Mel Ramsay and Tom Richardson
BBC News Beat
Sandfall Interactive
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has received a huge acclaim
In 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic, Guillaume brooches appeared to be millions of people all over the world.
“I’m bored with their work and want to do something different.”
At the time, working for the French gaming giant Ubisoft, he had the idea of his own project – a role-playing game inspired by one of his childhood favorites, the classic Japanese series Final Fantasy.
It would become obscure for Claire: Expedition 33 became a sensation five years later.
It sold 1 million copies in just three days, topped the Spotify virus chart on the soundtrack, and won praise from French President Emmanuel Macron.
But one of the most notable things about it is the story of how it was created – the story of random Reddit messages, “large luck” and an extraordinary approach to game development.
Expedition 33 is set at Lumiere. Lumiere is a fictional world covered in a giant monolith with shining numbers on its face.
Every year an entity known as The Paintress appears, lowering its number one by one, leaving everyone at that age disappearing, and the game follows a group of quests to destroy mystical beings.
This is an interesting set-up of an epic story, but its gaming aesthetic inspired by 19th-century France and its old-fashioned turn-based battles also highlight it.
However, the traditional wisdom when Guillaume began was that players didn’t want something like that.
So, five years ago, he began recruiting people for passion projects and fired messages to potential colleagues on Reddit and online forums.
Sandfall Interactive
Expedition 33 is set to the fantasy version of Paris
One of the respondents was Jennifer Sveverg En, who was closed to Australia at the time.
“I saw a Reddit post by Guillaume asking voice actors to record something for free for a demo,” she says.
“I was like this: ‘I’ve never done it, it sounds a bit cool’ so I sent him an audition. ”
Jennifer was originally cast as a major character in the early version of the game, but eventually switched roles to become the team’s lead writer.
Guillaume eventually left Ubisoft and formed the Sandfall Interactive, working on Claire’s obscurity full-time from a base in Montpellier, France.
After securing funding from publisher Kepler Interactive, the core team has grown to around 30 people.
Many of them were discovered in a similarly unusual way to Jennifer.
Sandfall Interactive
Jennifer Svedberg-Yen and Guillaume Broche say they “wore many different hats” while creating the game
Composer Lorien Tester has never worked on video games before – was discovered in a post on the music sharing website SoundCloud.
“I call this the Guillaume effect. He’s really good at finding people who are really cool,” says Jennifer.
Guillaume attributes his success rates modestly to Covid (people looking for creative outlets) and “large luck.”
“It’s always the same story,” he says.
“I have a list of 15 people and I’m thinking, ‘Well, I’m probably going to get no one.”
“And the first one is like, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ ”
However, Guillaume admits that he targeted people who seemed “in line in the direction” that he wanted to incorporate into his project.
“Lorien, when we first discussed the game, we had the exact same reference,” he says.
“We loved the same thing. We saw the same thing. The discussion was very fluid.”
The Expedition 33 has also been widely praised for its production value. This rivals the ones of the game, even hundreds and thousands of staff.
Guillaume has resulted in part from recent advances in the tools used to create games, allowing teams to work more efficiently.
With Kepler’s support, the studio was able to attract actors such as Daredevil’s Charlie Cox, Lord of the Rings’ star Andy Serkis, and video game actors Jennifer English and Ben Starr.
And while Sandfall has called for additional input from support studios, musicians and other experts, Jennifer and Guillaume say the core team is “wearing a lot of different hats.”
“And we’re all throwing you in things that may be outside of our traditional role,” says Jennifer, who was also responsible for translating the game into different languages.
“I think we have a great team of mostly juniors, but they’re very incredibly invested in the project and are talented,” Guillaume said.
“Somehow it worked, but this doesn’t make sense even after years.”
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