The debate over the direction of role-playing games has raged on for years. There’s been a little extra fuel to the fire in 2025 with the success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 though, as its a turn-based RPG that wears its inspirations right alongside the 33 on its sleeve.
Now those links are reality, as several members of the Clair Obscur team recently visited Square Enix’s offices and met with some of the development leads there, including Final Fantasy VII Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi and Visions of Mana director Ryosuke Yoshida.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 game director Guillaume Broche, producer Francois Meurisse, and technical director Tom Guillermin, as well as publisher Kepler Interactive’s CEO Alexis Garavaryan, took the trip out to visit the Final Fantasy publisher’s offices. In a social post, Hamaguchi described it as a “creatively rich exchange of visions and ideas.”
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.
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EXPEDITION 33のクリエイターであるSandfallのGuillaume… pic.twitter.com/hIhMNYZJ8c— 浜口直樹 / FFVII REMAKE is coming to Switch2 & XBOX🎉 (@nhamaguc) July 24, 2025
It’s certainly not uncommon for video game developers to visit one another and exchange thoughts. Hamaguchi posted about Stellar Blade director Hyung-Tae Kim visting not long before the Sandfall Interactive crew, and plenty have made the journey to studios like Kojima Productions.
Still, the developers behind a wildly successful turn-based role-playing game visiting the studio of Final Fantasy, which has been more and more in the action-RPG realm as of late, was undoubtedly going to stir up fervor. Despite games like Octopath Traveler 2 being quite good, there is always a hunger for a return to turn-based, specifically for Final Fantasy.
Set aside the online discussions, though, and it’s really great to see creative minds in the space coming together like this. A rising tide can lift all ships, and one would hope that an exchange of ideas here would have positive outcomes for both Square Enix’s future ventures and whatever Sandfall Interactive gets up to next.
Regardless, it will likely be at least a little while before we start hearing about Clair Obscur’s successor or the next Final Fantasy, in either the VII Remake continuum or Final Fantasy XVII. Plenty of time to experience what’s out now, mull it over, and ponder the potential the role-playing games that come after.
Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.
