Once I hit credit on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I used to be left with the sensation that it was once a role-playing recreation that’s like numerous video games that got here ahead of it — your Elden Ring, Ultimate Myth, and extra apparently, Nier Replicant — and but, now not numerous video games are rather find it irresistible. Certain, it had an all-star voice forged, dynamic turn-based struggle, a haunting rating, a particular artwork genre, and creature design that felt like waltzing during the Louvre on mushrooms — all hallmarks of pantheon-worthy RPGs. However as somebody who lives for motifs, I discovered myself captivated through its mythic grandeur, the layered intensity of its world-building, and its visceral issues. For me, video games ascend from entertaining romps to pantheon-worthy stories after they craft narratives that linger at the edges of my daydreams. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had me reflexively lean ahead in my chair when it was once first introduced on the Xbox Video games Show off in June 2024, and it’s nonetheless were given me fascinated with it after finishing it. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the debut identify from impartial French studio Sandfall Interactive, paints an image of a chilling dystopia the place humanity’s destiny has been dictated through a ritual steeped in inevitability. Every yr, a deity referred to as the Paintress approaches a towering monolith that dominates the horizon, inscribing a often descending quantity — a countdown now attaining 33. Seems this quantity corresponds to an individual’s age, and for many who have reached the marked age at the sequestered island of Lumière, a phenomenon referred to as “Gommage” — a poetic erasure the place they dissolve into smoke and flower petals — marks their finish.As survivors navigate their bleak truth, the Gommage has grow to be greater than only a merciless inevitability — it’s handled like a bittersweet custom. Words like “We’re already useless, simply catching up” roll off tongues with the convenience of an off-the-cuff greeting. Some condemn those that refuse to convey youngsters into a global marked through orphanhood and untimely loss. Others, dealing with the shadow in their looming expiration or clinging to the delicate thread of hope, undertake a rallying cry: “When one falls, we proceed.” Those that subscribe to this mindset make a choice to enlist in a revolving door of other folks referred to as expeditioners who embark on treacherous annual missions to confront the Paintress. None of those expeditions has but succeeded in defeating her, in fact.
Symbol: Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive by way of PolygonOptimism is a troublesome commodity for the expeditioners to search out. Maximum of them now not battle for victory; they have got acquiesced to anticipating to die, uncovering as a lot data as they may be able to in regards to the Paintress to help the following technology in preventing their sluggish culling. The tale follows the thirty third expedition — a workforce whose moderate age elicits little optimism from the townsfolk of Lumière. Already resigned to failure, the folk position their hopes now not in victory however within the expedition itself, with its objective to depart at the back of insights for many who will inevitably take a look at once more. But, the contributors of the thirty third expedition march onward, made up our minds to finish humanity’s Sisyphean fight as soon as and for all. Few video games have captivated my art-hoe eye rather like Clair Obscur. Through some distance, essentially the most placing factor about it’s its enrapturing mixture of Belle Époque persona designs, artwork deco and excessive myth environmental design, and avant-garde creature designs, which Clair Obscur accentuates in a daring, leading edge third-person overworld traversal gadget the place its birthday party looks as if Warhammer miniatures strolling via a residing, respiring diorama. On their approach to the Paintress, they’ll run up in opposition to Nevrons, opposed eldritch creatures who’ve unceremoniously ended previous expeditions. In other places, much less opposed creatures set in Clair Obscur’s dreamlike global are ambivalent to people’ fight. To them, you’re simply the newest in an annual path of expeditioners that come via. Nonetheless, I discovered myself taking the scenic path to the expedition’s in a different way time-sensitive quest, taking within the attractions and looking to parse how the nonhuman cultures paintings. The sport’s design additionally cleverly nudges you off the overwhelmed trail. For explorers like me who instinctively 180 clear of spaces that don’t seem like growth, even bumping into partitions as despite the fact that a trail will magically present itself on affect, taking an off-route means is richly and habitually rewarded. I now not best exposed trinkets that boosted my workforce’s struggle stats, however I additionally found out journals from previous expeditions that contained nuggets of recommendation for the trickiest spaces and boss fights. 
