Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an formidable title heading to PS5 later this yr from new studio Sandfall Interactive. Nonetheless, enjoying by a 3 hour demo this week, we’d have by no means guessed that is the French developer’s first challenge. Expedition 33 is a refined and AAA feeling expertise that takes its inspirations from JRPGs, however then makes it its personal with gripping performances, flashy, addictive fight, and among the most inventive world designs we’ve ever seen.
The story is what’s actually going to seize you from the get. In a Belle Époque impressed France, the ominous Paintress paints a decrease quantity every year, and everybody that age fades away to mud. The titular Expedition 33 is made up of these of their final yr of life earlier than they’re painted out of existence. It’s not the primary expedition to attempt to take The Paintress down, however hopefully it is the final.
Tragedy strikes nearly instantly, although, because the crew journey to The Paintress’ residence, The Continent, a twisted panorama made up of sunken buildings, floating rocks, and the littered stays of earlier expeditions. What could strike you past its visuals (which we’ll get to), is how darkish and severe the story arrange is.
It is a world drenched in tragedy and dying, and really shortly the severity of the state of affairs is established. Even with out all of the context of the characters or world, we have been struck by some story moments early on in our demo. There are moments of levity, but it surely’s the willingness of the sport to steep itself within the darkness of its plot that actually stood out to us. It is a testomony to the writing and world constructing that with out the establishing chapter of the story, we have been nonetheless locked in and desirous to push the narrative ahead.
Numerous that immersion comes from the visuals, and it can’t be understated how spectacular they’re. Operating on Unreal Engine 5, character fashions are sharp and the backdrops are extremely detailed. Nonetheless, it’s not simply from a decision perspective that Expedition 33 impresses. The artwork path is in contrast to something we’ve ever seen.
Of the handful of areas we explored every had its personal staple inside this fantasy world. One noticed an ethereal tree take up many of the skyline, while The Paintress’ canvas with the ominous “33” glows from afar. One other was an underwater space with air bubbles floating round us, large sea creatures ambling above, chained up mines scattered throughout horizon, and the sunshine refraction by the water, giving the entire thing a magical hue.
Then there’s the extent in between, which takes a type of miniature tilt-shift model. It’s right here that you just’ll journey from one predominant space to the subsequent. Expedition 33 is made up of a number of open ranges, with quick deviations from the primary path permitting room for some exploration.
Whereas from our expertise you are by no means discovering something main past a little bit of loot or some audio logs, each actually feed into the expertise in a succinct method. Audio logs give us some perception into earlier Expeditions, which we lapped up contemplating the mysterious nature of its setting. Then loot may also help construct your character, linking into one of many strongest elements of our time with the demo: fight.
The fight in Expedition 33 is turn-based primarily, however Sandfall has included real-time actions to boost every battle. Gamers can dodge, parry, and even leap — however the window for fulfillment is extremely slim. There are additionally fast time occasions as you deal extra highly effective blows, once more asking you to actually concentrate throughout fight. This explicit author isn’t overly eager on turn-based fight, so these tweaks made the system way more partaking.
It’s simple to develop into a bit of overwhelmed with all of the injury sorts, defensive stances, and skills when the sport is throwing tutorial after tutorial at you. After just a few hours, nonetheless, we began to settle into it fairly properly. Every talent assault required a choose quantity of factors, which may very well be earned with fundamental blows or profitable parries. Like many video games with turn-based techniques, lining every character as much as enhance the opposite in a devastatingly damaging run for the enemy is extremely satisfying.
And like the rest in Expedition 33, fight is gloriously fashionable. Menu designs are spectacular, and the slick animations give every assault an actual heft. We’ve to shout out the music, too. It’s good all through the entire demo, however is especially rousing throughout battle.
The buildcrafting from our quick time with the sport has some nice potential too. With every new stage you might be awarded three factors to stage up elements like well being and energy stats. You then additionally earn talent factors to unlock particular assaults, so you may give attention to sure injury sorts and even therapeutic skills. Then you’ve your weapons that you just uncover in your travels, and passive buffs referred to as Pictos to amplify these expertise even additional.
By the top of our demo, we already had loads of choices, and all of that is relevant to each character in your occasion, too. We think about we’ll spend loads of time tweaking builds and enjoying round with skills upon the complete launch, particularly for the reason that fight itself is quick-paced and nice enjoyable.
Come the top of our demo, we have been left desirous to play extra, but nearly a bit of disillusioned that we’d had the start of the sport spoiled by being dropped into the continued story. That, to us, is an indication of nice writing, as a result of before everything, we simply wished to know extra about these characters and the thriller of The Paintress.
On high of that, Expedition 33 is sweet previous enjoyable, with snappy and addictive fight, a dense construct system, and among the greatest trying environments of the yr — if not the technology. We’re eager to see how the entire thing runs on PS5, and we’ve an inkling it’s going to learn from the additional juice of the PS5 Professional.
What we’ve to go with essentially the most, nonetheless, is the balancing act that Sandfall is pulling off to make Expedition 33 a JRPG hybrid. It has all of the hallmarks of the style with events, skills, turn-based fight, and save-the-world storylines. Nevertheless it’s doing all that with a way more nuanced and nearly mature method to its storytelling and characters. Match that up with the real-time fight parts, and its high of the road visuals, and you’ve got a sport that we predict may have a way more western mainstream attraction than your typical JRPG.
No matter whether or not you’re an enormous JRPG fan or not, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a sport you need to be looking for. Its impeccable artwork design and high-concept premise make it extremely simple to be drawn into its world. Nice character drama and a rising depth to character builds and fight will make investments you even additional. We could have solely scratched the floor with our demo time, but when Sandfall Interactive is ready to stick with it over the course of the complete sport, we may very well be onto one thing actually particular right here.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is ready to launch on PS5 April twenty sixth. Are the sport’s sparkly visuals and tweaks to turn-based fight sufficient to attract you in? Tell us down within the feedback beneath.
