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Japan Forward
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Japan Forward
Is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 a JRPG?
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been lighting up the gaming world recently, winning big-time approval from critics and fans alike, despite being the very first game from independent developer Sandfall Interactive. People are calling it the best new JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game) in years, a refinement of the template set out by games like Final Fantasy . The twist, of course, being that Clair Obscur is not a Japanese game. Made in France by a team of around 30 developers at Sandfall Interactive, Clair Obscur is helmed by Director Guillaume Broche and several of his fellow ex-Ubisoft colleagues. The game draws heavy inspiration from classic JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Persona , hidden gems such as Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon , and Japanese action titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice . Gustave and Lune begin their quest to slay the Paintress in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The result is a game that blends turn-based combat with action in a gorgeous fantasy world. Yet, while it is every bit as high-concept and fantastical as the games that inspired it, Clair Obscur manages to avoid much of the bloat that has crept into those series over the decades. It delivers an immersive world and a relatable story about a band of young adventurers on a quest for freedom over tyranny, told over a relatively compact 30 to 40 hours. Clair Obscur is set in a dark fantasy world where, for the past 67 years, the inhabitants of the island of Lumière have perished one age group at a time. Each year, they fall victim to a mystical sorceress known as the Paintress, who has been counting down from age 100, reaching 33 this year. Now aged 32 and facing their own demise next year, stoic expeditioner Gustave and his peers undertake a voyage dangereux to destroy the Paintress so that future generations may live. The game was released on April 24, receiving a critic score of 92% on Metacritic and a user score of 9.7, making it one of the most highly acclaimed games of all time. IGN gave it a 9/10 score, writing, "Wearing its inspirations on its sleeve, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 paints itself into the pantheon of great RPGs with a brilliant combat system and a gripping, harrowing story." Clair Obscur's deep and complex battle system is a hybrid of classic turn-based commands and skill-based action. Our writer at IGN Japan gave it a slightly lower score of 7/10, saying, "While I was hooked by its combat system, the story's sudden plot twist felt forced. Although this was hard to ignore, it is undeniable that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an appealing game that delivers a strong message." IGN France, meanwhile, gave it a perfect 10/10, labelling it "a sumptuous and captivating work of art that never forgets its status as a game, offering rich and exhilarating gameplay." Within 12 days, it had sold two million copies, plus an undisclosed number of additional players on Xbox Games Pass. Michael Douse, the publishing director at Larian Studios, whose own RPG Baldur's Gate 3 was a smash hit in 2023, estimated on his X (Twitter) account that the game will end up selling at least six million copies, and maybe up to ten million – huge numbers for a lower-budget independent game. I hope now word of mouth is in control it can reach its potential. and I say that in support of the developers and their incredible achievement. It has the potential to reach a conservative 6, at least. Could top 8-10. — Very AFK (@Cromwelp) May 6, 2025 For comparison, the most recent Final Fantasy game, 2024's Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth , also scored 92% with critics but 8.9 with users, while the latest mainline game in the series, 2023's Final Fantasy XVI , scored 87% and 8.4. Despite these being excellent and well-made games, sales in the series appear to be in decline. Publisher Square Enix reported that FFXVI sold three million units in its first week, but has been noticeably reticent to announce official numbers for Rebirth , suggesting they are low. This is less than previous games, with 2016's FFXV selling five million copies on its first day, the fastest-selling game in the series to date, eventually reaching at least ten million. Rebirth 's 2020 predecessor, a FFVII remake, sold 3.5 million in three days and finally hit around seven million. The budgets to make each of these games were likely much, much higher than for Clair Obscur . Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, the second in a trilogy of remakes of Square Enix's classic RPG, was met with critical praise but apparently disappointing sales. That's not to pick on Final Fantasy or Square Enix: JRPGs are a niche genre in gaming. An important, storied, and beloved niche – but a niche nonetheless. Which makes Clair Obscur 's crossover success all the more impressive. Sandfall Interactive's game has sparked fresh debate about what the term JRPG really means. After all, if the "J" stands for "Japanese", should it only apply to games made in Japan? Or any game with the characteristics of a JRPG? What even are the characteristics of a JRPG? In fact, the term JRPG has had its controversies over the years. In February 2023, Final Fantasy XVI producer and veteran developer Naoki Yoshida told YouTube channel Skill Up that he found the term offensive. Clair Obscur has won high praise for its painterly art style and moving story. Yoshida commented, "For us as developers, the first time we heard it, it was like a discriminatory term, as though we were being made fun of for creating these games. And so for some developers, the term JRPG can be something that will maybe trigger bad feelings because of what it was in the past. It wasn't a compliment to a lot of developers in Japan. We understand that recently, JRPG has better connotations and it's being used as a positive, but we still remember the time when it was used as a negative." The term was coined at some point in the late 1980s or early 90s, with the first confirmed online usage made on a web forum in 1992, and was used to differentiate between RPG games from Japan and the West. As Yoshida pointed out, it was mostly used by gamers and media outside of Japan. I've personally never considered it a derogatory term, but I can understand how someone in Yoshida's position may find it othering. These days, we tend to expect a JRPG to cast the player as a specific protagonist to experience a set story, whereas Western RPGs will usually have players create their own character and co-author the story as they play. We also tend to expect a turn-based combat system and anime-influenced visual design and characters. 2023's Sea of Stars was a homage to classic Japanese RPGs, despite being made in Canada But of course, early Japanese RPG developers were themselves heavily influenced by Western games such as the early-80s Wizardry series from America, just as some of today's Western developers grew up with JRPGs. The lines have blurred accordingly, with games like 2023's Sea of Stars being considered a JRPG despite being made in Canada. While Clair Obscur does pay homage to the best of the JRPG genre, it also does a great job of honoring its French roots. The game's dialogue is available in French or English, with a stellar voice cast in both, and even in English, it is unafraid to slip in plenty of French terms. When the game's characters face erasure at the hands of the Paintress, their bodies disintegrate into petals that flutter on the wind, a process named the Gommage – a French word meaning to exfoliate and erase. And as you play, Gustave's friends mutter expletives in French, with a well-timed "Merde!" reminding you of their origins. Gustave dressed in an outfit simply titled Baguette. The setting itself is a fantasy take on France's pre-WWI Belle Époque period, a distinctly French visual style that is striking. And you can even dress Gustave, Lune, Maelle, and their amis in a stereotypically French costume comprising a striped T-shirt, beret, and freshly baked baguette slung across their backs, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the development team's culture. French President Emmanuel Macron even praised Clair Obscur in an Instagram post, calling it "a shining example of French audacity and creativity." IGN recently published a video titled The 25 Best JRPGs of All Time, in which it gave the editorial team's favorites, including titles like Chrono Trigger , Persona 5 Royal , and Final Fantasy X . In some ways, I was actually a little surprised that all the games in IGN's best JRPGs list were indeed from Japan. Our team at IGN Japan gave our own thoughts on the list during an episode of our video podcast Shaberisugi Gamer a few days later, drawing a lively debate in the comments from our viewers. As for me, I'm steadily working my way through Clair Obscur and loving every minute of it. I often struggle to play modern RPGs as the time commitment is so extreme, as many games require around 60-80 hours to beat, so the fact that Clair Obscur offers a fascinating story and hugely engaging combat system within a relatively tight package appeals to me. Gustave and friends on their perilous journey. As a British pop-culture journalist based in Japan for 19 years, I've always enjoyed cross-pollination of culture, and for me, the erosion (or gommage ) of boundaries is always welcome. So the idea of a JRPG made outside of Japan didn't seem strange to me until the conversation blew up around Clair Obscur . I hope you'll try the game and see what you think! Author: Daniel Robson
Daily Maverick
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the surprise masterpiece no one saw coming