Symbol: Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive by way of PolygonEven when maximum expeditions aren’t fully useful in sussing out answers to enemy weaknesses, I discovered the sport’s emphasis on studying from those that got here ahead of and leaving a legacy for many who practice to be one in every of its maximum poignant parts. Their off-the-cuff diary-style journals resonate like haikus from Zen clergymen at the verge of loss of life. Whilst in observe, those moments functioned in a similar fashion to codexes scattered throughout numerous different video games, their thematic resonance increased them to one thing profoundly shifting. Those last phrases, accompanied through voice-over — in most cases additionally puppy-guarded through sturdy enemies towering over their statuesque corpses — shook me each and every time I ventured clear of the non-story development paths in Clair Obscur’s picturesque dystopian global. A few of these final-hour confessionals got here from haughty big-game hunters who prioritized chasing their newest conquest over passing on wisdom to the following technology ahead of assembly their literal time limit. Others had been resigned to their destiny as a analysis run aimed to assist the following technology triumph over their previous disasters, like a helicopter mother or father scribbling each and every fleeting idea on a notepad on their kid’s lunchbox. Nonetheless, all the 60-plus journals littered about Clair Obscur’s avant-garde vistas fueled me to defy future through beefing Expedition 33’s stats to be sturdy sufficient to kill god two times over. Like every self-respecting turn-based RPG, Clair Obscur comes kitted out with a strong struggle gadget and an overabundance of abilities, attributes, and updates that flip its dynamic real-time dodge and parry mechanics right into a chess fit with demigods as my items. Every struggle come across in Clair Obscur isn’t your extraordinary turn-based trade of blows. As a substitute, it fuses real-time motion with conventional technique — you dodge and parry incoming moves whilst unleashing tough QTEs to amp up your assaults. However the possibility is genuine. I realized that lesson temporarily when an enormous “dangerous” fireball, supposed to take down 3 foes, ended up exploding in my face and leaving me crumpled in a depressing heap.
Symbol: Sandfall Interactive/Kepler InteractiveThe sheer number of powers earned from taking over difficult not obligatory bosses loitering in arm’s achieve of major quests™ had me feeling like I used to be orchestrating the beginning 5 of a basketball dynasty in Expedition 33. I by no means felt like I used to be limited to at least one de facto genre of gambling and as an alternative felt inspired to push myself to defeat not obligatory bosses, to not farm revel in issues however to peer what sort of abilities they’d drop to make me return to the lab and concoct extra methods to play upon a brand new recreation plus revisit.One of the spell binding facets of Clair Obscur’s synergy-centric turn-based struggle was once the numerous hours I spent tinkering within the menus, devising methods with the precision of a world-class chess grasp. Through combining Pictos (the in-game identify for persona skills), distinctive attributes, and Luminas (passive Picto skills you’ll equip on some other persona, irrespective of who has the unique Pictos provided), I felt like I used to be uncovering an equation that may make god meet an enduring finish.Round 20 hours into my 31-hour odyssey to the sport’s credit (with a variety of aspect content material and managers nonetheless left unexplored), I engineered my core trio: Sciel, the shredded, scythe-wielding Yu-Gi-Oh-esque duelist flinging stat-stacking playing cards; Lune, my Avatar-esque, barefoot-gliding, smartypants mage; and Monoco, the bushy, sensible, Chewbacca-esque brawler with power-stealing Naruto-style strikes. Their interlocking abilities and attributes meshed into an ouroboros loop, successfully turning them into my own Iron Curtain. 
