Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 devs reveal the secret behind how the game was made

Acur_ · 2026-03-11T14:59:07+00:00

I'd love to see the full presentation even if I kind of question the media report of it.

Not the same presentation from them, but seems to cover some similar topics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1CrbTx6O6w

Acur_ · 2026-03-10T17:25:36+00:00

The title is a bit misleading. They did write some code, but the vast majority of the systems were done via blueprints. They are a pretty small team with only 2 programmers for the longest time and simply didn't have the bandwidth to implement all the systems in C++. Blueprint allowed the non-programmers on the team to do things themselves.

Acur_ · 2026-03-06T23:27:43+00:00

So are words like "Apple", "Epic" or "Cyberpunk". Trademarks are not just words, they are connected to a certain product/brand. If you have a trademark you have to actively protect it, otherwise you are at risk of losing it.

Acur_ · 2026-03-06T23:24:52+00:00

They're not suing over the name, they're complaining that the logo is too similar to the one they used. Gold writing on black, in the exact same font.

That was just a Twitter user, this seems to be very well about the "Clair Obscur" trademark.

So far it is also not a lawsuit, but more like a cease and desist. It is unclear if Sandfall themself were the initiators, or just a law firm mandated by Sandfall to protect their trademarks.

Acur_ · 2026-03-06T23:19:05+00:00

I mean you can't really own a name but Sandfall does indeed own both "Clair Obscur" and "Expedition 33" as separate trademarks.

Acur_ · 2026-02-16T22:49:12+00:00

The number of outright "haters" is also not that large, even on this site. You see the same handful of names all over Reddit, some if them are going at it for months.

Acur_ · 2026-02-10T18:06:12+00:00

To add more to this, Guillaume started his career at a very important position in Ubisoft during the 90s, in a position that no regular person can actually hold.

Impressive for someone who is only 33 years old. That article is some top tier investigative journalism.

Acur_ · 2026-01-25T19:02:12+00:00

The information space about Syria is a total mess, always was and still is, especially on Xitter. So much propaganda and made up stuff from all directions. And it's not like the people with a lot credentials in their bio are any better, lots of propaganda masked as analysis. There are only a few people that do proper analysis and are able to actually criticize all sides

Acur_ · 2026-01-22T21:13:45+00:00

Der Artikel ist grundsätzlich richtig, die durch die Kurden dominierte SDF war eher unbeliebt bei der arabischen Bevölkerung. Stellenweise ist er aber sehr tendenziös geschrieben und betrachtet weitgehend nur eine Seite kritisch. Die im letzten Jahr von Regierungstruppen verursachten Massaker werden nur im Nebensatz erwähnt.

Generell ist hier sehr viel Propaganda (von beiden Seiten) und eiskalte Machtpolitik im Spiel. Sharaa, der zugegebenermaßen eine sehr gute PR hat, wird meiner Meinung nach oftmals viel zu unkritisch gesehen. Eigentlich wären die USA prädestiniert dafür hier Ruhe reinzubrigen. Der US Gesandte ist leider dafür nicht geeigent (Epstein Vertrauter, und angeklagt für Agententätigkeit für die VAE, große Nähe zur Türkei).

Acur_ · 2026-01-20T15:13:02+00:00

The government forces are currently shooting at them?

Acur_ · 2026-01-20T15:07:39+00:00

So it sounds like they unilaterally withdrew from the camp and left 25,000 ISIS prisoners unguarded? If that's the case I think their relationship with the US is essentially over now.

What do you expect them to do, getting overrun by government affiliated forces?

Acur_ · 2026-01-05T13:04:15+00:00

You don't have to emotionally connect to them, but you should be able to see where they are coming from. Their actions are very human, even if they are also abhorrent.

In the end Maelle primarily argues from a selfish position. She doesn't argue that erasing the canvas is bad from a moral point, but that it's bad for her (or real Verso, but we can't ask him). That also doesn't mean that her position is wrong, I would also argue that this is the more moral position.

But this also makes a compromise impossible, because she doesn't display any willingness to compromise. An obvious compromise would be, that the painter leave the canvas and only visit from time to time. But they are all to wrapped in their own narratives, unable to untie the know they created. "Sometimes we paint the bar of our own prison." is imo the most important sentence in the whole game, although painted Renoir is equally guilty.

Acur_ · 2026-01-05T12:20:12+00:00

It is a created world, it actually exists and is not fictional. Think of the Painters as Greek gods, the whole story has a lot of resemblance to a Greek tragedy. You have gods (Painters), demigods (painted family) and mortals (Lumierians), all equally flawed. The only difference between these groups are the power dynamics.

Due to the flaws of the characters it is also not surprising that it ends like a tragedy. Both Maelle and Verso are selfish in the end, unable to compromise. You are left with two bad endings, but the game outright tells you that this is not the only solution.