It'll likely be scooping several Game of the Year awards toward the end of 2025, and for good reason, as Expedition 33 shows that you can make waves in the industry without needing to cater to as broad an audience as possible. Tomorrow comes, and we continue. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 shouldn't be this good. On paper, a traditional turn-based RPG with souls-like influences fused into its design, a relatively short time-to-complete playtime, and a decadently French direction sounds like a recipe for chaos. Somehow, though, developer Sandfall Interactive has managed to combine all of its ideas into a harmonious experience with its debut effort. It says a lot when the end result is so good, so exquisite in its execution that it even manages to overshadow the likes of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, a game released a mere two days before its release. To put it simply, Expedition 33 is both a revelation and a love letter to a bygone era of gaming. Full of elegant art direction inspired by France's Belle Époque period, a rock-solid cast of characters to fall in love with, and gameplay that keeps your eyes glued to the screen, Expedition 33 pays homage to the past while forging its own path forward. Once a year, the Paintress wakes and paints upon her monolith in Expedition 33. Every year sees a new cursed number appear, leading to an event known as 'the gommage' in which everyone of that age turns to petals and fades away. Year by year, that number ticks down and more people are erased, while doomed expeditions set out to her continent in a futile attempt to stop her. Players are quickly introduced to Gustav in Expedition 33, who leads a party to stop her or at least pave the way forward for the next expedition, with members grimly reciting a mantra to remind them that they're fighting for tomorrow. Expedition 33's story could have easily wallowed in the nihilistic despair of its premise, but Sandfall Interactive makes certain to inject a sense of optimism and enthusiasm into its tale, introducing players to layered characters brought to life by a cast of acting heavyweights. Charlie Cox (Daredevil), Andy Serkis (Andor), and Ben Starr (Final Fantasy 16 and noted appreciator of Final Fantasy 8) bring their A-game to Expedition 33, while the rest of the game's small but talented cast is fleshed out by the likes of Jennifer English, Kirsty Rider, and Shala Nyx. Like the best turn-based RPGs, Expedition 33's story is one of twists and turns, heartbreak and triumph in a world that you can't get enough of. There's a painterly quality to everything; a rich canvas to explore and interesting characters to meet throughout the game, but it's also an adventure that feels fantastic to play. Applying the souls-like label to any game will most likely turn off a portion of the audience, but to its credit, Sandfall has managed to cleverly make these gameplay ideas complement the core RPG experience. Whereas other studios would haphazardly bolt these ideas onto their product to quickly cash in on the gaming zeitgeist, Expedition 33 is so in touch with these mechanics that you can't imagine it not having them after you've spent a few hours with the title. The genius here is that Expedition 33 is essentially two different games whenever you initiate combat. There's a heavy JRPG influence, as basic attacks and spellcasting are combined with broader ideas and unique character movesets. The mage Lune, for example, can stack up elemental stains that can be consumed to increase damage, while Maelle combines ballet with fencing arts to weave in and out of stances that offer various advantages. These moves also have a light smattering of quick-time events woven into them, keeping you more engaged with the action as it unfolds on the screen. But when it's the enemy's turn? That's when you need to lean forward on your seat and prepare to test your reflexes. From Software's Sekiro is the best example of what to expect here, as you'll need to dodge and parry attacks from the opposition. Getting the timing right allows you to avoid damage and even follow up with a counterattack, and as you venture further into the game, more interesting wrinkles on the combat present themselves to the player. The combination leads to thrilling enemy encounters, and even if you find yourself grossly outgunned, a few well-timed parries can turn the tide of battle and net you a hard-earned victory. Another layer to this system are Pictos, items that can be equipped to buff attacks. Spread across the game, Pictos allow for some incredible experimentation and buildcrafting. Expedition 33 players have come up with some jaw-dropping builds since the game was released, and while it has been significantly nerfed, there's still a build that can be used to turn Maelle into a walking extinction event. Take that, horrible robo-mime bastard who is a headache to face at first. There's more to the game than just a rip-roaring yarn of cancelling the apocalypse and outfitting your crew with stereotypically French outfits and baguettes, of course. Expedition 33 is a masterclass in keeping players engaged, as even the art of grinding out some extra XP feels worthwhile thanks to the head-turning gameplay. I could go on about its stellar soundtrack, French New Wave cinematic influences, and the nuanced approach to character development, not to mention the sheer grandeur of the boss battles that you'll experience. But that would do the game a disservice, because the best thing about Expedition 33 is that it's constantly surprising – offering a journey that you'll want to undertake without being too informed of what awaits you. DM Released on 24 April, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is out now for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. It's also playable with Game Pass.
