“We Clearly Overdid It”: Developers of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to Nerf One of the Game's Most Powerful Attacks

The developers of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 make no secret of the fact that the game is full of “breaking” abilities that players can use on particularly difficult bosses. But some attacks turned out to be too powerful, which Sandfall Interactive itself admitted.

We are talking about Maelle’s ability called Stendhal, which opens in the third act and is capable of inflicting huge damage, removing all shields from opponents at once. When combined with the abilities of other characters, the ability turns into an ultimate weapon that nullifies any challenge. Some builds using Stendhal allowed for over two billion damage in one turn.

Sandfall Interactive noticed these screenshots and promised to nerf the ability in the next update, which will be released on May 9. According to the developers, the skill felt so passable to them early on in the game's development that they "overdid it" in trying to make it more interesting:

As a reminder, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and Game Pass. A mod was previously released for the game that makes parrying and dodging much easier.