Every now and then, a game comes at the right place and the right time that captures the imagination of gamers like no other game around. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the newest addition to the “came out of nowhere and blew everyone’s mind” hall of fame. It’s a French RPG game made by a relatively small group developers (30 people) that mainly consist of ex-Ubisoft developers. Despite the small team, It looks and sounds like an AAA game. It’s heavily inspired by some old-school JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Persona, Blue Dragon and the Lost Odyssey, but thanks to its western-style storytelling and aesthetics, it manages to be a fresh experience.
In this article of Polydin Game Art Outsourcing, we want to find out how this ambitious French game sold millions of copies and became a GOTY contender almost overnight.
What Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is About?
Clair Obscur is the French translation of a term in painting called chiaroscuro. It refers to a strong contrast of light and dark. Its true meaning is something that you have to find out in the game. Expedition 33 refers to the main premise of the game.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is set in an isolated island of Lumière. For the last 67 years, the people there have been dealing with a creepy event called the “Gommage.” Basically, an entity called “the Paintress” paints a number that keeps getting smaller each year, and anyone older than that number just vanishes. Every year after the Gommage, Lumière sends out a crew of volunteers who are about to vanish—an Expedition—to the mainland to track down the Paintress and stop her before she paints the next number. Expedition 33 is the latest team to head out on this dangerous quest. And that’s your party.
This premise is pretty strong, because it is both emotionally resonant (you are controlling people faced with imminent death) and urgent (can you stop the Paintress from doing this horrible thing?)
A French JRPG: A Combination We Didn’t Know We Needed
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is unapologetically French. Its setting is basically a dark fantasy version of Belle Époque, a period in French history (1871-1914) that is most associated with the romantic image people have of France and Paris in mind. The characters constantly throw French words in conversation, there is a literal mime as an enemy and there are unlockable “Baguette” outfits for the characters that you can get after defeating the mime.
France has had a lot of negative imagery associated with it in the past decade, with uprisings, pictures of dirty Paris streets flooding the Internet and a lot of memes about the French not being nice kinda burying that Romantic French aesthetics underneath. Clair Obscur brings that back in full force without making compromises on the basis of politics. So, in a way, it’s a revival of idealistic French aesthetics, with a very somber melodramatic story to complement it to the boot. People missed that, so they really welcomed it.
Now this heavy dose of Frenchism has been implemented in the context of a JRPG inspired game-play, and this was the winning move. JRPGs, with their flashy turn-based combat and story-driven exploration have been an adequate alternative for Western Style RPGs for decades. But one could see that the classic JRPG formula was becoming a bit stale, with classic JRPG titles that could be GOTY contenders becoming few and far between. Also, the anime aesthetics and cliches were done to death in the context of JRPGs and there was not much room to be creative about it. Although there’s no doubt that there are people who can never get enough of that, but that’s not how the market at large works.
So, enter Clair Obscur: a JRPG with a very different vibe. Western style JRPGs have been done before, the most prominent example being Anachronox (2001), but never with such level of presentation. Renewing the JRPG formula with a French coat of paint was exactly what gamers needed right now and Clair Obscur definitely delivered.
Although it’s worth mentioning that despite the initial freshness of the setting and the aesthetics, the game still carries that JRPG DNA with it. The basic plot is still “Kill/Face God with the power of friendship” and the dynamic and emotionality between party members is highly reminiscent of Final Fantasy games, with hot/cute/beautiful and emotionally vulnerable girls acting as the emotional core that disarms the player and makes you invested in whatever is going on.
A Turn-Based Combat That You Can’t Do on Auto-Pilot
In Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, when it’s your turn, you get to pick what to do: use an item, swing a melee attack to rack up some Ability Points, or spend those points on ranged attacks or cool Skills. Ranged attacks let you aim freely, kinda like you’re playing a third-person shooter. If you use a Skill, there’s a quick time event you can nail for a better effect. When the enemies strike back, you can dodge, parry, or jump over their attacks in real time to avoid getting hit. Parrying’s trickier than dodging, but it gives you Ability Points and a chance to hit back. There’s also a stamina system that lets you “Break” enemies, stunning them for a bit. As you keep going, you’ll unlock new moves like Gradient Attacks, Gradient Counters, and Gradient Skills. If your combat squad gets wiped out, you can call in backup characters to keep the fight going. The battle wraps up when one side’s got no fighters left.