Digital Trends
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's style is its substance
From its establishing shot of the Eiffel Tower bent in on itself, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wants you to know it is very French, if a little twisted. The turn-based RPG revels in the aesthetic of developer Sandfall Interactive's home country, which often helps to distinguish the game from its many high-profile influences. As a tale of death and grief it's hard not to make comparisons to genre titans such as Final Fantasy X and Lost Odyssey. And sure, the themes are similar, but did Tidus ever wear a beret? I don't think so. Much of the overt French aesthetic of Clair Obscur can seem like a surface level coat of paint. Yet there is much more to Sandfall Interactive's adoption of the Belle Époque style in this dark fantasy facsimile of France. With just a little understanding of French history, it becomes clear that this isn't a case of style over substance — the style is the substance. Recommended Videos This article contains spoilers for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Dressed to impress Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's prologue does a lot of narrative heavy lifting. In less than an hour we are introduced to our main cast and the stakes of the world. Every year the citizens of Lumiére suffer the Gommage, an event triggered by a godlike being called the Paintress who appears once a year to paint a descending number in the sky, sentencing anyone older than that number to die immediately. To stop the endless death, an expedition of volunteers is sent out annually to take down the Paintress. That's us. While emotionally loaded, the prologue also establishes the central aesthetic of the game. Lumiére, with iconic landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, is a slightly different version of real-world Paris. The biggest difference is the specific Paris Clair Obscur seeks to emulate. City streets lined with buildings melding Art Nouveau and Neoclassical architecture point to a Paris of the Belle Époque. Literally meaning 'the beautiful age,' the Belle Époque is a period of French history that spans from 1871 to 1914 (the beginning is more debated, but the ending is not). A more specific date for Clair Obscur's pseudo-Paris can be estimated by the inclusion of the Eiffel Tower (completed in 1889) and costuming defined by narrow suiting for men and shirtwaist and skirt ensembles for women. Taken together, Lumiére is roughly Paris right before the turn of the 20th century. But what does that all mean for the world of Clair Obscur? At first, not much. Once the titular expedition leaves the safety of Lumiére and enters the monster infested continent, that iconic Belle Époque style is almost missing from the world. The most we get for hours on end are scattered buildings in ruin that once connected to Lumiére. Our cast is let loose in a run of the mill apocalyptic fantasy environment. The loss of that Belle Époque set dressing, however, might just be the point. The reason the era looms so large in the cultural consciousness — especially of France — is because it was a period of peace, progress, and hope. All these characteristics seem almost antithetical to the world of Clair Obscur, a world defined by stagnation and never-ending loss, yet they go hand in hand. Juxtaposing the Belle Époque aesthetic of our world with the harsh reality of Clair Obscur's highlights exactly what the expedition is fighting for. Gustave, Maelle, and the other members might not enjoy the same peace and prosperity as their 'real' counterpart, but it is a blueprint for what they are fighting for. As the expedition gets further from home, they lose tangible reminders of why they each chose to go on this mission. All they have is the dream and their hope. Through this, Clair Obscur reinforces its belief in the need for optimism, even when it seems foolish. Yet, much like the narrative of Clair Obscur, the Belle Époque aesthetic is hardly as simple as it seems. Even as a period defined by optimism and peace, it is hiding something much darker that more intricately ties it to the grim world of the game. The Belle Époque as a turn of phrase, and signifier of a certain period, was not contemporary to the era itself. 'The term … was adopted by public opinion after the First World War,' writes historian Dominique Kalifa, 'This transfer and the birth of the myth can be easily explained as the phenomenon of a generation that had known terrible suffering, lost the best of itself, along with its illusions, and tried to forget the blood and mood from 1914-1918 by exalting the long period of peace and stability that had preceded it.' The Belle Époque is a fiction fueled by nostalgia for a time before suffering, a time that must have been better than what existed post war, at least in the minds of those who coined the term. A late twist in Clair Obscur reveals that the world of the game is itself nothing but a fiction within a canvas, maintained by a grieving mother (the painter) as some semblance of comfort following the death of her son, Verso. With this knowledge, it becomes clear that the Belle Époque aesthetic is not deployed by Sandfall to evoke the myth of the era, but the tragedies that necessitated its creation. Back to reality Essential in this understanding of Clair Obscur's use of the Belle Époque is the idea of myth making or creating a false memory of the past. Even the title of 'beautiful age' is something carefully chosen to embrace only the best parts of the Belle Époque, ignoring its grittier realities. While the Belle Époque is considered a period