Independent French studio Sandfall Interactive’s first video game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, launched worldwide on Thursday, but has already built up a solid community of fans eager to discover its post-apocalyptic fantasy world.
According to Metacritic, which aggregates video games reviews, it had a 92 out of 100 “universal acclaim” score — the highest so far this year.
More than 1 million players have also added the “turn-based” role-playing game to their wish list, said the company, which was set up in 2020 in Montpellier.
Photo: AFP
One of the studio’s three cofounders said that the high numbers — rare for a game developed by an independent studio — were “extremely encouraging.”
“We are coming to the end of four years of production and even longer for some of us,” Francois Meurisse told reporters a few days before the game’s release.
“We’re now at a crucial moment,” he added calmly.
Photo: AFP
Sandfall Interactive’s 20 or so employees sit serenely behind a bank of screens on the first floor of an Art Deco-style mansion in the southern coastal city.
The building’s high ceilings, marble-accented bathroom and large garden ideal for drinks fits perfectly with the fantasy “Belle Epoque” spirit of the game.
For players, Expedition 33 starts in Lumiere, a city on an island whose iconic buildings recall the real-life City of Light — Paris.
However, while passers-by are dressed in 1900s fashion, most of the buildings barely remain standing after a disaster whose nature is gradually revealed.
Just as intriguing is a gigantic monolith that displays the number “34,” corresponding to the age at which the city’s inhabitants “fade away” and turn into flowers.
Worse still, an enigmatic “Paintress” lowers this age every year, cutting life expectancy accordingly.
As characters Gustave, Maelle, Lune, Sciel or Monaco, players must leave the island and explore a vast continent across the sea where, among forests and ruins, the heavily armed minions of the Paintress await.
Between cinematic sequences, the player-explorer must fight fierce battles to try to reach level 33, which should take at least 30 hours, and twice as long to explore the entire universe and solve side puzzles.
The story also provides its share of “unpredictable” twists and turns, according to its creators, who chose not to display an on-screen map allowing players to locate themselves.
At the studio, Guillaume Broche holds the key role of “creative director” for the game, which he has overseen from start to finish and is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
He conceived the adventure more than five years ago and wanted it to be a “role-playing” game, inspired by the Final Fantasy series, but in an environment resembling late 19th, early 20th-century France.
Broche was working in Sweden for French gaming giant Ubisoft and spoke to a colleague, Tom Guillermin, about the project.
At the end of the first COVID-19 lockdown, they teamed up with Meurisse and founded Sandfall Interactive in Montpellier, which has a long-established video game industry.
In 2022, the three young entrepreneurs were at a specialized trade show in San Francisco, where they met London-based publisher Kepler Interactive.
Kepler provided them with funding and took charge of marketing and distribution — and also helped them gain international recognition.
In June last year, Microsoft announced that Expedition 33 would also be included on the release date in its Game Pass subscription service.
Since then, interest and anticipation have grown.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
RSS