Out of all the recently announced games of the past year, one which stood out to be and many others is the decidedly creative-looking 'Clair Obscur: Expedition 33'. To this day I struggle to think of another video game trailer that managed to make me do a complete one-eighty from "Oh, this looks like another pretty walking simulator horror game" to "Wait, is that RPG combat? Stylish RPG combat? Almost JRPG feeling? Hold the phone!" The very initial first step was enough to sell me on the spot and since then I've had an eye out for every bit of new info that slips out of this curious little title about facing the very extinction of humanity. It's a fantastic looking game from a totally new IP not coming out of an experienced and renowned studio- a unicorn in today's age. What's even more crazy- the core staff seem to be Ubisoft refugees! (Maybe that company does need to be brought down if this is the kind of talent they've got locked up making endless crap sequels.)
And I don't seem to be the only one. In a sea of samey-looking games that seem to slip in and out of the same basic genres that the publishers deem 'profitable' comes a high quality gamble. You can tell there isn't a big spirit of caution with a game of this visual calibre, facing this interesting of a sales pitch, embracing the love of the fresh and the vibrant. And when we're talking about the games world- people respond to that kind of passion. Largely this is why I love this industry and find hit pieces against the concept of 'gamers' so out of touch and lazy. The vast majority of us just seem to gravitate to talent and quality and hold up the best of our kind- as long as we can find out. Bottom feeders and assholes dot every hobby- don't get me wrong- but when titles that have no right to become hot topics like Clair Obscur rise above the pack I know something is going right!
In response it seems to be that either Clair Obscur is raising up it's standards to meet demands or maybe the title was even bigger of a risk then we already knew because every other day I seeing headlines that make me rub my eyes and go "Huh?" I mean sure, it was a pretty looking game from the get-go, but I didn't expect the game to be headlining nameable vocal talent behind their performances, including Ben Starr (Final Fantasy XVI), Charlie Cox (Netflix's Daredevil), Jennifer English (Baldur's Gate 3) and Andy Serkis (Probably needs no introduction but I'm going to say 'Enslaved: Odyssey to the West' anyway.) We're talking powerhouse actors all of them, probably not cheap either, all lending the talents to the core staff of what was already an interesting sounding story. This isn't a 'look at the famous faces and ignore the game' situation- these are all welcome editions to a fascinating foundation! How novel.
From that heads turned to the price of the game which, again, stuns in the context. Baring in mind we're living in a world were high quality titles are now ramping themselves up to extortionate prices and arguing how justified it all is because of inflation. Ubisoft, in fact, even went so far as to overprice a special edition for their new Star Wars game to triple figures so that their $70 base game and subscription service would look like a deal in comparison! The cheek! Meanwhile, just like I predicted, that is leaving the space clear for under AAA games like this one to launch at traditional full price, $50- a totally reasonable price point- and seem like a fully respectable purchasing price. Seemingly AAA quality cast and presentation, but not AAA pricing? How is that possible?
Which is where the doubting begins. I'll be honest, I'm a doubter. Whenever something seems too good to be true there typically is a very good reason for that, can you guess what it is? I'll admit that their is a bit of prejudice in there too- Ubisoft's recent games haven't just been a failure in vision, but also in raw design and narrative talent. Assassin's Creed Valhalla was one of the most pathetically mis-matched projects I've ever seen. 10 hours of content stretched into a 100 hour game with no thought between content balancing, pacing, useful progression- any way of making the customers time feel worthwhile. It was a horrific mess. And I can't help but wonder what kind of lessons something like that imparts on it's staff.
That being said, the team appear to be self aware on that front. Already we're hearing assurances that Clair Obscur won't be stuffed to the gills with bloat for the sake of it. 30 Hour experience the say, quality seeped into what's there, guff and bloat left by the wayside. By their own reckoning. It's always better to create the kind of game that leaves players feeing satisfied but not exhausted with the sensation that their time was stolen away. That's what makes me so ashamed whenever I see devs like the COD team bragging about their recurrent player figures without asking themselves how much is that people genuinely enjoying their time and how much is that figures they've had to cajole with attention-stealers like battle passes and daily bonuses and constant jingling keys. And have those devs been around long enough to know the difference between that and genuine engagement anymore?
Now believe it or not the pricing has actually somehow ended up being a little contentious on this game. A listing was actually taken down from some consoles making people believe that a revision was being done to ramp this game up to the prices we see elsewhere- however a spokeperson has seemingly debunked that. "The price from your local retailers is accurate" they say, which is something of a sad announcement to have to make- telling your consumers that they absolutely are looking to not squeeze every buck out of you for this game. They also seem to acknowledge scepticism from people like my assuring that they are a small studio just trying to make a big game- which is commendable to be sure! I support it.
I do think we're heading towards a new golden age in turn-based RPGs, if we're not there already. With powerhouses like Baldur's Gate 3 feeding the tabletop crowd and seemingly-masterpieces like Metaphor Refantazio catering towards JRPG tastes- that an open bench for developers catering towards the single player crowd and the role playing genre. Clair Obscur feels like it might be bringing something new to that world and I'm always excited to see passion and creativity enter into the world- particularly when it feels like we're not always inundated with as much of that as we'd like.
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