Much has been said about the incredible level of quality that Sandfall Interactive put into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, with a budget of less than $10 million and a core team of around thirty employees.
Now, in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, another veteran developer has expressed his absolute disbelief at what the Montpellier-based studio was able to pull off with this game. He's Adrian Chmielarz, the founder and CEO of independent Polish developer The Astronauts, known for The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and the upcoming roguelite first-person shooter Witchfire (on which I interviewed him in September 2023), due to be released out of early access at some point this year.
Chmielarz, who previously worked on games like Painkiller, Gears of War: Judgment, and Bulletstorm while at People Can Fly (which he originally founded in 2002), has always been outspoken. Just last month, he shared his viewpoint on why PC gamers prefer Steam over the Epic Games Store.
In the new interview, he calls Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 'the biggest mystery in gaming right now':
Last week, I learned that the guys behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hired a lot of newbies, people who didn't make a game before. And now my world view is ruined, and I don't know what to do. Here we have a game that looks AAA to me, it's just phenomenal in every aspect. There's a deep story, deep method of work, good gameplay, great visuals and sound. It's a very coherent product. And then you hear that the core team was 30 people, half of which were first timers. And I'm like, "I don't know what to believe anymore."
The head of the studio had a two-hour conference in France where they were discussing the process of making this game. I haven't watched this yet, but I downloaded it, and I have transcribed the audio and translated it to English. And this video is waiting for me, because I need to know the secret, because it's absolutely crazy.
Obviously, we didn't make Witchfire with 26 people, because we use outsourcing, and Sandfall Interactive used a lot of outsourcing – when you roll the credits on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, it's 10 or 15 minutes long. But still, that doesn't change the fact that the core team responsible for the vast majority of the game and the ideas and execution is around 30 people, half of whom are new. So it's the biggest mystery in gaming right now.
That said, he does point out a couple of things with the eye of a designer. For one thing, the game's enemies lack faces by design, which is one way to cut down on animation work. Furthermore, the high-quality scenes are more like theatrical plays in that the characters never interact with the environment, which, in his experience, is one of the most challenging aspects when making cutscenes.
Quite obviously, there are other such 'tricks' that Sandfall has employed, but the final outcome cannot be argued with. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is winning an astounding amount of prizes during the award season, including a few days ago at the New York Game Awards, and there's likely more awards to come.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