Each character’s got their own skill tree, weapons, and playstyle that make them stand out. For instance, Lune, the mage, has Skills that create elemental “Stains” you can use to boost her abilities. Then there’s Maelle, the fencer, who can switch between Stances to change up her Skills, damage, and defense. You can also customize characters with “Pictos” and “Luminas” that toss in a bunch of handy perks.
As you can see, Clair Obscur’s turn-based combat is another reason behind its success. It’s a combination of classic turn-based game-play with demanding real-time reactions. This system creates a combat system that engages you on multiple fronts. For the first 1/3 part of the game, it’s not necessary to use this system to get by, but after that, the difficulty ramps up and your dependence on both turn-based strategizing and real-time reaction-times increases significantly.
This mechanic is not an innovation. It has been done in Legend of Dragoon (1999) and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (2004), two turn-based JRPGs that also used real-time reactions to enhance turn-based attacks. According to the developers, they were directly inspired by Blue Dragon (2006) and Lost Odyssey (2007), two Xbox 360 exclusive JRPGs that used Quick Time Events to enhance attacks. Also, in typical JRPG fashion, the turn-based battles are complimented by flashy gravity-defying animations that are satisfying to look at.
Outside of the combat system, you can explore. The game has a respectable amount of side-content and there are many secrets to find. In order to gain access to certain areas, you need to unlock new modes of travel. So, some backtracking is involved too.
All and all, in terms of game-play, Clair Obscur is mostly lauded for being polished and just doing everything right, rather than being a huge innovator.
It’s All about Presentation
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has outdone itself in terms of graphics, music and voice acting. The game uses many famous and accomplished actors in leading roles, with Charlie Cox (who plays Gustave, the main character) and Andy Serkis being the most prominent names.
The game uses Unreal Engine 5, so like all UE5 games, its visual quality is solid. However, its main strength lies in the art direction and the beautiful ethereal occasionally surreal vistas that the developers have designed for the game. In a game where the main supposed villain is called “The Paintress”, you can bet the game is going to look like a painting.
The game’s music has also been lauded by both fans and critics alike, with many claiming that the composer Lorien Testard (who was discovered on Soundcloud) punching way above his weight with what he delivered here. There are many full-orchestral music tracks accompanying different areas, battles and boss fights, with the quality being consistent among most of them. Some of the music have their lyrics recorded in French and these have received the warmest reception and they are already uploaded as music videos on Youtube.
Generally speaking, for a game that has been made with only 30 people, the production value of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is – for the lack of a better word – insane. It is clearly a game made by love and since it was a new IP, it shows that they managed to show their passion to the publisher too, because bagging names like Cox and Serkis for a weird new IP required a level of confidence that publishers usually don’t have in unproven IPs.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: Just a Good Game All Around
So, what’s the key to Clair Obscur’s success? It is just a good game all around. It doesn’t revolve around a wow-factor gimmick or a huge innovation, but it’s just the right mixture of a good story, engaging game-play, gorgeous graphics and excellent music; you know, the classic formula. It doesn’t have many of the intrusive elements prevalent in the game industry nowadays (like Microtransactions and pre-planned DLCs) and it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
A game that’s just great, with no strings attached, has become a treasure in the gaming industry nowadays. These kinds of games are usually made when a publisher gives a team of creative talents to do whatever they see fit. Another game that benefited from the same privilege was Baldur’s Gate 3, which didn’t even have a publisher and it was just a team of creatives doing what they do best. Although unlike Clair Obscur, Baldur’s Gate 3 did have a gimmick, which was the game’s mind-boggling number of narrative branches.
So yeah, that’s pretty much it. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is just a good game all around, like the kind of games we would get in the pre 2010s era. It has received some minor criticism, like the annoying platforming sections and becoming a tad melodramatic at times, but nothing serious. So, the coast is clear on this one. If you want to check it out, you should.
