Latest news with #Expedition33
The Verge
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
For those who retry after.
Posted Jul 30, 2025 at 3:32 PM UTC For those who retry after. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's latest patch adds an option to retry battles right after you're defeated. The game's checkpoints were already pretty forgiving, but this new pop-up will make jumping back into a battle to practice your parries a little bit faster. Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates. Jay Peters Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Jay Peters Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News
New York Times
29-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
College football's sneakiest favorite, plus a quick history of CFB in Germany
Until Saturday Newsletter 🏈 | This is The Athletic's college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox. Today in college football news, 'Expedition 33' is my favorite 'Final Fantasy' game ever. To be clear, it is not a 'Final Fantasy' game. If you polled 100 college football fans on which FBS teams are expected to win each conference this year, I'm sure most could name the betting favorites in the ACC (Clemson), Big Ten (Ohio State), Mountain West (Boise State) and SEC (Texas), plus probably CUSA (Liberty) and the Sun Belt (JMU). Maybe the MAC too, where I assume Toledo will again be the favorite in 2099. Advertisement But what about the Big 12? After Arizona State's playoff run, arguably Iowa State's best season ever and a half-year of Texas Tech transfer talk? Plus the usual Colorado rubbernecking? And maybe some assumptions that Oklahoma State or Utah will bounce back, just like TCU did last year? The Big 12's favorite — according to BetMGM, FPI, SP+ and whatever else — is Kansas State, followed by a giant bottleneck. Oh right, Kansas State! Wait, the team that went 5-4 in conference last year, finishing eighth in a 16-team league? At first glance, picking K-State kinda feels like a shrug. (A shrug by the computers? Yes, computers can decline to answer. Haven't you seen '2001'?) But for more, I asked Kellis Robinett, beat writer for the Wichita Eagle/Kansas City Star: Why do you think this under-the-radar team is so widely favored? 'Kansas State is always a safe bet in the Big 12, because the Wildcats have such a high floor. Chris Klieman has averaged nine wins over the past four seasons, and he won a conference title in 2022. Even though K-State lost some high-end talent during the offseason, it brings back big stars at quarterback (Avery Johnson), running back (Dylan Edwards), and wide receiver (Jayce Brown). Austin Romaine also seems poised for a breakout season on defense. Arizona State is the defending champ, and Texas Tech is the biggest spender in the league, but K-State has proven to be consistently better than both.' Honestly, I'm nearly sold on K-State just by Klieman's consistency. Why not pick the team that has been most immune to the Big 12's feared Random Results Generator? (On top of that, picking a team that just finished in the middle is probably a safe bet. As has been frequently noted, last year's Big 12 preseason picks were nearly the opposite of the final standings. Avoid the bookends.) Before we leave the Big 12, yes, I asked David Ubben the obligatory Colorado question (more on Deion Sanders in a sec): Wtf will this team be now that Heisman winner Travis Hunter and school-record-smashing QB Shedeur Sanders are gone? 'The short version is: better than people who aren't paying attention think. Colorado had two of the five most famous players in the country last year, who were also stellar talents. This year, they start with little to no star power, but Sanders and his staff have quietly improved the roster on both sides of the ball, which raises the floor for this team quite a bit. They won't be as explosive in the passing game without Sanders, Hunter and Jimmy Horn Jr., but they'll be good enough, and the running game should improve. I'm not sure I see a contender for the Big 12 title in this roster, but I do see a bowl team.' More Big 12: 🙏 'Deion Sanders had his bladder removed in May after doctors discovered an aggressive cancerous tumor, the Colorado football coach announced at a Monday news conference.' He's back at work now. Many more details here. 🏈 Stewart Mandel on the Week 1 games that will actually impact the CFP. (As in, Texas-Ohio State might not end up meaning much if they both make it anyway.) 👀 That 15-year storyline about the Big Ten and SEC potentially dueling over North Carolina in realignment? Heating back up. 