More than a million sales in three days and rave criticism: the world success of French video game “Clear obscure: Expedition 33”, the first production of a small team from Montpellier (South), took its creators by surprise and upsets certainties in the sector.
“The game exploded far beyond our forecasts,” says Guillaume Broche, creative director and co-founder of the Sandfall Interactive studio, to AFP on Tuesday.
This turn-based role-playing game, in a post-apocalyptic universe mixed with a very French “beautiful time” spirit, has aroused rare unanimity since its release on Thursday.
With a score of 92 out of 100 according to the Metacritic Aggregator, “Clear obscure: Expedition 33” is the best rated game of the year by critics, welcoming in particular its history and its graphics.
On this same site, he also offered the record note of 9.7 out of 10 on Tuesday according to the players. And benefits from a very positive word of mouth on social networks, where references and photos of disguises (cosplay) of the characters multiply.
“It is a masterpiece,” writes a user of the Steam online game platform, while another says he is “totally breathtaking” by the game, of which an adaptation to the cinema is planned.
“We are a little outdated but it is really fabulous,” blows Guillaume Broche, while the game, edited by the Londonian Kepler Interactive, is out of stock in several major French brands.
“Radical choice”
For the specialist Benoit Reinier, known by the pseudonym ex serving on the internet and who worked as a consultant for the game, this success is explained by the “radical choices” taken by the studio, as a very marked artistic direction and a noted difficulty.
His original proposal allowed him to quickly noticed in the middle of a “blocked” market by many outings, says Reinier, faced with industry giants regularly criticized for their tendency to chain the consequences and remakes.
Rare thing, several competing studios like the American Bethesda (“Elder Scrolls”, “Fallout”) or the Japanese Square Enix (“Final Fantasy”) also praised the launch of the title.
“It’s an incredible success” on which “all investors will look”, predicts Marc Richter, video game analyst at the British firm of Ipsos.
Faced with the Triple-A model, these blockbusters with development costs that amount to hundreds of millions of euros, the thirty developers of Sandfall has proven, according to Mr. Richter, that “small passionate teams, with advanced technology, can achieve incredible things”.
“They managed to change the change”
Using the capabilities of the Unreal Engine 5, a very efficient graphics engine to create video games, and by limiting the size and duration of their creation, “they managed to change and come to compete with big games,” says Benoit Reinier.
For Marc Richter, “Clair Obscur” also benefited from its attractive price, around fifty euros while the mastodons in the sector are sold on average 20 to 30 euros more, and its availability as soon as it is released on the Game Pass subscription service of Microsoft.
The return of the “French Touch”
Above all, the developers played the card of the “French Touch”, wearing their heroes of berets and baguettes and swearing in French casting which brings together British actors and Charlie Cox in French.
According to Mr. Richter, some publishers will undoubtedly be tempted to “reply” the success of “Clair Obscur”, by carrying smaller and more original projects.
“We must hope that this new start, this new direction, gives a boost” to an industry in difficulty for two years, marked by waves of layoffs and studio closings, he added.
For his part, Guillaume Broche wants the recent successes “in somewhat niche genres”, to which is added “Clear obscure”, will contribute to “a change of mentality” of part of the industry.
“If it happens and it traces the way for those who will come after, it’s wonderful,” he concludes, making his own motto of his game.
