The Fracture in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 happened 67 years before the events of the game’s main story.

What “when was the Fracture” means

In the game’s lore, “when was the Fracture?” is answered in-universe as:

  • “67 years ago” – this is treated as the correct response in quizzes and guides.
  • It marks the first appearance of the Paintress and her Monolith, when she painted the number 100 and the world’s cycle of annual deaths began.

So if you see NPC questions or forum discussions asking “when was the Fracture in Expedition 33?”, the accepted answer is 67 years ago.

Quick lore scoop

  • The Fracture was a cataclysmic event that shattered the world and sent the city of Lumière into the sea as an isolated island.
  • The Paintress painted “100” on a giant monolith; each year the number decreases by one, and people of that age die in an event called the Gommage.
  • Expeditions are named after that number, starting from Expedition 0 and counting down to Expedition 33 during the game.

Forum discussions sometimes try to pin this to a real-world year (for example, suggesting a 1923 fracture leading to a circa‑1990 setting), but those are fan interpretations, not explicit canon dates.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.