Quick! Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer will soon nerf the game’s best move

The developer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will soon nerf the RPG’s best move, making it more difficult to break combat.

“We hadn’t planned to make any balance changes this early – just bug fixes, unless something clearly stood out,” the studio wrote in a social media post. “Well, Stendhal did.”

It turns out this particular ability of Maelle’s was accidentally made too strong, so from tomorrow (9th May) an update will be employed to reduce its damage output.

The update will be the first full hotfix, which will arrive first on Steam followed by other platforms.

“[Stendhal] was underwhelming for most of development, so in our final pre-release balance pass, we gave it a big damage boost – and clearly overdid it. It ended up overshadowing most other options,” said the studio.

“We still want you to be able to break the game – and you absolutely still can – but Stendhal was making it a bit too easy.”

I’ll admit to relying on this move myself in order to beat the game’s most challenging super boss: Simon. His long combos are a nightmare to parry and it’s an even more difficult fight over time.

Enter Maelle. By using certain Pictos (the game’s buff system), you can stack up abilities to ensure Maelle can do ginormous amounts of damage in just one hit with that Stendhal ability. I killed Simon in one hit, doing around 72m hit points of damage.

It felt amazing! But despite creating a combat system that can be intentionally broken with clever Picto use, clearly the developers went a bit overboard.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been a huge debut success for the developers at Sandfall Interactive. Earlier this week, the studio revealed the game had sold two million copies, while previously it was celebrated by French President Macron.

The soundtrack is also riding high on Billboard’s classical chart.

“Outstanding artwork and glorious combat bring Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s bold, painterly world to life,” reads Eurogamer’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review.