of optimism, progress, and prosperity, it was something crafted by a wealthy class looking to 'retreat into a frivolous, fairy tale kind of existence,' writes professor Ninón Rodríguez, and always came at the cost of those without wealth. This desire to live inside a fantasy, even at the expense of others, is the same behavior of the Paintress herself, as well as the entire ethos behind coining the Belle Époque in the first place. It is a swirling whirlpool of nostalgia and attempts to hide away from suffering. This nostalgic fantasy has been transformed into a living hell for the citizens of Lumiére due to the Paintress' inability to let go of her son, who exists in facsimile with the canvas. Despite being influenced by the Belle Époque, Clair Obscur's world past the prologue often feels more in line with the horrific suffering of World War 1. The very first scene you witness when landing on the continent is a violent slaughter of the expedition. All these people filled with hope are unsparingly cut down in a matter of seconds in a messy blur of grey punctuated by technicolor red — blood. It's an image that evokes the immense casualties seen in trench charges, which saw soldiers rush out into no man's land towards enemy territory. Further into the continent, though not that much further, the expedition encounters constant mass graves and corpses of expeditions past. It's a reminder of the never-ending onslaught of meaningless death brought on by the Paintress in her grief. Clair Obscur and the Belle Époque are both coins with hope and grief on either side. Hope is a necessity, especially for those dealing with grief. An individual, a family, a country all need hope to move past the suffering of the past. Clair Obscur's warning is to not fall into the trap of looking back on a false memory of bygone times for the risk of losing yourself completely. Sandfall Interactive layers on these realities — Lumiére, the world outside the canvas, and our own reality — to constantly poke holes in the myths we create. This is all tied together, by the constant of the Belle Époque aesthetic. The final message of Clair Obscur is to us, in this reality, to move on from that fiction as well, but with hope for those who come after.
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Baroque breakout hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is unlike any game you've played before
Much has been made of the fact that the year's most recent breakout hit, an idiosyncratic role-playing game called Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, was made by a small team. (It has just sold its two-millionth copy). It's a tempting narrative in this age of blockbuster mega-flops, live-service games and eye-watering budgets: scrappy team makes a lengthy, unusual and beautiful thing, sells it for £40, and everybody wins. But it's not quite accurate. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. Sandfall Interactive, the game's French developer, comprises around 30 people, but as Rock Paper Shotgun points out, there are many more listed in the game's credits – from a Korean animation team to the outsourced quality assurance testers, and the localisation and performance staff who give the game and its story heft and emotional believability. Compared to the enormous teams who make the Final Fantasy games – a clear inspiration for Sandfall – Clair Obscur's team is minuscule. The more interesting achievement isn't that a small team has made a successful game – it's that a small team has made the most extravagantly French thing any of us will ever play. Much to my partner's annoyance, I've set the voice language to French with English subtitles, just to enhance the immersion. In Clair Obscur's belle époque-inspired world, a sinister entity called the Paintress daubs a number on a distant totem every year, descending from 100 – and every person of that age dissolves heartbreakingly into petals and dust, leaving behind devastated partners and orphaned children. (This and Neva are the only games in recent memory to make me shed a tear at their beginning.) The game starts as the Paintress counts down from 34 to 33, and an expedition of brave and slightly magic thirtysomethings from the dwindling population sets out, as they do every year, to sail across to the Paintress's continent and try to kill her and stop the cycle. I was sad to leave this opening area, because the city was so beautiful, and everyone was impeccably dressed. Also, nothing was trying to kill me every few minutes. Many expeditions have gone before. You find their grisly remnants all over the place as you explore, their recorded diaries left to help whoever comes next. You start off in a kind of ravaged Paris, the Eiffel Tower distorting towards a distant horizon like a Dalí painting. The game looks like a waltz through a distinguished art museum that's about to get sucked into a black hole. One early area of the continent is a waterless ocean, the wrecked vessel of one expedition wrapped around a dead leviathan of a sea creature, fronts of seaweed waving in the nonexistent currents. It's beautiful but extremely dangerous: you quickly have to get the hang of a pretty complicated combat system to survive even the first few boss fights. Clair Obscur's fighting is inspired by classic and modern Japanese RPGs: rhythmic and flashy, it lets you supercharge a fireball or dodge the fist of a stone automaton with a well-timed button press. Combining your unusually distinctive characters' abilities is the key. One of them wields a rapier and changes stance every attack, another attacks with an impenetrable system of sun and moon tarot