Have you ever savored every side quest, polished every build and then felt a little cheated when the game’s ultimate showdown barely put up a fight? That’s the short version of the conversation around Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s finale — a moment Sandfall Interactive didn’t quite anticipate, and many players still talk about.
Players did what RPG players do
Clair Obscur launched to rare acclaim and players rewarded its world by doing everything: optional dungeons, mini-games, the Endless Tower and the little mechanical delights that make a completionist’s calendar disappear. That extra grinding meant many parties arrived at the final fight significantly stronger than the developers intended.
"The only thing I regret is not making it clearer that if you want the intended difficulty for the boss, you have to go beat it now," lead game designer Michel Nohra told Edge (via other outlets). Lead programmer Tom Guillermin called the whole situation a surprise — the team didn’t expect this level of engagement and admits they were humbled by how much time people invested in the game.
Director Guillaume Broche went a step further, tracing the design choice to a lineage of PS1-era JRPG structure: give players an open final act where they can either sprint to the ending or clear side content first. "Maybe we made it a little bit too easy to get overpowered," Broche said, noting Final Fantasy 10 as an inspiration — in that game, it's famously possible to obliterate the last boss if you’ve overleveled.
Design, expectation and the aftermarket fixes
There are three overlapping truths here. First: experienced RPG players know what overlevelling does to boss fights; going in maxed out often makes climactic encounters feel like speedbumps. Second: some players prefer the narrative pace and actually want to see the ending with minimal interruption — a gentle escort through the finale. Third: Sandfall didn’t quite predict how many would clean up every nook and tackle optional bosses before the credits rolled.
For those who wanted more teeth, Sandfall and the community delivered. Post-launch DLC introduced truly punishing encounters and new zones (Verso’s Drafts and others) that satisfy players chasing difficulty. Fans also keep finding ways to self-impose challenge — or break the game in entertaining ways, from astronomical damage numbers to the bizarre eight-hour, 10,000-parry marathon a player once pulled off against a DLC boss.
But not every postgame solution earned universal praise. Some critics point to Simon — a putative ultimate test — as an example of difficulty that swings too far. Complaints include massive health pools, one-shot potential, unblockable moves and long, opaque combos that force players into exploitative or extremal builds just to survive. So while DLC and tower content plugged the gap for many, a few encounters still feel unevenly tuned.
Was it a mistake or a deliberate design choice?
Opinions split neatly along two lines. One camp says this is a design oversight: if you want a finale that tests the player you either need dynamic scaling, clearer signposting, or a final encounter gated against overlevelled parties. Michel Nohra acknowledged Sandfall "could have" explained the Act 3 choice better, and the studio seems to have learned to expect more exploration from players.
The other camp argues this is on-brand with the game’s inspirations and player expectations. A well-made story can be the real reward, and many players intentionally overlevel so the narrative plays out uninterrupted. Plus, better versions of the Renoir fight exist in the Endless Tower, and DLC created harder, more balanced tests like Osquio — meaning the purist experience isn’t lost.
What this means going forward
Sandfall’s candor is the interesting part. They didn’t hide behind patch notes or silence; they were surprised, reflective and open about the trade-offs they made. Expect future projects from teams who now know how a ravenous community will treat optional content: clearer in-game signposting, perhaps difficulty toggles, or a more explicit "if you want challenge, do X now" mechanic.
For players who want to reframe their next run as a true test, the community and the studio have given them tools — optional towers, new post-launch zones and the joyous, sometimes ridiculous self-imposed challenges that emerge when a game's systems are rich enough.
If your platform of choice is PlayStation and you want to stream or test builds on the go, there are new ways to access your library remotely — the PlayStation Portal now streams PS5 games to a handheld experience for some players who value portability over difficulty tuning. And for portable PC-style grinding, the Steam Deck’s new low-power download mode makes long sessions less battery-taxing if you like to camp optional dungeons before the finale and want the device to last through a climbing spree.
Clair Obscur’s finale flap is less a scandal and more a conversation about how modern designers balance player freedom, narrative pacing and difficulty curves. Sandfall underestimated how many people would embrace optional content — but they also built a world that players wanted to inhabit completely. That, for many, remains the point.
If you’re replaying with a mind to actually feel the original sting of Renoir, consider a run that postpones optional bosses until after the credits. Or don’t — part of the charm here is that players are free to choose their own climax. For a new console experience, some might even opt to pick up a PS5 Pro if they want to see the game at higher fidelity while they experiment with builds and mods.
Either way, debates about a boss being too easy or unfair aren’t indictments so much as evidence: players cared enough to notice. And in games, that’s usually the best kind of problem to have.