Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Verso’s Drafts Deep Look

If Clair Obscur were an ice cream sundae, this update is the cherry on top, completing the whole dessert.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took the world by storm last year, winning scores of awards and earning critical acclaim across nearly every category. After winning Game of the Year at The Game Awards in December, Sandfall Interactive announced a free update releasing that same night. Having still had some things left to do in the game after I rolled the credits last April, I decided to give the new content a look to see exactly what’s on offer, how good it is, and to get my way back into fully finishing a game that stole my and many other RPGamer’s hearts away last year.

The “Thank You” update adds a variety of features, including some very welcome gameplay additions. Most notable is the ability to create and save Lumina sets, allowing players to switch between builds more effectively depending on the situation. Given the dearth of Luminas and potential offensive setups, this is an absolutely massive addition and helps drastically minimize one of the game’s most glaring issues, as managing Luminas now takes significantly less time than before. Further, players can now abandon a battle from the in-battle pause menu at any time, which is especially helpful when a fight becomes a long-winded battle of attrition. Other appreciated additions include more boss challenges in the Endless Tower, a brand-new Photo Mode, a handful of fresh, stylish costumes, and a selection of more weapons and Luminas. However, the biggest and most significant addition is an entirely new zone to explore.

Verso’s Drafts perfectly elucidates the idealism, creativity, and innocence of childhood.

Verso’s Drafts is a new playable area filled with lots of cotton candy, sweets, balloons, beach resorts, and all sorts of other childlike activities and themes. Like many environments in the base game, this expanse is a real treat, with jaw-dropping visual fidelity. It differentiates itself quite nicely with its rainbow of hues throughout, providing a stark contrast to many of the darker environments in the late game. There is a wide variety of zones, ranging from a lollipop forest to a massive treehouse complex, all with stunning detail. Unfortunately, the sheer level of detail and texture in this area takes its toll on a standard PlayStation 5, with some draw distance issues and slow-loading textures, though the PlayStation 5 Pro handles this much better.

Aside from being a delicacy for the eyes, the atmosphere in most of this area is so sweet and joyful. Lorien Testard continues to impress compositionally, with a lovely track called “Whee Whoo Days” playing through much of the fields. The drums and synths have an airy bounce, and Alice Duport-Percier returns to grace the song with effervescent, carefree vocals. However, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, and full exploration of all its areas provides some truly harrowing backstory that continues to elucidate the game’s central, layered themes of grief, loss, and identity in a very bittersweet way that is sure to be a tearjerker for those invested in the game’s characters.

Childlike drawings adorn the abandoned treehouse’s walls.

In combat, the new Luminas and Weapons obtained in Verso’s Drafts are quite fun, with many being candy-themed and offering some interesting potential to round out or tweak character builds. The new enemies here all have fun, outrageous, and well-themed attacks, too, and they do a good job of providing a fair challenge while also being adaptable enough to reacquaint players who may be coming back after a break. Even better, though, is the big bad of the area, who is easily one of the toughest bosses in the game and provides most of the challenge in the new content, even for high-level players who have finished the main story. While it has a few annoying tendencies, the core mechanics remain solid, and the spectacle of the fight – both in the visuals of the arena and the insane techno-synth boss track – is quite intense.

Outside of the new bosses and enemies, there are a host of fun little mini-games and activities scattered throughout this area, including a diving board, hopscotch, a few gimmicky and hilarious fights, and some parkour-adjacent platforming. All of these provide solid rewards, though the platforming, like the Gestral Beaches from the main game, can sometimes be a little bit finicky and frustrating to execute. Like the main game, it is also easy to get a bit lost due to the sheer detail and fractured nature of the world, though the subareas in Verso’s Drafts are distinct enough to prevent this from happening too often.

She may not show it, but Lune is thinking about joining the Lollipop Guild…

All in all, the update provides a wondrous, sentimental return to the world of Clair Obscur and continues to excel at everything the base game does so well. After not firing up the game for nearly a year, I found myself falling in love with it all over again and ready to explore the remaining zones. For any RPGamers looking to return to Expedition 33, the new area provides anywhere between three to five hours’ worth of additional playtime, and even better, it’s entirely free as well. If Clair Obscur were an ice cream sundae, this update is the cherry on top, completing the whole dessert. I look forward to seeing what Sandfall Interactive has next, whether it’s more updates to this game or something else entirely.