Sandfall Says Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Switch 2 Port Is In The Works, but UE5 Is a Big Technical Challenge

Sandfall Interactive has gone on the record about the rumored Switch 2 version of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and the short version is yes, it is happening, and no, it is not going to be simple. In a new interview with Automaton, picked up by Eurogamer, the 30-person Montpellier studio confirmed it is actively working on a Nintendo Switch 2 port of its 2025 Game of the Year winner, but called the porting process a big technical challenge rooted in Unreal Engine 5.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launched on April 24, 2025, on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S, and it sold a million copies in three days on the back of a wildly painterly Belle Epoque aesthetic and a turn based combat system that owes a heavy debt to classic Final Fantasy. It went on to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2025. That kind of success is the reason the demand for a Switch 2 version has not gone away, and the reason a port is so hard to pull off.

What the developers said

Sandfall's chief technical officer and lead programmer, Tom Guillermin, was blunt about the scale of the work. The Switch 2 is not as powerful as the PlayStation or the Xbox Series X, and the studio is small, so every trade off has to be weighed carefully. He added that a lot of Unreal Engine 5 features the game leans on do not work on Switch 2 at all in their current form, which is the real reason a port is taking time rather than a question of interest.

Lead character artist Alan Reynaud pointed the finger at Epic's roadmap. He said Epic is introducing Lumen Lite now, which is easier to run than the standard Lumen, but those features take time to roll out. In other words, Sandfall is waiting to see what UE5 looks like for low end hardware before it commits to a final feature set on Switch 2. That is a pragmatic call from a tiny team that cannot afford to redo a Switch 2 build every time Epic ships a new engine version.

CEO and creative director Guillaume Broche, who has been the public face of the studio since launch, kept expectations measured. We are interested in looking for a way to do it, but it is too early for us to announce anything at this point. No release window, no feature cuts, no compromise promises, just a soft confirmation that the work is happening.

Why this is harder than a normal port

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not a small game under the hood. It runs on Unreal Engine 5 with Lumen global illumination, Nanite virtualised geometry, and MetaHuman adjacent character work, plus a hand painted lighting pass that gives the world its impressionist look. That pipeline was tuned for desktop and current gen consoles with healthy thermal budgets. Switch 2 has more headroom than the original Switch, but it is still a tablet class chip running under thermal constraints, and a UE5 title that ships with Lumen out of the box does not just drop in.

Sandfall's interview also makes clear the studio is not interested in the typical Nintendo port playbook. There is no mention of a stripped down Switch 2 build with static lighting and lower resolution textures, which is how most third party RPGs land on Nintendo hardware. Broche has been vocal in past interviews about not chasing trends, and that stance shows up here. If the studio cannot ship a Switch 2 version that looks and feels like the one people played on PS5, it would rather wait than push out a compromised build.

It is also worth noting that Sandfall is not a sprawling Japanese studio with a hundred programmers who can throw bodies at a port. The studio that built Expedition 33 had around 30 full time staff at launch, with extra outsourced support for art and cinematics. That is the same team that has to think about a Switch 2 version, the next game, and a long tail of content updates for the existing release. The math is tight, and it explains the patient tone of the interview.

What it means for Switch 2 owners

For Switch 2 owners, the practical takeaway is that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is coming to the platform, but not soon, and probably not as a launch window shadow drop. Sandfall is going to wait for the right combination of UE5 updates and Switch 2 specific optimisation work before it commits to a date, and that is the right call for a 30 person studio with a reputation to protect. Anyone expecting a quick cash in port should recalibrate.

The bigger picture is also worth watching. Clair Obscur is the rare non Nintendo first party Switch 2 game that can anchor an RPG push on the platform, the same way Xenoblade or Fire Emblem used to. If Sandfall nails the port, it sets a credible template for other UE5 heavy RPGs to follow. If it does not, expect a long stretch of Switch 2 RPGs shipping with major visual compromises and a lot of press releases that use the word tailored.

There is also a quiet signal here about the state of Unreal Engine 5 on lower end hardware. Epic is shipping Lumen Lite, which is the engine team acknowledging that not every UE5 game can afford full Lumen on Switch 2 or Steam Deck class silicon. If Sandfall waits for that ecosystem to mature before locking the Switch 2 build, it benefits from a year of engine improvements that will quietly make the port easier. The cost is patience. The reward is a version of Expedition 33 that does not feel like a different game.

The CriticalPixel take

We are not going to pretend this is bad news. Yes, Switch 2 players who wanted Clair Obscur yesterday will have to wait, and there is no guarantee the port lands before the next major UE5 update changes the target. But Sandfall is doing the thing every other UE5 developer on Switch 2 should be doing, which is admitting the challenge out loud, refusing to promise a date it cannot hit, and refusing to ship a compromised version just to hit a fiscal quarter. Broche and Guillermin sound like adults who actually know what their engine can and cannot do on the target hardware, which is more than we can say for a lot of cross platform ports that have shipped in the last year.

The 30 person studio framing is the part the rest of the industry should sit with. Clair Obscur shipped looking and playing the way it did because the team had the runway and the focus to make it right. Asking the same team to do all of that plus a Switch 2 port plus the next game in a normal AAA timeline is not realistic, and Sandfall saying so on the record is rare honesty. We will take a late Switch 2 build that respects the original over a fast one that does not. If you are a Switch 2 owner waiting, that is the version worth waiting for.