will trigger a counterattack that can deal massive damage and help you tackle increasingly difficult fights.

Now, let’s start with how Expedition 33 does make these QTEs at least approachable if not fully accessible. First off, all the QTEs for your attacks map to a single button – so no need to worry about timing button presses while also making sure you’re pressing all the right buttons on the controller.

Second, enemy attack animations give you ample visual cues for getting the timing right. It’s also widely recommended to learn the timing by dodging first since the game gives you feedback on your timing within this more forgiving defensive option. If your dodge is close but not perfect, it’ll flash the word “dodge.” But if your timing is perfect, it’ll say “perfect” – and in that case, you’ll also know that that’s the exact timing for the parry as well.

In addition to the animation cues, many enemies also have highly effective sound cues that further help players get the timing down for dodges and parries. Enemy attacks will often generate a woosh, swish, or grunting sound that helps you pinpoint where in the animation you should be timing your button presses. A great example of these are the Gestral merchant fights – I actually tested parrying these guys with my eyes closed successfully.

However, I found that this reliance on audio cues didn’t help equally with all enemy types, and of course it wouldn’t apply to deaf or hard of hearing players.

And before I get into some ideas of how these QTEs could be made even more accessible, one final and important thing to note about Expedition 33’s design is that there is an option to turn off at least some of the QTEs in battle. In the main menu, you can turn off the QTEs for your own attacks, but not for dodging and parrying enemy attacks.

Obviously, this approach isn’t perfect. First of all, turning off only offensive QTEs still leaves the entire issue of QTEs for the defensive half of combat, leaving a potentially insurmountable barrier for players with a whole spectrum of vision, hearing, and motor related disabilities.

And then second, turning off the QTEs isn’t actually making them accessible – rather, it’s just avoiding them entirely. While for some players this may be the only way to make QTE-reliant combat accessible, for many others they may just want or need assistance with them.

To that end, here are some of my ideas:

1. In addition to the system’s option to turn off some QTEs, you could include other options to widen the timing windows, or on the extreme end even pause during them

2. You could include options that introduce additional cues for QTEs. For audio-impaired players, you could include a color flash or other visual indicator separate from the enemy’s native attack animation that indicates when to time a button press. For visual-impaired players, you could instead include a dial tone that sounds at the correct time for the input. For a more tactile solution, you could even add an option for a vibration/haptics cue

3. Not directly affecting the QTEs themselves, you could also include a practice arena – launchable either directly from the main menu or the game’s save points. This feature would be great for letting players practice timing their attacks and defense without having to worry about dying, loading in and out of battles constantly, or traveling across the map to practice specific enemy types

Moving on from QTEs, other aspects of Expedition 33’s combat offer further opportunities to increase accessibility. Earlier I mentioned the “free aim” ability that lets players aim shots at enemies or parts of the environment whether you’re in or out of combat respectively. An option to add and/or increase aim assist could prove helpful for blind or motor disabled players. You could even consider a sound or vibration cue for when you’re hovering over a weak point.

Also, I’m not sure what the situation is like on PC, but at least on console there aren’t any options for button remapping. Whether basic or full input remapping, these options can be make-or-break for some players. Expedition 33 does let you invert camera controls, but offers little else in this regard.

Another great feature that would benefit cognitive players – or really anyone looking for enhanced quality of life – would be a weakness recall system like the one in various SMT/Persona games. In those games, once you hit an enemy’s weakness, the game will log that information and give you an indicator the next time you come across that enemy, helping you remember which opponents are weak to ice, fire, etc.

Again, this doesn’t have to even be on by default. It could be tied into the system options or even the difficulty level and leave the choice of whether to have it turned on up to the player.

One other idea I’d mention that leans even more heavily into the player quality of life and less strictly tied to accessibility would be the option to save loadouts. Expedition 33 has wonderful build crafting mechanics that let you build around the strengths of a certain weapon for a character, mix and match abilities to move someone into a support vs. attack role, rely on burn damage vs. other debuffs like lowering defense or attack power and so on.

But sometimes I found myself reluctant to really experiment despite the plethora of options and respec items at my disposal because of the amount of menuing it would involve, and the time it would take to reset (or even remember) what I had on before. To that end, I do see loadouts benefiting blind/low vision players wading through menus or cognitive disabled players dealing with anything from dyslexia to memory loss.

And finally, I want to cap this section off with a general proposal that I think all devs should consider for their games: providing a publicly available demo.

Now I know this isn’t just an easy task. Sure, for some games it could be as simple as providing the prologue or opening chapters. But that first hour or two or even three may not be representative of the full experience, especially in large or complex RPGs.

And building out that slice, making sure it’s functional and bug-free, and releasing it to the public takes time and resources – something that is always in short supply, especially for smaller studios like a Sandfall Interactive.

But providing a demo is a fantastic way to let players see if they can play your game – not just see whether they like it or not, but whether it has the core accessible design and options they rely on.

In Expedition 33’s case, I believe they had a private demo built out for creators or select media outlets – so my hope would be for them to make that a public-facing offering for each platform the game is on.

Final Thoughts

I want to wrap this up by reiterating just how special I think Expedition 33 is, and how passionately I believe that anyone who wants to be able to play it, should be able to. It really is that kind of must-play experience that I wish I could recommend to anyone and everyone. The story, world, characters, music, and deeply satisfying gameplay – every single one is an unmissable feat of art, talent, and history in the making.

I also understand that the list of accessibility considerations I’ve created here is both an incomplete one (as I’m sure there are things I missed) and an extremely difficult one to deliver on.

Not all of these changes would be easy to implement for any team – regardless of their size or experience. And not all of them would even be universally agreed on as good ideas.

Mine is just one voice – but I 100% believe these are things we can and should be talking about when it comes to making sure accessible design keeps progressing so more players can experience more games.

Accessibility moves forward one advocate at a time – so this is my piece that I’m offering, for those who come after.