Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — The Matrix on Absinthe

How do I even start?

Imagine if The Matrix was directed by Chris Nolan, with notes from Jean-Pierre Jeneaux and Tim Burton, and took place in a surrealist, melancholic version of Belle Époque France where "magic" is real, and where instead of dodging bullets in trenchcoats, you’re dodging having to deal with emotional trauma. Sound weird? It is. And it’s also one of the most narratively rich, emotionally resonant, and just beautiful games I’ve played in years. Let me make it crystal clear: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is, straight up, the most significant game released since Baldur's Gate 3. And it's a game I will use two words a lot to describe it in the following post: "melancholic" and "quirky". 

It's pretty much impossible to describe just how complex and well-written the story is without spoiling it. The term clair-obscur itself means "light and darkness", an artistic term (perhaps better known by the Italian word "chiaroscuro") which would be a hint to some of the themes present. However, you are hereby duly warned, the next two paragraphs will spoil the first hour or so of the game. If you want to avoid all spoilers and go in entirely fresh, skip the next two paragraphs and move on to the one after the two images in a row. Last warning!

The very first part of the game begins in what remains of the once beautiful city called Lumiere, a sort-of-mirror of Paris, shortly before that years' Gommage. What is that, you ask? Well, here's where the setting begins getting drip-fed to you in a slow but steady manner - 67 years ago, the world fractured, and (for all intents and purposes) "monsters" called Nevrons appeared. Lumiere itself was torn asunder, and only half of it now survives as an island, cut off from everything else. But that is not all. In the far distance stands a monolith, with a gigantic countdown of glowing numbers, counting down from 100. We're at 34, and whenever it ticks, a gigantic, sulking woman simply known as the Paintress "paints death" by dissolving the oldest people alive into flower petals, which is what the Gommage is. The rest of the time, she sits melancholic under the countdown, always present, unmoving, always visible on the distant horizon. No one knows what will happen when the countdown ends, but it can't possibly be good. And every year, a hopeful expedition of brave Lumiere citizens embark on a mission to stop her before she counts down to the next number.

This year, our protagonist Gustave (voiced by Daredevil himself Charlie Cox but clearly based on Robert Pattinson's face), the inventor behind the Lumina converter, sails onwards with Expedition 33, but not before seeing the love of his life, Sophie, gommage before his eyes. Only, once the expedition lands on a beach on the mainland, they see an old man, a man old enough to have gommaged decades ago, who easily (and violently) kills 99% of the expedition. Gustave survives, broken, and once he realises the extent of his expedition's devastation almosts ends his own life - luckily, he meets another survivor just in time to pull him back from the brink. Together, they embark on a trip to find more survivors, and do their best to complete the mission.

The setting and setup are rich and nuanced, but that pales in comparison to the plot and revelations that unfold during your playthrough. It's, hands down, one of the best written games I have played, both in narrative beats as well as character dialogue, always with a dose of that quirky, charming Frenchness and undertones of melancholy. The voice acting plays no small part in this. We've got Andy Serkis (doing his second videogame project as far as I remember, the first being Enslaved) growling and brooding with a gravelly voice barely holding back emotions. As mentioned, we've got Charlie Cox bringing a layered, quietly heartbroken but idealistic Gustave to life. Jennifer English nails the balance between warmth, resignation and deep-buried fury of Maelle, a child born in a world that forced her to grow up before her time. And the last standout is Ben Starr giving Verso a loving, intense, passionate energy that constantly walks the line between wanting to open up and keep a distance from others.

Not that the other VAs are bad, oh no no, these are merely the standouts. The quality is stellar across the board. These aren’t phoned in performances. You can hear the cracks of doubt form in their beliefs, the weight of regret in the pauses. The delivery is subtle, human, intimate. When warranted, heart breaking, and at other times, also wehn warranted hilariously quirky. This is the kind of voice acting that makes you not skip dialogue, even on repeat playthroughs. Also shout out to the separate mocap team who infused each character with little mannerisms and body language that make everyone feel, well, real. 

But while we're on the subject of sound, well, the very first thing you will be exposed to when you launch the game is its music. Music that doesn’t come in hot with bombastic gusto or swelling hero themes. This is music that seeps into you. It’s dreamy, melancholic, sometimes quirky, and always beautiful. The score doesn’t just set the tone, it is the tone. It paints an auditory portrait of a beautiful, fractured and fragile world, a world than simply being in it makes you feel like an intruder inadvertedly about to step on something beautiful.

But Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a game, not a film. The story, score and performances are its main strengths, but what about the gameplay?

I won't lie, I have a built-in negative predisposition when I hear the term "turn-based combat", which is one of the reasons I never managed to get into Final Fantasy 7 no matter how many times I tried but loved the Remake. And this, it's an RPG in pretty much the same way Pokémon games are considered RPGs (only, you know, with a much, much more adult and complex story). 

