ARTFUL DODGERS

Sandfall Interactive is relying on youth, surrealism and perfect timing to freshen up the turn-based RPG

- JON BAILES

The cast of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are very impatient, for turn-based RPG characters. Rather than stand and politely soak up damage when attacked, they’ll spring aside or meet their assailant with a slick parry and counter – at least, they will if you time your button presses right. Perhaps it’s something to do with the energy of youth, which is endemic throughout the party, and indeed the world of Expedition 33 as a whole. At the centre of the plot lies a countdown to the end of humanity, as each year a fateful number ticks down by one, and anyone of that age or older simply disappears. With the number now at – you guessed it – 33, people in their early 30s are now civilisation’s elders, with a very short window left to stop the phenomenon. No wonder they won’t stand still.

A similar youthful urgency fuelled the creation of Expedition 33. It began, first and foremost, as the brainwave of Guillaume Broche, who started the project by himself at home six years ago while working on The Division 2 at Ubisoft. Gradually, he began to gather a party of developers around the idea, including Ubisoft colleague Tom Guillermin, artist Nicholas MaxsonFrancombe and writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen. “Jenn joined very early on as a voice actress,” Broche recalls, “and quickly became co-writer and lead writer. Then it built very organically – just for fun in the beginning. Everybody was working for free.”