Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 could have also been released in 2045 – that’s what the Game Director believes, if he had still been at Ubisoft.
It is rare for a game to be so clearly a contender for Game of the Year as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The game has not only single-handedly revived turn-based role-playing games but has also shown what a small developer team of just 33 people can create. In hindsight, creating this game with the specially founded studio Sandfall was the right choice. Because the Game Director reveals that it otherwise would have taken 25 years.
What was said? In an interview (via mp1st.com), the Game Director Guillaume Broche, who previously (like many from the team) worked at Ubisoft, revealed that Expedition 33 would have likely taken significantly over two decades if he had wanted to implement it at his old employer:
For me, the project at a large company would have taken around 25 years.
Why would it have taken so long? When referring to the 25 years, Broche is not talking about pure development time but rather a completely different circumstance. He believes that it would have taken about two decades to rise high enough in a large company like Ubisoft to even have the chance to propose such a game. Because those who present such projects in large companies must have worked there for many years and already hold a senior position.
Particularly new IPs with their own characters would be a problem here, and one would need a lot of influence just to be able to present something like that to anyone.
And I simply don’t have that much patience. Moreover, we wanted to do it our way and really create an atmosphere. That’s what this game is about – creating a vibe.
If Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had been released under a big publisher like Ubisoft, some aspects of the story would certainly have been diluted. Because large, mainstream games often shy away from more serious and dark themes – of which there are plenty in Expedition 33. Dying children, suicide, and psychological horrors are part of the complex narrative and are hard to imagine in such extent in a typical “AAA” production.
As the developers were now independent, they could let loose and hide plenty of smaller and larger secrets in the game. Some of them you can even miss in the first 10 minutes.
