According to former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida, turn-based RPGs had such a negative reputation several years ago that he advised indie developers to avoid describing their games with the genre label altogether. That included Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a game Yoshida encountered well before its eventual breakout success.

Yoshida discussed his experience during a lecture at the Busan Indie Connect Festival 2026, explaining that he played an early demo of Clair Obscur roughly two years before its release. He was particularly impressed by its similarities to The Legend of Dragoon, a classic PlayStation RPG that Yoshida himself produced. However, despite his enthusiasm for the game, Yoshida believed calling it a traditional turn-based RPG could work against it.

"It's incredibly well-made, but it would be better not to call it a turn-based RPG."

According to Yoshida, simply using the term could have caused some players to overlook the game because of the stigma surrounding turn-based and particularly Japanese RPGs at the time. Sandfall Interactive took the advice and instead began describing Clair Obscur as featuring "reactive turn-based battles," a phrase that better communicated how actively players participate in combat.

That distinction arguably makes sense when looking at how Clair Obscur actually plays. While battles are technically turn-based, players aren't simply selecting commands and waiting for their characters to attack. Enemy attacks can be dodged or parried with precise timing, while other mechanics require players to pay close attention to enemy movements. The result is a combat system that combines traditional turn-based decision-making with a much more active layer of player interaction.

It's difficult to know exactly how much Yoshida's marketing advice contributed to the game's success, especially since its trailers already showcased its fast-paced combat and striking visual style. Still, avoiding the traditional label may have helped Clair Obscur reach players who might otherwise have dismissed it based purely on genre.

And the game's eventual success suggests that turn-based RPGs may not have been the problem after all. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sold 3.3 million copies in its first month and has since surpassed eight million copies, becoming one of the biggest RPG success stories of recent years. Its reception has also seemingly encouraged publishers to take another look at the genre, with Yoshida noting that he has seen a wave of turn-based games being pitched following Clair Obscur's success.

The irony is that a game once considered risky to market as a turn-based RPG has now become one of the strongest arguments for the genre's continued popularity. Rather than abandoning turn-based combat to chase modern trends, Clair Obscur demonstrated that the formula can still feel fresh when developers build new mechanics around it.

For Sandfall Interactive, the decision to emphasize its reactive combat may have helped communicate what made the game different, but its success ultimately proves something even more important: turn-based RPGs don't need to disappear—they just need new ways to excite players.