Unreal Engine 5 Powered Clair Obscur, But a Switch 2 Port Won’t Be Easy

Unreal Engine 5 has often faced criticism over demanding performance and optimization issues, but Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall Interactive sees the engine very differently. According to the studio, Unreal Engine 5 played a major role in making its award-winning RPG possible despite having a relatively small development team.

Sandfall Interactive CEO and Creative Director Guillaume Broche explained that Unreal Engine provided the studio with many of the tools needed to create a visually ambitious game without requiring a massive workforce. Technologies such as Nanite, Lumen and MetaHuman arrived at key stages of development and helped the team push the game's visual quality.

One of the studio's most important tools was Unreal Engine's Blueprints visual scripting system. Sandfall has only four programmers, while designers and technical artists also use Blueprints to create gameplay and environmental logic. This allows more members of the team to contribute directly to development without relying entirely on traditional programming.

Technical Artist Alexandre Breton also highlighted the broader Blueprint ecosystem, pointing to its accessibility, tutorials, community resources and shared content as major advantages for smaller teams.

Switch 2 Port Remains a Major Challenge

Despite Unreal Engine 5 helping Sandfall achieve its vision, bringing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to Nintendo Switch 2 could prove considerably more difficult.

The studio has expressed interest in a port, but CTO and co-founder Tom Guillermin acknowledged that the hardware is less powerful than the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, making optimization a significant challenge for a relatively small team.

New Unreal Engine technologies could potentially make the process easier. Lumen Lite, designed to provide a less demanding version of Unreal's lighting technology, could be particularly useful for hardware such as Switch 2. However, Sandfall will need to evaluate how quickly these tools mature and whether they can deliver the required performance.

The challenge is especially significant because Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 relies heavily on its detailed environments, lighting and visual presentation. While other demanding Unreal Engine 5 games have successfully reached Switch 2, Sandfall does not have the same development resources as some of the larger studios behind those ports.

For now, a Switch 2 version remains a possibility rather than a confirmed release. If Unreal Engine's newer optimization tools continue to improve, however, they could make bringing Sandfall's acclaimed RPG to Nintendo's latest hardware considerably more achievable.

Source: Wccftech

Behind the Headline

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 shows how modern game development engines can help smaller studios create large-scale, visually ambitious experiences. At the same time, its potential Switch 2 port highlights the growing importance of optimization and scalable technology when bringing high-end games to different platforms