cards, a third mostly with a gun and a sword. If this all sounds needlessly extravagant, it is – and I love it. The combat menus are a tinkerer's dream, letting you pore over and combine characters' esoteric powers and skills to create interesting combo attacks. What I enjoy most about this game is that it doesn't look like everything else or, indeed, anything else. The majority of games riff on the same few predictable references: Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Marvel. Instead it draws from completely different aesthetic and thematic sources; this is a baroque fantasy that tells a story about fatalism and love and death and legacy, a European-style tale with Japanese-style action and flair. It plays very differently, but its distinctiveness and determination to actually say something with its story reminds me of last year's excellent Metaphor: ReFantazio. (There is a strong correlation between intellectually ambitious RPGs and baffling titles, it seems.) Clair Obscur also illustrates just how good game development tools are now: if you're wondering how a smallish team could create something that looks this high-end, that's a large part of the answer. This makes me feel pretty optimistic about the future of this middle sector of game development, in between blockbuster and indie. In the 00s and 2010s, that was where many of the most interesting games could be found. I can imagine several large publishers deeming this game simply too French to be marketable, but Sandfall was able to make it anyway. Expedition 33 is an encouraging commercial success that will be cited all year as a counternarrative to the games industry's prevailing doomsaying, but it's a creative success, too. A new Doom game is out very shortly and reviews suggest that it is a glorious heavy-metal orgy of violence. It has you massacring hordes of gross demons at once, impaling them with spikes, shredding them with a chainsaw-shield, even punching gigantic hellspawn from within a giant robot or shooting at them from the back of a mecha-dragon. Doom: The Dark Ages is slower than the other modern games in the series, with more up-close combat and (as the title suggests) a vaguely medieval flavour to its aesthetic, but it's still thrill-a-minute. Available on: Xbox, PS5, PC Estimated playtime: 20-plus hours Grand Theft Auto VI, which is delayed until next May, left a crater in the 2025 release schedule that other game companies are scrambling to fill, reports Bloomberg (via Kotaku). Expect some serious rescheduling to be going on behind the scenes before the summer's glut of game announcements. The Strong National Museum of Play in the US has inducted four new games into its Hall of Fame: Defender, GoldenEye 007, Quake and the (IMO) equally deserving Tamagotchi. They beat contenders from Age of Empires to Angry Birds. After last week's industry media drama, long-established podcast-video collective Giant Bomb has bought itself out and gone independent, joining a growing stable of worker-owned and reader-supported games outlets. Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion GTA6 gets it on: can the notoriously cynical action series finally find time for romance? | Keith Stuart Doom: The Dark Ages – id Software gets medieval in a dramatic rewrite of the shooter's rules | ★★★★☆ 'It was just the perfect game': Henk Rogers on buying Tetris and foiling the KGB What to do if your games console is stolen: the cheat codes Despelote review – a beautiful, utterly transportive game of football fandom | ★★★★★ The Last of Us recap: season two, episode five – how long has Ellie had us fooled? Reader Travis sent in this week's question: 'I'm planning to start a book club-style video game club. Two questions: what should I call it and what game would you love to share and discuss in such a setting?' This is an excellent idea, and you've reminded me that I tried to do something like this a million years ago as a podcast on IGN, but I cannot for the life of me remember what we called it. Press Pause? Save Point? LFG? I would pick shorter games for a book club-style group (so that everyone could actually play them through), and I'd want ones that leave room for people's personal histories to inform how they respond to it. I'd love to hear other people talk about Neva's environmentalist and parental themes, or any Life Is Strange game's mix of emerging-adulthood drama and quasi-successful supernatural storytelling, or even a game like While Waiting, what it made them think about. That would surely be more interesting than simply arguing about whether the latest Assassin's Creed is any good. I asked my partner what he'd call a video game book club, and he suggested Text Adventure, which is annoyingly better than anything I can think of. My pal Tom suggested Pile of Shame, One More Go and Shared Worlds. Readers: can you think of any more? If you've got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
The Star
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
A spectacular RPG has balletic combat and powerful twists