📰 News: 🌀 A tale of two QBs: 📺 Media days, where the big leagues wrapped up last week: 🎤 Take The Athletic's survey on everything you love and hate about CFB right now. (Like me, you should vote to replace the entire CFP with the one true format: a plus-one title game at the Rose Bowl, with its participants to be selected after bowl season.) International college football has been a thing since almost literally the very beginning. (For one thing, the sport was so directly modeled on a version of English rugby, it's actually kinda hard to pinpoint when it actually became American football. For another, Montreal's McGill University was among the Canadian pioneers of the sport in the 1870s.) Since then, American colleges have sent football teams to bowls in the Bahamas, Canada, Cuba and Japan; FBS neutral-siters in Australia and Ireland; and lower-level games in Bermuda, China, Italy, Mexico, Tanzania and the UK, plus (per NCAA records) collegiate-adjacent games among American military installations in Algeria, Iran, New Guinea, the Philippines, Suriname and some Pacific islands. So when you hear Michigan and Western Michigan are planning to open 2026 in Frankfurt as the first FBS teams to play in Germany, know it's not just Modern College Football Chasing Trends And Trying To Be The NFL. It's also College Football Just Being Itself. OK, that's all for today. Email me at untilsaturday@ to tell me which country should host a CFB game next. Last week's most-clicked: Obviously, it was 'Ranking every Power 4 team by how much they'd sell for.' 💰 📫 Love Until Saturday? Check out The Athletic's other newsletters, too.
Arab News
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Arab News
Four of 2025's top video games so far
'Indiana Jones and the Great Circle' There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. 'Split Fiction' There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. 'Mario Kart World' There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. 'Clair Obscur:Expedition 33' There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section. There will be roughly this much copy in this section.
Boston Globe
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
This album has been on top of the classical music Billboard charts for weeks, and it's from a video game
From "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33." Sandfall Interactive But my mind was made up when the screen brightened after a battle versus one of the mysterious, spindly creatures that populate the world of 'Clair Obscur,' and I heard singing. Several unaccompanied voices braided, separated, weaved back together in a fashion that sounded like it could have come straight from the pen of Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Pretty much the whole world, as it turned out. 'Expedition 33,' developed by the small French studio Sandfall Interactive, had broken containment. Even French President Advertisement Founder, CEO, and creative director of Sandfall Interactive Guillaume Broche works on the newly developed video game "Clair Obscur, Expedition 33" at the Sandfall Interactive headquarters. GABRIEL BOUYS/Getty Advertisement The composer behind most of the music is French guitarist Lorien Testard, a self-professed game music fanatic who had never created music for a major game before, and joined the project after lead writer Guillaume Broche stumbled across his music on an online forum and reached out. Testard didn't respond to an interview request, but in a video featurette the studio released earlier this year, the composer said he'd wanted to create an 'entire sound universe,' and he'd taken much inspiration from art director Nicholas Maxson-Francombe's 'evocative and stunning' concept illustrations. Concept art from "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33." Sandfall Interactive But just as important was Testard's collaboration with singer Alice Duport-Percier, former singer of the polished nerdy-classical fusion group Grissini Project as well as a core member of several early music ensembles, including Les Kapsber'girls, a clever allusion to the 15th-century Italian lutenist and composer Kapsberger. (Their 2021 album ' After Testard invited Duport-Percier to sing on the soundtrack, she initially thought she'd just be working off the score. Instead, Testard invited her to compose and improvise her own vocal lines over his instrumentals. The first day they collaborated, they created one of the major themes for the game, which they said made it into the final cut almost unaltered. 'It felt like beginner's luck, like winning a board game the first time you play,' Duport-Percier said in the featurette. Advertisement From "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33." Sandfall Interactive Conductor and arranger Daniel Sicard, who led the sessions for the music that was recorded live, was similarly enchanted. 'This isn't some big production making just another game,' he said. 