Symbol: Sandfall Interactive/Kepler InteractiveEven the way in which they’d saunter onto the battlefield, rolling their shoulders and cocking their heads to the aspect, has the charisma of Michael Jordan about to make a miracle occur in recreation six of the 1998 NBA Finals. In the meantime, throughout my spontaneous retooling periods of the characters’ skills — each early and past due within the recreation — I discovered myself sifting via 3 towering columns of my eclectic mixture of Pictos and Luminas. It was once just about overwhelming. Regardless of my victories, I felt like I used to be looking to seize all of the spectrum and complicated main points of a colourful tapestry, armed best with the restricted imaginative and prescient cones of a canine. Clair Obscur’s enticing struggle and tale outweighed the niggling problems I had with the sport, however right here they’re nevertheless. As gorgeous as it’s, the sport does now not have a photograph mode, that means the pause menu all the time overtakes the center and aspects of the display, overlaying up picturesque picture ops like Lumiere’s twisted Eiffel Tower, which jogged my memory of French photographer Robert Doisneau’s Distorsion Optique. The occasional stints of platforming within the recreation also are finicky as hell. On the other hand, those had been minor gripes in my general delightful revel in with Clair Obscur, which was once firing on all cylinders with its kinetic struggle and out-there tale. 
Symbol: Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive by way of PolygonDespite Clair Obscur’s painfully French premise and issues, it doesn’t wallow within the existential dread and distress of its admittedly bleak adventure, neither is it pretentiously navel-gazing. Right through camp downtime, you’ll simply chill and chat together with your birthday party contributors — or even spark a romance with one in every of them. Those characters aren’t your conventional RPG archetypes; they really feel in fact human, incorrect, and filled with hope, with a attraction that makes you make investments each and every little bit of your considering chronic into making sure they end their tale with a cheerful finishing. It’s transparent that the forged, that includes abilities like Daredevil’s Charlie Cox, Baldur’s Gate 3’s Jennifer English, and Ultimate Myth 16’s Ben Starr, is fully of their component. They ship an emotional gravitas that captures their characters’ vulnerabilities on perilous missions, all whilst displaying an infectious chemistry with one some other. They change jokes round campfires or even bicker throughout quests, infusing the sport with heat as those reputedly doomed heroes battle to conquer the eccentricities of its lavish, nightmarish global.Endings aren’t simply what keep on with other people essentially the most in RPGs; they’re additionally what could make or smash them. Sadly, I felt like the sport had misplaced the plot fully in its preliminary march towards its finale. Clair Obscur’s last act got here throughout as rather fragmented, as though a high-concept narrative from an entirely other tale were stitched onto what was once in a different way a robust premise. Regardless of its awkward and clunky nature, the late-stage twist did set up to search out its footing during the enticing creation of a brand new, conflicting theme and a last-minute revelation that, whilst loosely hooked up, echoed parts from the tale’s previous basis. In the long run, a lot of the narrative’s weight was once carried through the voice performing, which helped melt the inconsistencies of the sport’s last act. The twist felt like an extravagant writing flex — person who indulged in its ambition, looking to have its cake and consume it too, leaving me totally misplaced within the sauce till the sport’s final moments controlled to tug issues again in combination.Because the debut recreation from Sandfall Interactive, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is some distance from a fleeting revel in. It’s a strong reminder of what occurs when an inventive team of other people take what was once as soon as a solo pastime challenge and turn into it into one thing extra — a recreation during which leading edge struggle meets a singular, unique tale that dares to problem and encourage, even if all hope turns out misplaced. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 might be launched April 24 on PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Collection X. The sport was once reviewed on PlayStation 5 the use of a prerelease obtain code supplied through Kepler Interactive. Vox Media has associate partnerships. Those don’t affect editorial content material, despite the fact that Vox Media might earn commissions for merchandise bought by way of associate hyperlinks. You’ll be able to to find further details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.
Why it mattersA turn-based single-player myth RPG that takes inspiration from Ultimate Myth and Personality. Its somewhat life like, somewhat stylized persona designs pair with a particular Belle Époque-meets-dark-fantasy surroundings. — Maddy Myers, Deputy Editor, Video games
