section_path: Development
section_name: Development
paragraph_text: Development
  
  The ideas behind Clair Obscur originated with Guillaume Broche, an employee of Ubisoft, around 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Broche had an idea based on one of his childhood favorites, the Final Fantasy series. He sent out some requests for help to craft a demo to a group of other developers he knew as well as posts on Reddit. With the demo, Broche was able to secure funding from Kepler Interactive, and subsequently left Ubisoft to form Sandfall Interactive with a core team of about thirty developers, including about twelve fellow developers from Ubisoft. Some of the voice actors for the demo gained more prominent roles in development, such as Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, a voice actor that became the game's lead writer. Lorien Testard, the composer, was discovered through posts on SoundCloud. The funding also allowed Sandfall to bring in about 50 additional developers through outsourcing, as well as to pay for professional voice actors including Charlie Cox, Andy Serkis and Ben Starr, and additional studios outsourced for animation, quality assurance, audio and sound design, and localization.
  
  Broche said one of the goals of Clair Obscur was to create a high fidelity turn-based RPG, which he felt had been neglected by AAA game developers. Besides Final Fantasy, Clair Obscur took inspiration from other Japanese role-playing games, including the Persona series. Of the latter series, Broche praised Persona 5 for its user interface and use of camera work during battles, "making it feel like you're watching a movie". Broche also considered Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, JRPGs developed for Microsoft's drive to bring the Xbox consoles to Japan, as an influence, particularly their use of quick time events during combat. According to producer François Meurisse, the game drew inspiration from SquareSoft 's Final Fantasy VIII, IX and X in particular, while the dodge and parry mechanics were influenced by FromSoftware 's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
  
  Development initially began under the codename as "Project W", and was first known as We Lost around the time that Broche sought for help on Reddit. The initial trailer that Broche used showed a steampunk setting based on Victorian era England, with more science fiction elements including zombies and aliens. About six months into this approach, potential investors into the project suggested that Broche should "think bigger", leading him to reset the entire narrative, though had kept some of the characters they had already developed. The new setting was based on a painting that Broche had admired about a painter entering her own work, as well as a short story that Svedberg-Yen wrote.
  
  Development had begun using Unreal Engine 4 at early stages and later switching to Unreal Engine 5 to take advantage of Unreal Engine 5's improvements in rendering and animation. The switch to UE5 was motivated by its Nanite and Lumen features, allowing for higher-fidelity assets and more-realistic lighting, respectively. The adoption of Lumen necessitated reworking the lighting for most environments. Additionally, UE5 brought better character creation support, allowing them to switch from Reallusion's Character Creator. The developers also make use of ready-made assets for background objects such as rocks, which allows them to focus on creating "hero assets", i.e., large-scale assets that make an impression on the viewer. Broche credits the simplicity of modern game engines to help bring the product together.
  
  The game went gold on March 22, 2025, coincidentally 33 days before the game's release. Physical version of the game was distributed by Maximum Entertainment in North America and Bandai Namco Entertainment in Europe.
  
  The ideas behind Clair Obscur originated with Guillaume Broche, an employee of Ubisoft, around 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Broche had an idea based on one of his childhood favorites, the Final Fantasy series. He sent out some requests for help to craft a demo to a group of other developers he knew as well as posts on Reddit. With the demo, Broche was able to secure funding from Kepler Interactive, and subsequently left Ubisoft to form Sandfall Interactive with a core team of about thirty developers, including about twelve fellow developers from Ubisoft. Some of the voice actors for the demo gained more prominent roles in development, such as Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, a voice actor that became the game's lead writer. Lorien Testard, the composer, was discovered through posts on SoundCloud. The funding also allowed Sandfall to bring in about 50 additional developers through outsourcing, as well as to pay for professional voice actors including Charlie Cox, Andy Serkis and Ben Starr, and additional studios outsourced for animation, quality assurance, audio and sound design, and localization.
  
  Broche said one of the goals of Clair Obscur was to create a high fidelity turn-based RPG, which he felt had been neglected by AAA game developers. Besides Final Fantasy, Clair Obscur took inspiration from other Japanese role-playing games, including the Persona series. Of the latter series, Broche praised Persona 5 for its user interface and use of camera work during battles, "making it feel like you're watching a movie". Broche also considered Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, JRPGs developed for Microsoft's drive to bring the Xbox consoles to Japan, as an influence, particularly their use of quick time events during combat. According to producer François Meurisse, the game drew inspiration from SquareSoft 's Final Fantasy VIII, IX and X in particular, while the dodge and parry mechanics were influenced by FromSoftware 's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
  
  Development initially began under the codename as "Project W", and was first known as We Lost around the time that Broche sought for help on Reddit. The initial trailer that Broche used showed a steampunk setting based on Victorian era England, with more science fiction elements including zombies and aliens. About six months into this approach, potential investors into the project suggested that Broche should "think bigger", leading him to reset the entire narrative, though had kept some of the characters they had already developed. The new setting was based on a painting that Broche had admired about a painter entering her own work, as well as a short story that Svedberg-Yen wrote.
  
  Development had begun using Unreal Engine 4 at early stages and later switching to Unreal Engine 5 to take advantage of Unreal Engine 5's improvements in rendering and animation. The switch to UE5 was motivated by its Nanite and Lumen features, allowing for higher-fidelity assets and more-realistic lighting, respectively. The adoption of Lumen necessitated reworking the lighting for most environments. Additionally, UE5 brought better character creation support, allowing them to switch from Reallusion's Character Creator. The developers also make use of ready-made assets for background objects such as rocks, which allows them to focus on creating "hero assets", i.e., large-scale assets that make an impression on the viewer. Broche credits the simplicity of modern game engines to help bring the product together.
  
  The game went gold on March 22, 2025, coincidentally 33 days before the game's release. Physical version of the game was distributed by Maximum Entertainment in North America and Bandai Namco Entertainment in Europe.