Yoshida asked Kepler not to lead with “turn-based RPG”

On 17 August 2026 former PlayStation chief Shuhei Yoshida, at the Busan Indie Connect Festival, recalled advice he gave the makers of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. About two years before release he had already seen the game and rated it highly, and he still feared the words “turn-based RPG”: at the time the label could scare people used to action.

He suggested Kepler Interactive present the fights another way. The promo line became “reactive turn-based battles”: a turn stays a turn, with real-time action inside it.

Yoshida liked the system itself. He recognized a kinship with The Legend of Dragoon, which he produced on the original PlayStation. The 2025 release and a long run of Game of the Year awards showed that caution about the genre label was unnecessary.