Narrative games mostly cater to the desire for victory or a flattering resolution, rarely placing the accent on an undigested loss. That is why Life Is Strange, The Beginner's Guide and The Last Of Us series have etched themselves deep into my memory. I can now add Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a stunning debut title whose story moves from a grandiose save-the-world premise to a smaller drama about a grieving family, to the list of video games that have left me emotionally shaken when I've reached the credits. Clair Obscur draws inspiration from Japanese role-playing games like Final Fantasy in addition to the viciously challenging Souls series, but it leavens those influences with a proud Gallic sensibility. (Fair warning: The irascible mimes in this game, by French developer Sandfall Interactive, are no joke.) In debonair fashion, Clair Obscur opens with Gustave, dressed in an elegant suit, standing in a rooftop garden and gazing toward a distant shore. There stands a monolith emblazoned with '34'. As Gustave throws a rock in its direction, his air of defiance slides into one of resignation. A 33-year-old woman dear to him is about to die. And he wants to bring her a rose. Flowers are arrayed everywhere throughout the Paris-like city of Lumière, where 33-year-olds are wearing floral necklaces on occasion of their Gommage, an annual ritual when a mysterious figure known as the Paintress will write the number on the monolith that triggers their disappearance. Gustave, 16-year-old orphan Maelle and a team of volunteers embark on an expedition to kill the Paintress and free the city from the ritual that causes people to evaporate and leave behind a swirling cluster of red petals in their wake. They are following in the footsteps of dozens of similar expeditions. But not long after leaving Lumière, Expedition 33 comes to near ruin when it encounters a cane-wielding gray-haired man and the army of monsters, known as Nevrons, at his disposal. Clair Obscur's art direction, voice acting and sumptuous score establish a fascinating world, and some of the game's fantasy aspects are cleverly undermined as the spirit of enchantment – the expedition's pursuit of an unambiguous goal – gives way to something messier, morally compromised and tragic. The end of each of the game's three acts arrives with escalating force. Though the twist at the end of Act 1 made me think of a key narrative manoeuvre in Game Of Thrones, I was fairly blindsided by the game's finale, so much so that I had tears in my eyes. Let's just say that there is a moment, in the ending I chose, where one of my favourite characters looks at her erstwhile companion and then slumps to the ground. The disappointment on her face may be the most haunting look I've seen on a video game character since the ripple of emotions played out on Ellie's face at the end of The Last Of Us Part I. Clair Obscur grew out of a prototype by Guillaume Broche, who taught himself to use Unreal Engine while working as a narrative lead at Ubisoft. He was interested in making a game with turn-based combat that explored the passage of time and teamed up with Tom Guillermin, a programmer at Ubisoft, to create an hourlong slice of gameplay. Incredibly, Broche met Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, who ended up becoming Clair Obscur's lead writer, through a vocal sample that she submitted through Reddit when he was searching for voice actors for his prototype. After Broche, Guillermin and François Meurisse founded Sandfall in 2020, setting up its headquarters in Montpellier, the team decided to scrap the original scenario of what was then called We Lost. Broche, Sandfall's creative director, was now interested in a story based around a monolith on which a number clocks down and causes people to disappear. The idea for structuring the game around expeditions came from a French fantasy novel, La Horde du Contrevent, which tells the story of groups of people setting out to discover the origins of a mysterious wind. 'We liked the idea of expeditions trying to overcome previously failed expeditions and finding their remains, their journals, their past stories,' Meurisse, Sandfall's producer, told me. Clair Obscur is a hard game in which it is best to not get hit. By listening for audio cues and looking for visual tells, players can evade or counter an enemy's attacks by precisely hitting the correct button. As someone not particularly drawn to games structured around turn-based combat, I was unexpectedly taken with the vigorous fighting mechanics that feature real-time elements. The timing window for dodging is more generous than that for parrying, but some attacks can only be parried. Even on the easiest difficulty level, it's important to come to grips with these mechanics. And it's fitting that Maelle and other characters often invoke the notion of a dance when they strike up a fight. When things go well, fights unfold like a piece of choreography. Each of the six characters whom players end up controlling has a different fighting style. Characters can equip up to six skills from their corresponding skill trees in addition to three 'pictos', or stat buffs, that can be used interchangeably between characters. After winning four battles with a particular picto equipped, any party member can also make use of that ability – for example, incurring twice the amount of burn damage when using a fire-based attack – provided they have enough 'lumina points.' If all of this sounds like it can lead to some heady decisions over character builds, that's absolutely correct. Away from the game, I found myself daydreaming about how best to gear up my party to tackle some of the more daunting boss fights. For the 54 hours that it took me to see Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 through to the end, it ably held my attention. Its world-building, character arcs and challenging gameplay are executed with no shortage of finesse. Expect this one to be a serious contender for game of the year. – ©2025 The New York Times Company (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was reviewed on a PlayStation 5 Pro. It is also available on the PC and Xbox Series X|S.) This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
