Clair Obscur Devs: Switch 2 Port Still “Too Early”, Would Be a “Big Technical Challenge”
Sandfall Interactive has again declined to confirm a Nintendo Switch 2 version of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, with studio CEO and creative director Guillaume Broche telling Automaton West it remains “too early” to announce anything, while co-founder and CTO Tom Guillermin warned that squeezing the acclaimed RPG onto Nintendo’s hybrid would be a “big technical challenge.”
The comments came in a newly published interview with the Japan-focused outlet, in which the pair, alongside lead character and concept artist Alan Reynaud and technical artist Alexandre Breton, discussed the studio’s post-launch plans roughly a year after the game’s breakout release. Asked directly whether Expedition 33 could run on Switch 2, Broche replied: “We are interested in looking for a way to do it, but it’s too early for us to announce anything at this point.”
Guillermin: Switch 2’s power gap is the core obstacle
Pressed on why a port isn’t straightforward, Guillermin pointed to the hardware gap between Nintendo’s console and the platforms Expedition 33 already runs on. “It’s a big technical challenge because we tried to do something beautiful with the game, but of course, the Switch 2 is not as powerful as the PlayStation or the Xbox Series X,” he said, adding that the studio has to weigh this “especially given the size of our studio.”
That caveat matters: Expedition 33 was built by a small, largely first-time development team at Sandfall, a detail the studio has repeatedly stressed when discussing the resources needed for new platform work.
Unreal Engine 5 features “don’t work” on the hardware yet
The engine underpinning the game adds a further wrinkle. Asked whether Unreal Engine 5 itself complicates a Switch 2 build, Broche said simply: “Yes, a lot of features don’t work on Switch 2.” Reynaud, however, floated one possible way forward, noting that Epic Games’ newer Lumen Lite lighting option could eventually ease that burden even though the rollout takes time. “They’re introducing features like Lumen Lite now, which is easier to run than the standard Lumen, but these things take time to roll out, so we’ll have to consider the updates coming from Unreal Engine to determine what to do,” he said.
Nintendo Everything, which independently reported on the same Automaton West interview, confirmed the quoted exchange and noted that Unreal Engine 5.8 began rolling out about a month earlier, bringing Lumen Light, with Epic Games indicating it would be pretty impactful for Nintendo Switch 2. Niche Gamer, covering the same remarks separately, observed that the level of detail in the developers’ answer suggests the studio “has certainly put effort and consideration into a port,” even as no commitment has been made.
A year of speculation with no Nintendo release yet
Sandfall has fielded the Switch 2 question repeatedly since before the console even launched. Back in May 2025, Broche told another interviewer that the game’s runaway success “changes everything” for the studio’s options, while stopping short of confirming a port. By September 2025, Sandfall’s official line had firmed up only slightly, with the team stating it had “some opportunities that we will explore, but currently we cannot confirm anything.”
Niche Gamer summed up the frustration many fans feel: the game is “the 2025 Game of the Year and currently the highest-rated user score release of all time on Metacritic,” yet more than a year after launch there is still no word on a Switch 2 port. Expedition 33 debuted on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in April 2025 and has never been available on any Nintendo platform, base Switch included, despite third-party heavyweights like Cyberpunk 2077 and Hogwarts Legacy making the jump to Switch 2.
Why Nintendo fans keep pushing the question
The persistence of the question isn’t surprising given Switch 2’s early trajectory. The console has already sold in the tens of millions worldwide since its mid-2026 launch window, a scale that makes any unported acclaimed RPG a conspicuous gap in the library for Nintendo-only players in markets including New Zealand and Australia, where the base Switch’s install base remains large and Switch 2 stock has been in steady demand.
For now, Sandfall’s position hasn’t shifted from “interested but unconfirmed.” Whether Lumen Lite, further Unreal Engine updates, or simply more development time change that calculus is something only the studio can answer — and, as Broche reiterated to Automaton West, it isn’t ready to do so yet.
Read also: FFXIV Lands on Switch 2 August 4 With 117GB Install, Separate Subscription
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