Which brings us to today’s Developer_Direct, where we traveled to Montpellier, France to meet the minds behind one of the most exciting new RPGs in years, and learn more than ever before. After establishing that this surprisingly small team of creators works out of a French manor(!), the development team peeled back even more layers of their finely crafted mille feuille of an RPG, revealing delicious details on the game’s emotional story, original world, how its gameplay innovates on classics of the genre. They also shared its April 24 release date; you can pre-order here and play it day one with Game Pass!
“We didn’t want the game to just be a pretty face”, Guillaume Broche, CEO & Creative Director, told us. “We wanted it to be like a game that feels like a real game. So every character has their own playstyle and you can really play them in a lot of different ways – but they also feel very different from each other, and they all have their unique mechanics and their unique skill tree. ”
During Developer_Direct, Sandfall explained another aspect of Expedition 33’s deep customization of characters and playstyle, which you set up before you enter battle. The game’s innovative Pictos, modifiers tied to gear, evolve into passive abilities referred to as Lumina after four battles.
For example, one character, Lune has a mechanic whereby every time she casts a skill, she will generate a “Stain,” up to four at a time. She can then consume these Stains across the battle, amplifying her abilities in various ways; the (pardon the pun) magic is in finding the right combination for your playstyle. Each character boasts their own unique mechanic, from Gustave’s Overcharged arm to Sciel’s use of Sun and Moon-based “Foretell” charges.
For all the strategic options on offer, it’s the visceral, real-time elements of the turn-based battle system that leap front and center in every bit of gameplay we’ve seen. While this is a crucial part of gameplay, and will certainly appeal to those looking for an experience which challenges both mind and reflexes, Broche assures those of us lacking, shall we say, Sekiro-caliber timing will have options: “So you’re not supposed to parry everything, of course, that would be far too hard. So we have difficulty options in the game, and depending on the difficulty options the parry window and dodge window will be bigger or smaller… if you are playing in Hard mode, and you don’t dodge at least 50% of the attacks, you will have some trouble. If you are in Normal, it’s a bit more [forgiving] than that, and if you are in Easy… if you build your characters correctly, at least, you will go by without having to be a master dodger.”
All this strategic depth comes to life through dynamic camerawork and the alien beauty of the world of Expedition 33, inspired by the Art Deco style of France’s Belle Epoque era. Art Director Nicholas Maxson-Francombe explains that he wanted to avoid replicating things he’s already experienced across a lifetime of playing games: “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.”
These inspirations really come together on the navigable world map, another Developer_Direct reveal. This is, yet again, inspired by JRPGs of the past, modernized, and planned by Broche from the start.
“Since the day I started working on this project in Unreal engine, I wanted a world map,” he said. “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.”
That isn’t all we have for you on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33; in an upcoming episode of The Official Xbox Podcast, the team at Sandfall Interactive shares additional behind-the-scenes insights into the development of the game, including a new gameplay video.
Source: Xbox News