When applying, interested parties are quite clear about what the potential employer values highly. However, anyone who wanted to apply with a particularly large portfolio at the makers of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 probably didn’t have a great chance – or maybe just because of that?
Who are these developers? The creators of Expedition 33 surprised with their unexpected hit with a small development team capable of bringing such a project to life.
It should be emphasized that they also collaborated with other small studios, especially regarding voice actors, animation, and playtesting. However, the core team consists of only about 30 developers.
“We had five people working on the environments, two on the story. I believe about three to six people worked on the cinematic sequences. The music was made by four people,” reports Creative Director Guillaume Broche during a conversation with Automaton Japan (via PCGamesN).
What requirements did the workers have to fulfill? To assemble this team, over 200 interviews were conducted, but they focused on a rather specific requirement that is quite unusual for a game studio: they did not want industry veterans; on the contrary, they specifically sought out young, talented individuals without prior experience.
Here you can see the trailer for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, created by these young developers:
The unexpected hit was developed by newcomers and that is what brought them success
Why was the developers’ lack of experience an advantage? Creative Director Broche explains that they valued the “fighting spirit” of new talents over the experience of long-term developers, and for good reason: “They had no fixed ideas about how the work should look, which I think was good. Because that allowed them to adapt to our peculiar working style.” (via PCGamesN)
As an example, Broche mentions the visual effects artist and character designer of the team, who they hired right after his college graduation. Expedition 33 was therefore his very first job in the game industry.
What are the team’s future plans? The lead programmer of the game, Tom Guillermin, says that the team has no ambitions to expand for their next game because they simply do not consider it necessary.
“I think, for now, I would prefer to work in a small team,” he says in the interview (via PCGamesN), “I am not sure how big an ‘ideal team’ should be, but when it comes to developing a full-fledged turn-based RPG, I believe our current team is exactly the right size.”
Determining what size is considered “ideal” is also not necessary when the team has already proven that it works with its current size. And the success of Expedition 33 is the proof.
The developers have previously commented on the size of their team, and that they do not intend to grow significantly. The core team is to be maintained and, if necessary, supplemented through outsourcing. This approach is seen by the CEO of Sandfall and producer of Expedition 33 as more sustainable than that of other studios.
This could be interpreted as criticism of AAA studios, whose opposite, overly ambitious approach is not only harmful to the studios themselves. He says that especially the developers suffer under these practices. Here on MeinMMO you can read more about it: “People are losing their jobs” – Developers of Clair Obscur are convinced that many AAA developers make a certain mistake
