Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida says he gave Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's creators a piece of marketing advice that ran against the grain: don't call it a turn-based RPG. Speaking at the Busan Indie Connect Festival 2026 in South Korea, Yoshida recounted the conversation during a panel meant to help indie developers pitch their games to publishers.
What Yoshida told the team
Yoshida, who worked as an advisor to developers and publishers around the time of his 2025 departure from PlayStation, said he played a demo of the game roughly two years before its release, encountered through his consulting work with publisher Kepler Interactive. He was impressed by the combat, comparing it to The Legend of Dragoon, a game he produced. But he felt the genre label was a liability.
"It's incredibly well-made, but it would be better not to call it a turn-based RPG," Yoshida said, as reported by 4Gamer. "That alone might cause players to overlook it."
His reasoning, per VGC, was that turn-based JRPGs were seen as "old-fashioned" at the time, and that some players might dismiss the game on the strength of the term alone. According to the reports, Kepler and developer Sandfall Interactive took the advice, describing the combat as "reactive turn-based battles" instead.
Trend-chasing versus timing
Yoshida framed the anecdote as an example of when going against a trend makes sense. Per VGC, he was asked whether publishers care about trends and said it depends on the company: those who pick up nearly finished games are more likely to chase what's hot, while those who get involved early in development tend to worry less, since a trend can be dead within a few years.
He also noted that Clair Obscur's success has had a ripple effect. PC Gamer reports Yoshida said publishers have since seen a wave of turn-based games pitched to them in the wake of the game's breakout.
Whether the wording actually moved the needle is impossible to prove. Expedition 33's combat blends traditional turn order with real-time parrying and dodging, and that active feel was on display in trailers well before any label was attached. Still, the game's numbers speak for themselves. The outlets report slightly different sales milestones: all note 3.3 million copies in the first month, with Eurogamer citing 5.5 million by October 2025 and PC Gamer stating the game surpassed eight million copies as of April. It was also one of the highest-rated releases of 2025 and picked up multiple Game Awards.
What it means for players
The takeaway isn't really about one game's marketing copy. It's a reminder that genre labels shape what you notice on a storefront, and that a wave of turn-based projects is now moving through publishers thanks to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. If Yoshida's read is right, expect more studios to lean on active, reactive combat systems while carefully avoiding the phrase that once scared players off. For anyone who tracks upcoming RPGs, that means the next few years of turn-based games may look and market themselves quite differently, even if the bones underneath are familiar.