One of the games we got to check out during Microsoft’s Xbox Developer Direct on Thursday evening was the game with the somewhat cumbersome title Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Behind the name hides a French turn-based role-playing game with several unique features.
In the thorough walkthrough we saw, it was made clear, among other things, that you can’t relax in the battles because you have to time your attacks and parry the opponents’, and that the level system is made to be explored so that you can abuse it heavily at the end of the adventure. In an interview with Xbox Wire, creative director Guillaume Broche says this about it:
“So what’s very cool is that, when you play through the game, you will change your equipment a lot and you will get more and more Lumina and at the end of the game you have a full list of passives that you can either activate or deactivate, and this allows some crazy build opportunities. This is where we really make some crazy combos, and this is where we expect players to really break the game – and we hope they break the game, because it’s made for that!”
The world looks very interesting and Broche explains that the goal was to create something we haven’t seen before, basing the Expedition 33 setting on the French Belle Epoque era (1871-1914):
“I just wanted to get out of the stuff that we’ve just seen a million times, – science fiction, to space, or zombies, all that kind of stuff. I just wanted to get my head out of there and see what I can try to come up with that was original for me personally.”
To get around and explore everything, a feature that is now almost retired is used – a world map. The decision that we can look forward to a good old-fashioned world map (which was standard in Japanese role-playing games two decades ago) to get around the world is explained like this:
“Since the day I started working on this project in Unreal engine, I wanted a world map. I feel like it’s such a cool thing that has almost completely disappeared from the face of the gaming industry. Like, nobody does that anymore, and for me it was such a crucial and important part of what made the old-school JRPGs unique. It’s this sense of travelling and [indicating that] we are an expedition… and we wanted the player to feel like they’re going on a grand journey.”
So what can we find in this world then, and how big is it? Broche concluded:
“In the beginning, it seems extremely, extremely big. And it is very big. There are a lot of levels to find… hidden bosses to find also on this world map; there are tons of secrets. And that’s also what makes a world map super cool, because it’s just like it feels like a completely different exploration game… and really makes you understand how much you’re traveling.”
Yesterday we were able to show the new trailer, and today we can also offer a bunch of new screenshots, which you can find below. April 24th is the premiere day for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X. And conveniently enough, it’s included with Game Pass.