It’s indeed got that Pokémon simplicity at its core: you explore the world in pursuit of your mission, levelling up your party, gradually gaining new abilities and accessing new areas, completing (simple) quests, making friends and defeating foes, while engaging in rock-paper-scissors combat that is initially fairly easy to understand but hard to master as the skills available to your party and the enemies you face evolve in complexity. No two party members play the same way, and mastering the game's combat and being able to defeat every enemy (especially the optional, tough ones) means having to learn when and how to:

• Dodge, jump over or block incoming moves by timing it juuuust right. If you fully block all steps of an incoming attack sequence, you get to unleash (usually) devastating counter-attacks, adding a high-stakes real-time reaction element to turn-based combat.

• Use free aim shots to deal damage or apply specific effects, use items, or use base attacks to gain action points.

• Manage your action points and/or each character's unique mechanics (Maelle's stances are an early example, but others are more complex) to execute special attacks, some of which are simple, while others require a well timed button input or more to be fully effective.

• Juggle buffs, debuffs, status effects, weaknesses, resources (AP and gradient charges) during the course of an encounter to optimise your performance and counter enemy defenses.

• Allocate level up attribute points across 5 different stats - Vitality, Power, Defense, Agility and Luck, and learn new attacks/moves as you level up and gain skill points.

• Customize each character via many upgradeable weapons, each with different abilities and effects that tweak your playstyle, and each requiring specific stats to unlock their full power, meaning fully respeccing a character because you found a too-good-to-pass-up weapon will not be a rare occurrence. Some weapons boost specific type of attacks, some hit harder, some work better with some abilities and some may fundamentally affect a character build.

• Equip magical "items" called Pictos, up to 3 per character, which function like skill-granting gear. Win 4 fights with a character that has a Picto equipped, and you gain a Lumina version of the Picto, meaning you can equip it to any (or all) characters so long as you have allocated enough Lumina points to them, allowing for complex synergies and builds, especially later on. Some Pictos feel simple, like 50% damage increase on base attacks, while others just...cheat (like the apptly named "Cheater" which allows any character that has it to play two times in a row). But how does a combination of 50% base damage increase, plus 50% more break damage on base attack, plus additional AP generation, plus one extra turn after using a base attack sound? Some synergies can break things, and you'll feel a satisfying sense of reward in discovering and using them.
  
  

I know seeing it all laid out can seem daunting, and perhaps too complex. But the game does an excellent (can't stress this enough) job with its learning curve, introducing new mechanics and things to keep in mind gradually, and organically. And it’s so damn satisfying when it all clicks. Eventually, once you learn enemy type attack patterns and are able to avoid or counter them, and set up your characters with the right builds, luminas, weapons and pictos, suddenly the battles stop feeling like story interruptions and start feeling like a balancing act. It’s surprisingly deep. Surprisingly fun. And surprisingly addictive. It’s evokes the Civ mentality of “okay, one more turn” and then realize it's 3AM and your GPU is begging for sweet release.

Speaking of GPUs, visually this game is...art. Like, actual art. While (most of) the characters look realistic enough for today's Unreal Engine 5 standards, it's the Belle Époque visual direction for the environments, enemies and non-human characters that stands out, full of smoky vistas, abandoned battlefields, impossible architecture, crumbling grandeur, and the kind of stylized lighting that just works and will often leave you with your mouth open without even realizing it.

There’s a surrealism quality permeating the game, that gives every environment, interaction and story beat this uneasy, dream-like quality. It’s not realistic, it’s symbolic. Theatrical, expressive, poetic. And there’s something deeply French about it all. That specific artistic blend of melancholy and joie de vivre. You know the vibe. Moody men in elegant coats, smoking a cigarette in silence with a half-smile. Creepy masks frozen in expressions ranging from abject terror to droll amusement. Existential ennui, with occasional wholesomeness and/or silliness sprinkled in.

It’s not all beautiful brushstrokes, cello solos, choral laments and poetic monologues though. The game did crash on me a few times (often enough to be pointed out), usually after long sessions - and when I say “crash,” I mean freeze-frame followed by a forced restart and swearing. It also felt hefty on the hardware, making my RTX 3060 sweat more than Doom: The Dark Ages did. At no point did if feel unplayable or stutter, even at high settings with HDR and DLSS on, but it did make my GPU's fans sound like a helicopter about to take off, and is definitely something to consider if your rig’s older or prone to overheating.

To summarise, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn’t just a good RPG. It's not even just a game. It’s a mood piece. It's a thesis on memory, grief, duty, and the beauty of fighting battles you know you can’t win but doing it anyway because the alternatives are too painful to ponder.

It’s The Matrix meets The City of Lost Children on the cobbled alleyways of a fever dream of Montmartre, with a combat system that rewards a combination of brains and timing, and a world that drags you in only to tell you you're not welcome there, and that’s exactly why you’ll stay and see the story through all of its twists, turns and revelations, to one of its two absolutely emotional endings that, if you're anything like me, will leave you deeply unsettled and sad or ugly-crying.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not just a game. It's an experience, and you owe it to yourself.