Expedition 33 Is Increasing in Popularity with Each Successive Week

Glad to see. It's a beautiful game!

A budget priced masterpiece.

It is INCREDIBLE! Can’t put it down, can’t stop thinking about it. Game of the year!

I’m so obsessed with this game, if I’m not playing it, I’m thinking about or I’m listening to the soundtrack. I just can’t get enough.

I don't know man, this game quality and success makes me think we aren't scrutinizing modern day game prices enough.

@Odium
Soundtrack is exceptionnal

Really wish I liked it as much as others. The parry/dodge system just isn't enjoyable for me.

Well deserved.clair obscur expedition 33 is going to be up there with game of the year.word up son

I’m about ten hours in and absolutely loving it. The character, story, gameplay and soundtrack are all top tier. I’m glad it’s selling so well.

Really looking forward to playing this. Just need to finish Days Gone: Remastered first...

Glad to see this doing well. I'm loving this game so far (just got to act 2). It's an absolute masterpiece and it has potential to be one of my favourite games ever. I love the story, the characters, the music great gameplay, and the French-ness really makes it unique. I'm glad it's getting a big following, especially for a game made by such a small team

@MichaelNau I couldn’t agree more. It’s up there with FFVII and Bastion as my favorite soundtrack. Lost Voice is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard.

Also it shoukd show Square Enix that you can make a great game on a smaller budget, especially with the easy access to unreal 5, and still create a great game with really good graphics, on a smaller budget, so that when they sell 5 million for example, they're not considered a failure

@NeonTiger Tell me you know nothing about SEO engagement without telling me...

It deserves the hype. A truly special game

I just started act 3 , what a phenomenal piece of entertainment it is , I want neca to make a line of figures 😁

@MrPeanutbutterz sure, still sucks for me!

@NeonTiger it deserves every bit of publicity it gets , and sends a message to other publishers , you don't need to charge 80 quid for a game to make money , make a quality game selling for 39.99 and it will sell in droves.

Absolute masterpiece of a game! Deserves all the attention its getting. Story, gameplay, music, it's got it all, thank you pushsquare for bringing it to my attention.

Once again the adage ''just make good games and they will come'' has been proven correct.

I can't remember the last time that I've played a RPG in which I like and feel for EVERY single character. This is how masterful they are at character and world building, besides a bunch of other elements in game.

It truly deserves the attention and success.

@Angelus3K You'll love the change of tone and play style. Rebirth is one of my favorite RPGs too.

Great way to start the week off. This game and that studio are one of the most wholesome and hopeful situations I've seen in gaming in years. I look forward to reading the next article about Clair tomorrow☕

It's an absolute masterpiece. I am too late to get the only physical copy I would purchase this gen. It's sold out everywhere. I'm playing it on game pass but looks like I will be joining those raising purchase numbers. I want this game to have all its deserved succes, vote with our wallets and all that

@Odium
Ooooh supergiant games made one of m'y all time favorite soundtrack with Transistor

As for expédition 33, I love the Manor song as well as megasometing (battle against the Big sakapatate)

Square and Ubi crying in a forgotten corner right now.

Damn missed the chance to be the 33rd comment on this....

This game can be quite dark and moody but it also has some proper funny twisted humour. Love it.

@lazarus11 it's really not that good, at least not in first 2 hours (the Prologue and the beginning of the first chapter). The acting is very mannered, the facial animations are stiff (though i didn't mind them, few studios manage to impress in that department), the story is very much your seinen anime nonsense that reminds of squid game, the characters are all exclusively hot looking which makes the whole thing feel even more hollow AND there's plethora of technical stuff that betrays it's AAA aspirations and expose it for what it is (a budgeted project with a limited team). Granted, I didn't play enough to assert it's battle mechanics properly, but it's not my fault the game didn't grab me enough for that to happen. I really am puzzled with all the praise it's getting.

It deserves everything it's getting, it's been the first game in years that felt like it was created by adults, with normal adult emotional ranges.

Beautifully written and scripted, the voice work was phenomenal and the ending(s) were perfect.

It was also the first game to put a lump in my throat since Aerith in 1997.

