Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, the lead writer for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, revealed that she never viewed the project through the lens of a traditional role-playing game. Her creative philosophy followed a fundamentally different path.
The game has established itself as one of the definitive releases of 2025, with its recent triumphs at the Golden Joystick Awards and The Game Awards sparking intense discussion across the industry. A significant portion of this acclaim stems from its narrative depth, which Svedberg-Yen attributes to the team’s unconventional perspective.
When asked if the team’s lack of prior industry experience worked in their favor, she noted:
Naturally, there are obstacles when you’re starting fresh in a field. However, it allowed us to inject our own unique tastes and sensibilities developed outside of gaming, applying the finest elements from other creative disciplines to our work.
We frequently found ourselves asking, “Why not?” and constantly challenging one another’s expectations.
Svedberg-Yen admitted she had limited exposure to gaming prior to the project, finding her primary inspiration in prestige television and literature:
I’m a huge fan of sci-fi and epic fantasy—stories featuring vast, immersive worlds and complex societies—and I wanted to translate that grand scale into the game. I never sat down thinking I was writing an RPG. Instead, I approached it as if I were developing a high-end HBO drama.
Source: iXBT.games