Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Director Says AAA Scope Would Have Made It Worse — No Padding Was the Secret

In a world where bigger budgets usually mean bigger everything (including the bloat), Sandfall Interactive is openly saying the quiet part out loud: keeping Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lean might be exactly why it works.

Creative director Guillaume Broche told Automaton that the studio did not want a blank check. Not because they hate money, but because the guardrails forced by a modest budget helped them focus the design and, crucially, skip the filler. In his view, the team would not have piled on extra systems or stretched the map just because they could. The goal was to respect players' time rather than pad out the clock.

'Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a perfect balance of AAA ambition, AA budget, and independent vision.'

That line, from former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida earlier this year, is the kind of praise most studios would frame on the wall. And it fits the broader theme here: sometimes constraints are a feature, not a bug.

• Guillaume Broche (creative director): In a recent Automaton interview, he said a smaller scope kept the game tight and engaging instead of stuffed with busywork. He even suggested an unlimited budget might have pushed them toward scope creep, which could have made the game less fun.
• François Meurisse (COO/producer): He has been blunt about big-money projects not automatically delivering better outcomes. Bigger spend does not equal better game.
• Jon Bellamy (new Jagex CEO): Citing Expedition 33 as an example, he argued you can achieve results that are not wildly different from a giant blockbuster by spending around a tenth of a typical $400 million AAA budget — if you execute well.

To his credit, Broche also acknowledged the obvious: you can never know with absolute certainty how the alternate-universe, unlimited-budget version would have turned out. But his case for restraint checks out — especially in an era where 'more' often translates to 'longer, not better.'

Meanwhile, Sandfall is not coasting. The team is still shipping meaningful updates — their latest major patch just dropped — which is a nice, practical way to back up all this talk about smart scope and ongoing polish.

Inside baseball note for anyone who does not live on gaming forums: 'AAA' usually means the mega-budget, all-hands-on-deck blockbuster tier; 'AA' is the leaner, mid-budget lane. Expedition 33 is sitting in that middle slot with big ideas, and so far, that seems to have been the sweet spot.