Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Paints a New Type of RPG

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Preview
Sandfall Interactive’s upcoming Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 doesn’t reinvent the turn-based RPG genre. That’s not a bad thing. After all, the basic mechanics of the genre have served a wide range of amazing games. From the few preview hours I played, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an impressive debut and a tantalizing glimpse of an engaging new RPG.

The Story So Far, I Think
I’m a little unclear about some aspects of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s narrative. From what I understand so far, a powerful being known as the Paintress, can, with the stroke of her brush, kill entire generations in the world of Lumière. With disappointing frequency, Lumière sends out Expeditions — essentially suicide missions — to destroy the Paintress. Your task in the game is to rescue some potential survivors of other Expeditions and confront the Paintress, an end boss if ever there was one. Otherwise your generation — 33 year-olds — is another serving of toast.

Now, I fully admit I might have some details wrong. I’ve only played around three hours of the game, growing my party from the master of firearms Gustave to a trio that also includes mage Lune and rogue-type sword-master Maelle. The game promises a total of six playable characters, and it appears that they’re based on RPG archetypes. I met a few other NPCs along the way and there are lots of narrative hints hidden in the world.

C’est magnifique!
Sandfall Interactive has made explicit their desire to make a game with triple-A production values and a combat model not unlike Final Fantasy’s. The Unreal engine-powered game looks graphically impressive. The performance capture is excellent and subtle, with effective voice acting. The game’s frequent narrative cutscenes are compelling and well-written.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 moves through a dark fantasy version of the European Belle Époque. Sort of a cousin to Steel Rising, it combines magic, guns, and swords. There’s also a bit of a steampunk vibe coursing through its veins. Most of the demo takes place out in the wilds, which are detailed and less dangerous-looking than they really are. Mechanically, the game gives the player a number of options for moving around the world, like a grappling hook and magical ropes to climb. My only gripe about the visuals was that the lighting and saturated palette sometimes made it hard to see items. This may change later in the game, but the lovely world was pretty empty except for the occasional enemy. There were some corridor-like areas of exploration where nothing much happened.

A huge shoutout to composer Lorien Testard for a melancholic and evocative score. Solo vocal and choral textures are paired with intimate instrumentals. As beautiful as the music is, the non-combat underscore while exploring gets repetitive.

Taking Turns
Combat in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 follows a familiar model. Characters and enemies take turns attacking and defending, using spells, ranged weapons like guns, and attacks with swords. Some spells and attacks have timing-based sequences that use QuickTime events. Hit the button prompts and the attacks are stronger or more effective. Characters have a real-time dodge and parry for both magic and physical attacks. Many enemies have frustratingly long wind-ups that are a bit hard to dodge and counter, but with practice they’re doable.

At campsites, characters rest and upgrade a handful of stats, plus move up the tech tree and add new attacks, buffs, healing abilities or spells that they find out in the world. Non-boss-type enemies respawn after resting, making it possible to grind for levels and upgrades. However, in the demo slice, the variety of enemies was a bit limited and grinding wasn’t very rewarding.

A few hours into the game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 takes an unexpected turn keyed to a narrative event and starts to combine something like a zoomed-out overworld map for exploration with combat scenarios and cut scenes. It was surprising, but overall worked pretty well to move the characters through the world a little faster.

Save the Date
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the product of a relatively small team with admirably big ambitions. There’s a bit of jank, optimization, and polish to address prior to its late April release, but it’s headed in a strong direction. It definitely tells an interesting story and the characters are well drawn and acted. Fans of turn-based action will enjoy Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s approach to combat. After playing the demo, I’m very excited to experience the final game.

Thank you for keeping it locked on COGconnected.

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