@NeonTiger
"Granted, I didn't play enough to assert it's battle mechanics properly"

You would think this would be the most important thing to do,when accessing if a game is good or not, but of course you're trying to run agendas here.

I genuinely think you are a troll.

"the story is very much your seinen anime nonsense that reminds of squid game, the characters are all exclusively hot looking which makes the whole thing feel even more hollow"

This genuinely has to be the dumbest arguments I have seen in a while,you must be trolling because no way you actually believe this.

The only technical issue i currently have with this game is lips sync.

This magnificent game deserves every iota of success and praise it's been getting.

Even the BBC are getting in on the action.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c078j5gd71ro

Some interesting tidbits in there as well about the developer and how they came to be.

I'm looking forward to devoting all my attention to it after Doom.

@rachetmarvel im 100% serious. Not sure what's so crazy about those statements. The high concept the whole story is layed out upon is VERY anime-esque. All characters do look like dolls, so not sure what's the confusion here also. And on the technical side, the running animations are quite bad as well as the overall feel of the character movement, you have to admit. Some objects like flowers in the flower store have one wind reaction animation, instead of individual ones, so it looks like a flag reacting to the wind, instead of how it should be, with separate animation cycles. There way more jank that could be found in the prologue alone. And the first level in a game is traditionally the most polished one.

My kid was thinking about starting this on Gamepass. Maybe I'll watch over their shoulder for a bit, still seems to dark for my liking but maybe it'll grow on me.

@NeonTiger This game, unlike other games which got constantly published articles, actually deserves the recognition. Lower price, incredibly well done, makes a bunch of AAAA games pale in comparison.

Just scroll on by if you don’t like seeing the articles.

Also, couldn’t disagree with you more. I’m well into chapter 1 and absolutely loving it. Is there slight jank? Yup. Is it game-breaking? Hell no. And Charlie freaking Cox nails his role.

Comparing this to a shounen anime or a Netflix show is…really, really reaching.

Managed to get a copy, and for £40! Best game so far this year by a long way. Treats you with respect too. There is hope for the industry yet. The gaming community has a responsibility to support games like this if we want to send a message to the grubby publishers ruining everything at the moment.

They've been talking about dlc, but I really hope they don't. They should just focus on a sequel or new game.

@Old-Red I’m reserving my opinion on DLC till I finish the game. But if they can get some quality dlc done and still get a sequel out in a fairly timely manner…I’ll be happy for both.

I can't find the disc version in my country, it's all sold out. I have ps5 digital edition so I can't use the disc even it's available though 😅

Great game, not the pinnacle of turn-based games, but exceptional for the price.

@NeonTiger you played a 60-100hr rpg for 2hrs on gamepass, and expect your opinions to be taken seriously, the story is superb probably one of the best I've experienced for a long long time , full of twists and turns and intrigue , full of nuanced superb character's, the battle system is great and very deep, does take a while to understand, the tutorial isn't very good at explaining everywhere , the side quests naturally occur in the world their not signposted which i love , maybe play it for longer.

@rjejr yeah it can be quite depressing 😂

@NeonTiger "Some objects like flowers in the flower store have one wind reaction animation, instead of individual ones, so it looks like a flag reacting to the wind, instead of how it should be, with separate animation cycles."

This kind of demand for and obsession with very specific and realistic details is why budgets balloon out of control. Sandfall had enough sense and economical restraint to know stuff like this did not matter for the kind of game they were making. How does the game's flow and atmosphere in any way improve if the flowers in one area blow in more than one direction?

@lazarus11 Pretty sure it's only like 25 - 30 hours, maybe you'll hit 60 if you want to do everything possible

@RBMango

> This kind of demand for and obsession with very specific and realistic details is why budgets balloon out of control.

I was commenting more on the glorification of this as a game that is on par with much more expensive projects. I see a lot of that and it's just not true at all. This is a AA game.

> How does the game's flow and atmosphere in any way improve if the flowers in one area blow in more than one direction?

They may improve greatly if your eye is catching things like that. And it was just one example. Little things do add up.

@lazarus11 maybe I will.

