A manager plays 'Clair Obscur, Expedition 33' at the headquarters of Sandfall Interactive in Montpellier, France, on April 10, 2025. The French video game has reached a record number of 12 nominations in the Game Awards ceremony, which will take place on Dec 11, 2025, in Los Angeles. — AFP
PARIS, France: French indie hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been gained a record number of nominations for the Game Awards, the gaming industry's equivalent of the Oscars, after selling five million copies.
Here are some key facts about the favourite for the Dec 11 ceremony in Los Angeles:
Japanese action, French style
Set in a post-apocalyptic world of magic and twisted creatures, Clair Obscur follows a small group of characters seeking to defeat a powerful entity threatening their home city Lumiere – which bears a striking resemblance to Belle Epoque Paris.
Inspired by Japanese games such as the long-running Final Fantasy saga, the French title is a role-playing game offering turn-based combat against the monsters inhabiting the world.
The action is set against a varied palette of dreamlike landscapes that players must explore to gain experience and level up their skills to overcome increasingly dangerous enemies.
The game offers players two different endings. The creators left some questions unanswered in both, triggering fierce online debate about how to interpret the story.
Success story
Clair Obscur began in 2020 as a project of Guillaume Broche, a developer at French games giant Ubisoft.
He brought ex-colleague Tom Guillermin on board to found studio Sandfall Interactive that same year in the French city of Montpellier.
They struck a publishing deal in 2022 with UK-based Kepler, which provided funding for the project.
Sandfall's game sparked imaginations with its slick visual style when it was unveiled at the US Summer Game Fest in June 2024.
And its release on PC and consoles in April this year immediately found an audience, topping one million sales within three days as critics sang its praises.
Polished product
Its popularity was founded on the story's emotional depth and endearing characters married with original gameplay, which introduced reactive rhythm-based elements to parry enemies' attacks.
Clair Obscur was built on the powerful Unreal Engine 5 – widely-used software that provides game developers with ready-made core systems such as graphics and physics.
That, as well as limits on the length of the story and the scale of the project, meant "they managed to present something really polished and go toe-to-toe with major titles," industry specialist Benoit Reinier told AFP at the time of the game's release.
At just 30 people for most of its development, the team behind Clair Obscur was far smaller than typical blockbuster studios.
Quality voice acting also played a strong role, with British stars Andy Serkis and Charlie Cox anchoring the English-language team.
Earworm
The music of Clair Obscur stuck in many players' heads and played an outsize part in their immersion into its universe.
Composed by former music teacher Lorien Testard, the soundtrack combines piano, violin and electric guitar with soaring vocals from singer Alice Duport-Percier.
Streaming platforms have notched up hundreds of millions of plays for tracks from Clair Obscur, while the album spent weeks at the top of Billboard's US classical music charts.
Testard will tour France and other European countries next year after drawing thousands to sold-out shows in France in October.
'Expedition 33' mania
Since its release, the grassroots popularity of Clair Obscur has manifested in fans attending conventions and video game fairs wearing a striped mariner's shirt and red beret – one of the most stereotypically French outfits players can equip for their characters.
Sandfall's three founders have meanwhile been invited to visit some of the world's most renowned game studios, including the offices of "Metal Gear Solid" creator Hideo Kojima.
French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the team in May, thanking them for "putting the spotlight on French-style boldness and creativity".
There are also plans to bring the Expedition 33 story to the big screen. – AFP