'There's a genuine emotional connection.' In video games, as in so much popular entertainment, we are living in the age of franchise dominance. Unsurprisingly, this year so far, most of the hype and press have gone to major players in the industry releasing new installments based on existing intellectual properties: for example, 'Sid Meier's Civilization VII,' 'Monster Hunter Wilds,' and 'The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered,' each of which has roots going back decades. By contrast, 'Clair Obscur' features a totally original narrative. It feels apt that it released just a few days after the US theatrical debut of Ryan Coogler's ' The same goes for listening to the soundtrack. You'll probably pick up on a theme — perhaps the sweet and sad melody for the ruined city of Advertisement From "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33." Sandfall Interactive Which is to say, there are classical pieces on the 'Clair Obscur' soundtrack, but the eight-hour album also contains jazz, symphonic rock, ambient, dance, chanson-esque chamber pop, and more classifications than this article can hold. I'm not sure if I'd personally label the entire eight-hour soundtrack as 'classical,' but there is certainly a critical mass of pieces that I'm dying to hear from live musicians, whether that's a solo cellist or guitarist, a chamber choir, or a full orchestra. And if the powers that be at Billboard deem it's classical, I won't complain. Andrea Bocelli will probably be back up there soon enough. A.Z. Madonna can be reached at
Metro
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Square Enix should hire the Expedition 33 team for Final Fantasy 17
A reader imagines what would happen if Sandfall Interactive made the next mainline Final Fantasy game and created a more old school experience. It's always sad when you feel yourself losing touch with something you used to love. Whether it's a film series or a hobby, sometimes you grow out of the thing or sometimes it evolves in a way that no longer interests you. That's where I am with Final Fantasy at the moment, at least in terms of the mainline games. If I'm honest with myself, I haven't truly enjoyed any of them since Final Fantasy 12 and it's only the surprisingly good Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy that hasn't made me completely cynical about the whole series. The final straw, so to speak, for me was Final Fantasy 16, which was the first one I actively hated and never finished. I do not want my Final Fantasy games to be some weird attempt to copy Games Of Thrones. These are Japanese games, and I'd like them to reflect that. If I wanted to play The Witcher 3 I'd go ahead and do so, not put up with a bad copy. It's not even a question of whether 16 is a good game or not, it's just not a Final Fantasy game, in my opinion. And what's worse is that they've stripped so much out of what makes the series unique that I worry they're going to go even further with the next one, so that it's totally unrecognisable as being part of the franchise. That's why I'd like to see Sandfall Interactive, the people behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, make the next Final Fantasy. I realise they're not Japanese, but I feel we'd get a more authentic experience if we let them make Final Fantasy 17 then if we had Square Enix do it. You'd get a game that had a strong Western influence, probably lots of new and original ideas, but also a team that appreciate the older Final Fantasy games. One of the reasons I love Expedition 33 is that it has an old school overworld map and turn-based battles. Square Enix would never do that and yet Expedition 33 will probably end up outselling Final Fantasy 16 in the end. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. That alone is crazy to me and all the reason Square Enix needs to talk to them. After all, if they don't they could end up becoming close competition. I think it's probably unlikely to happen though, because Sandfall (kind of a boring name, don't you think?) will want to make their own games now. I imagine they'll want to have a career like Larian Studios but remember that their biggest hit was Baldur's Gate 3, a licensed game, so maybe Sandfall would be interested in making a Final Fantasy at least once, just to get some money rolling in. Of course, Square Enix could just do it themselves, take Expedition 33 as proof that an older school approach can work and make it internally, but I'm just not sure they have the nerve. Final Fantasy 16 was their big experiment and as much as I'm enjoying the Final Fantasy 7 remakes they're not turn-based at all really. More Trending But I do think that the answer for most of these big franchises, that are getting too expensive to make nowadays, is to go back to what they used to be, just with modernised graphics and features. Not only would it give fans what they want but they'd be cheaper to make and more profitable. After the failure of Final Fantasy 16, what have they go to lose? By reader Lusk The reader's features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@ or use our Submit Stuff page and you won't need to send an email. MORE: I bought GTA 5 for the third time and it's still one of the best games ever - Reader's Feature MORE: We have to accept the Nintendo Switch 2 is not for hardcore gamers - Reader's Feature MORE: The 90s and 2000s were the best time for video game creativity – Reader's Feature
