Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s new DLC bosses and nerfs force players to overhaul their endgame builds.

After a strong showing at The Game Awards, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is riding a wave of excitement. Sandfall Interactive has timed a new update to coincide with this success, bringing a mix of fixes, tweaks, and fresh content. Among the additions are a couple of boss encounters that are clearly testing the mettle of many players.

Veteran Expedition 33 players are well-acquainted with the game’s numerous superbosses, which are scattered throughout the world map, ready to ambush unsuspecting adventurers. By the time players reach the endgame, they have access to a variety of pictos—passive abilities that can be stacked or combined for powerful effects that significantly boost character stats—allowing them to unleash astonishing damage in single hits.

Over time, many players have developed builds that exploit these mechanics, effectively trivializing most encounters. However, with the new celebratory DLC, Sandfall Interactive has crafted challenges that are truly worthy of the most skilled players.

Spoilers for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 follow.

The DLC introduces a brand-new area called Verso’s Drafts, which includes several new boss fights, but the real test seems to lie within the Endless Tower. This location, present in the base game as an arena for progressively tougher challenges, now features four additional superbosses—variants of existing bosses—that are proving to be formidable even for the most experienced players. Notably, a multi-phase battle against a boss named Duolliste is causing quite a stir, with at least one player reportedly “screaming” in frustration. This could also be linked to the behind-the-scenes adjustments that Sandfall has implemented in this update.

While the DLC introduces new abilities that players can find and equip to tackle these challenges, Sandfall has also taken the opportunity to nerf some of the previously overpowered builds by removing invisible damage buffs that could be stacked.

Shortly after the patch’s release, players began to notice that their once-mighty builds, capable of dealing up to 11 million points of damage, were now producing significantly lower numbers.

As one player noted on the game’s subreddit, it appears that many of the setups players had relied on for months are no longer effective, stating, “So far it seems like 90% of Verso’s setups are essentially dead, but the rest of the crew is somewhat untouched.” Other players echoed this sentiment, agreeing that the new superbosses will require fresh strategies.

While the damage reduction isn’t catastrophic and some builds still perform well, it’s entertaining to see Sandfall shake things up. Even if it doesn’t completely reset the game, challenging even the most adept players to rethink their strategies adds to the enjoyment of evolving a game and its community through DLC. Remarkably, Expedition 33 players seem to embrace the challenge, eagerly looking forward to the opportunity to tackle the game without relying on hidden buffs.

In other exciting news, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has given a nod to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 after its director shared that the JRPG legend “inspired me to become a game dev.”