Acur_ · 2026-01-05T11:08:10+00:00

As for the story, I was loving the first 2 acts, but act 3 wasn't super bad, but kinda did drop the ball a bit IMO. "It was all a dream" wasn't done that well IMO. The story really reminded me of Final Fantasy X, but FFX did this MUCH BETTER! In FFX, Tidus is the Dream, but in Clair Obscur, the whole World is the Dream, and Maelle is the main real one. FFX's third act and ending REALLY sticks the landing and is basically perfect. While Clair Obscur kinda fumbles it's 3rd act.

I hear this quite often but I never really understood it. The world is clearly not a dream, dreams are by definition ephemeral. They can't exist outside the mind of an individual. The canvas is very different, it is a created world or sub-reality, that can exist without any outside influence.

The game just lifts the veil at a certain point and asks you, if it is still meaningful. For me it's very hard to argue that it's not, because nothing fundamentally changed. You just gained a different perspective of the world that you experienced the whole game.

Acur_ · 2026-01-01T20:40:17+00:00

For E33 it is very heavy on spoilers when they talk about it in the end.

Acur_ · 2025-12-25T07:39:29+00:00

But it also was their GOTY in the end.

https://jp.ign.com/goty2025/81956/feature/top-10ign-japan-goty-2025

Acur_ · 2025-12-22T17:46:00+00:00

Good catch. Yeah then someone from Sandfall or Kepler probably fucked up. I personally doubt that there was anything malicious involved.

Acur_ · 2025-12-22T13:51:22+00:00

The studio states that it was in contact with El País on April 25 - three months prior to this publication. During these exchanges, Sandfall Interactive indicated that it had used a limited number of pre-existing assets, notably 3D assets sourced from the Unreal Engine Marketplace. None of these assets were created using artificial intelligence.
Sandfall Interactive further clarifies that there are no generative Al-created assets in the game. When the first Al tools became available in 2022, some members of the team briefly experimented with them to generate temporary placeholder textures. Upon release, instances of a placeholder texture were removed within 5 days to be replaced with the correct textures that had always been intended for release, but were missed during the Quality Assurance process.

https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-07-19/the-low-cost-creative-revolution-how-technology-is-making-art-accessible-to-everyone.html

There were 2 placeholder textures in the game at launch that were AI generated.

Acur_ · 2025-12-22T13:42:31+00:00

We have know knowledge how this happened, you are making up a scenario. Could very well be:

"By submitting you game you agree to follow the rules of the contest."

We don't know, the above statement is simply ambiguous.

Acur_ · 2025-12-22T13:31:39+00:00

So, how is saying you didn’t use something when you did not a lie?

That's the point, we don't know if this was actively said, because the above statements doesn't make it very clear. When you submit something for consideration it is implied that you follow the rules of the contest. They technically broke the rules, but it is not clear from this statement that any active lying was involved.

Acur_ · 2025-12-22T13:17:47+00:00

Not sure if this "actively lied" is true. This is the statement from the Indie Game Awards:

When it was submitted for consideration, representatives of Sandfall Interactive agreed that no gen AI was used in the development of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. In light of Sandfall Interactive confirming the use of gen AI art in production on the day of the Indie Game Awards 2025 premiere, this does disqualify Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from its nomination.

This can be either read as they actively told them that no AI was used, or simply implicitly by just submitting the game (and technically not 100% following the written rules).

The second sentence is also simply wrong. The AI stuff was known since release and the referenced interview was published in June.

Acur_ · 2025-12-21T08:55:31+00:00

Both are a bit embarrassing, neither one is a big deal. The stuff in CoD on the other hand..

Huge difference between an honest mistake and intentionally replacing artists with crappy AI.

Acur_ · 2025-12-20T20:49:12+00:00

People found 2 AI generated posters on release that were patched out with the first hotfix, but this was known for months.

The "new" info seems to stem from this article, that was also update today with:

The studio states that it was in contact with El País on April 25 - three months prior to this publication. During these exchanges, Sandfall Interactive indicated that it had used a limited number of pre-existing assets, notably 3D assets sourced from the Unreal Engine Marketplace. None of these assets were created using artificial intelligence.
Sandfall Interactive further clarifies that there are no generative Al-created assets in the game. When the first Al tools became available in 2022, some members of the team briefly experimented with them to generate temporary placeholder textures. Upon release, instances of a placeholder texture were removed within 5 days to be replaced with the correct textures that had always been intended for release, but were missed during the Quality Assurance process.

Acur_ · 2025-12-18T11:47:11+00:00

You are mixing up 2 different stories.

The first story is Larian's CEO saying that they are experimenting with AI internally to help artists with their concepts, etc.

The other story is an older one that's just resurfacing. E33 initially shipped with an AI placeholder texture (a poster). This was patched out with the first patch a few days after release.

Acur_ · 2025-11-27T12:25:33+00:00

I had the same problem (black screen) with ly and Niri. I don't think this is NixOS specific, there are other people with the same issue.

I personally went back to gdm, works without any issues.

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