There is one decision the lead game designer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 regrets to this day. It led to a somewhat disappointing finale for some players.
Where does this information come from? The info comes from an interview conducted by the lead game designer of the game, Michel Nohra, and the lead programmer Tom Guillermin with the English-speaking Edge Magazine (via gamesradar+).
In this interview, the two developers explained that the team at Sandfall Interactive did not anticipate such great success for the game. However, this resulted in an unexpected problem – players spent too much time with all the side content too early.
Many players were too strong for the final boss
What is the issue? Besides the main story, which also earned the game the award for “Best Narrative” at the Game Awards, the game offers numerous side activities – including optional bosses and Gestral games.
However, the developers did not anticipate that players would want to complete all these side quests before facing the final boss. This caused many players to achieve a higher level before the final battle than expected – making the fight potentially too easy.
the only thing I regret is not making it clearer that if you want the intended difficulty for the boss, you have to go beat it now
Michel Nohra, Lead Game Designer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
“Often, people don’t want to finish the game, so they do all the side content before finishing it, because once the story is over, you’re usually less motivated to do the side content,” Nohra explains. However, he underestimated this.
People who wanted a challenging final boss were somewhat disappointed when they had completed all the side content beforehand. “I don’t regret doing it the way we did it,” he says, “but [we could have] had more explanation about your choice [in Act 3].”
Developers did not expect players to want to experience everything
What does the lead programmer have to say about it? Guillermin believes that this decision is also partly due to the “humility” of the developers at Sandfall Interactive. They really did not expect the game to be such a hit and for people to want to spend so much time in it:
“We weren’t sure if our game was going to be that good. And if it’s not, people may just want to see the story, and go directly to the end of the story. So it was a surprise for us [that] people were doing every single thing there is to do in the game before going to the final dungeon. We’re happy about that, but we didn’t see it coming.”
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has made a lasting impression not only on players but also in the gaming industry. We are already looking forward to the first games inspired by the RPG hit. One of them is introduced in this article: Clair Obscur was so successful that the first “Ex33-likes” are coming our way
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