@NinjaWaddleDee Yeah there needs to be a difficulty between easy and regular mode. The game is amazing but easy is way too easy and I keep getting my butt handed to me on regular.

@NeonTiger If we're talking atmosphere, framerate performance, shot composition, attention to detail, nuances in facial and character animation, art direction, and even fidelity at times, I think Expedition 33 blows the vast majority of "AAA" games this generation out of the water. A few sequences of very subtle facial and eye movements rival the best I've seen from massively budgeted games from Sony and Rockstar. The comparisons to AAA games are justified when I see the creative prowess on display in Expedition 33. Flowers blowing in the wind realistically and other finer details don't make a game "AAA", personally.

It has reached the popularity level of toxic replies on reddit etc. And calling people bots for praising it. Positive metrics to be sure.

I personally do not want DLC. I want the team to focus on their next game whether that is a sequel or something else.

@MichaelNau Transistor is such a great soundtrack. I’m a metal head, but there’s just something about that lounge jazz style that hits.
There’s so many great tracks on this album!

I hope this goes on to sell 20m!

@Odium
In all those games, I feel like, whatever their genre, music is treated less as a background sound going with the flow and more like a force trying to interact with you, proudly saying "hear me out, there is something you need to feel/understand about this moment/adventure".
It's like a core part and transmission vector of the experience IMHO.

@babybilly I'm on 75hrs and ive just hit act 3 with loads of areas yet to explore

@MichaelNau I completely agree with you. It’s like the music of Hi-Fi Rush without the it ACTUALLY being a part of the gameplay.

I dont have the time to play this right now but hopefully I can start it by late July. I could play on GamePass but I bought the game just to support the developer: While the rest of the Industry is increasing prices everywhere, these guys released a Goty contender for a lower price.

@roe It's certainly not my usual type of game at all, but tried it on GamePass and ended up buying it on Steam to show appreciation for the Devs. An absolute classic, exciting gameplay, gripping story, superb voice casting, mesmerizing visuals and evocative soundtrack. Just top notch. I'm still rubbish at parrying though even with audio and visual cues!

@lazarus11 Oh nice! You're clearly taking your time, I like to play games like that too. But on average most gamers only take 30 hours to beat the entire campaign (if they don't do extras)

The soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission.

Excellent game(wrapped it up the other day) but I do think folks are getting a bit carried away with the praise.

@RBMango
> If we're talking atmosphere, framerate performance, shot composition, attention to detail, nuances in facial and character animation, art direction, and even fidelity at times, I think Expedition 33 blows the vast majority of "AAA" games this generation out of the water.

I mean, some of these things you mention are subjective, like atmosphere. Some are arguable, like attention to detail, which I already established my impression about. The FPS count is good, but that's due to it not being very ambitious with it's content to begin with (again, I concede that i've only played through prologue portion and saw the beginning cutscene of the 1st chapter, may very well be that the game becomes something more impressive systems wise, graphics wise, etc.). But being an avid film junkie I can say that the "shot composition" you refer to (i'm assuming that by that you mean overall direction of cutscenes, since "shot composition" as a term is more suitable when describing a specific moment) is very mediocre and doesn't even begin to approach great games that do offer interesting and inspired visual storytelling (The Last of Us 1-2, Death Stranding, Metal Gear games, Alan Wake 2 etc.) It's boringly shot and overconfident in it's ability to do passive storytelling. The initial action scene where one of the squad loses his head was so prolonged and uninspired, I was really itching for it to finish so i could at least play the game (especially after an exposition dump of a prologue, that lasted 2 whole hours and gave you little else to do proactively). So it was very bland and mostly boring two first hours. And that "intriguing" villain reveal (i assume that was a character played by Andy Serkis) fell flat on it's face because of all the reasons mentioned. I was very far from intrigued by all of this subpar execution. I'm really sceptical about it getting much better further down the line, because, normally, with such narrative focused games (or a film) you can feel straight away if you, as an audience, are in the hands of a good storyteller. This was not it, let me tell ya. Still, I think I'll give it one more 2 hour session to convert me into a believer.

@babybilly I spend a lot of time looking at sky boxes and water 😂😂 i like to experience the details