Sandfall Interactive Leverages Unreal Engine Blueprints to Empower Designers in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Development

Co-founder and CTO Tom Guillermin shares insights on how the small team used visual scripting to maximize creative freedom.

Mar. 11, 2026 at 5:33pm by Ben Kaplan

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In a session at the GDC Festival of Gaming, Tom Guillermin, co-founder and CTO of Sandfall Interactive, and senior gameplay programmer Florian Torres discussed how the team leveraged Unreal Engine's Blueprint visual scripting system to empower designers and maximize creative freedom during the development of their acclaimed RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The blog post provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at the team's development philosophy and workflow, highlighting how they used Blueprints to craft engaging gameplay experiences despite their limited programming bandwidth.

Why it matters

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been widely praised for its creative design and gameplay, and this insight into Sandfall Interactive's development process sheds light on how a small team can leverage tools like Unreal Engine's Blueprints to punch above their weight and deliver a polished, community-acclaimed title. The blog post also serves as an inspiration for aspiring game developers, showcasing how visual scripting can make programming more accessible and enable non-coders to contribute to the creative vision.

The details

Sandfall Interactive started development on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 with just a few team members, but as the project grew, they expanded to a 12-person team. Recognizing their limited programming bandwidth, the studio chose to use Unreal Engine and its Blueprint visual scripting system to empower designers and enable the entire team to contribute to the game's logic and mechanics. Blueprints allowed the non-programmers on the team to craft everything from character movement and visual effects to camera behavior, without needing to write code. This shared language and visual approach enabled the team to efficiently reuse and repurpose assets, such as elements from the game's world map, to create a cohesive and polished experience.

  • Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was first prototyped by Sandfall Interactive's CEO, Guillaume Broche, in his bedroom.
  • In 2022, the team grew to 12 members and attended GDC, where they met with Kepler Interactive and secured support to develop an Alpha build.
  • Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is now available on PlayStation 5, and there is also a two-hour trial for PlayStation Plus subscribers.

The players

Tom Guillermin

Co-founder and CTO of Sandfall Interactive, the studio behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Florian Torres

Senior gameplay programmer at Sandfall Interactive.

Guillaume Broche

CEO of Sandfall Interactive, who first prototyped Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in his bedroom.

Kepler Interactive

The publisher that supported Sandfall Interactive in developing an Alpha build of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

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What they’re saying

“Coding is an incredibly important part of video game development, and Blueprints, which are themselves a different way of coding, are one of the modern ways for aspiring developers or the infinitely curious within the PlayStation community to start creating their own projects.”

— Tom Guillermin, Co-founder and CTO, Sandfall Interactive

“There's truth in many cliches, and we certainly stress this one: Teamwork makes the dream work. It sounds simple, but you need to truly need to lean on each other and create workflows that recognize, encourage, and benefit from that teamwork.”

— Tom Guillermin, Co-founder and CTO, Sandfall Interactive

What’s next

Sandfall Interactive plans to continue supporting and updating Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 based on community feedback, and the team is also exploring new projects that leverage their expertise in Unreal Engine and visual scripting.

The takeaway

Sandfall Interactive's development approach for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 showcases how a small team can maximize creative freedom and empower non-programmers by embracing tools like Unreal Engine's Blueprints. This insight can inspire aspiring game developers to explore visual scripting as a means to bring their ideas to life, even with limited coding experience.