If you turn 33 in the next few months, sorry, you’re dead. I don’t make rules, which is how Clair Obsurbur: Expedition 33 explains the lack of elders in its French but very JRPG World. The fantasy game will see you traveling through a risky landscape to stop the insane “asp” that magically averts humanity at a younger age every year. We have a tired, middle-aged eye, and it had a release date yesterday. For most of us, it is already too slow in the RPS cottage. But watch the trailer for yourself, maybe you will.
It appears on April 24. Did anyone squeak in time? Good. You’ll be able to enjoy staff-based combat, and you’ll likely have enough reflexes to hit the QuickTime prompts at various points midway through the ticket (although the QTEs are “not forced on you”, we’ve been told – so maybe you can turn them off). This latest trailer, released during the last Xbox Direct developer night, also shows some of the ways you can traverse the world, at one point using a gigantic beetle-like friend to swim and fly long distances. We’ve seen the fight before Previous trailer.
Clair Obsurpur definitely has an engaging hook. The idea is that every year the great death countdown becomes shorter, and a group of people of a certain age instantly dissolve into gaunt air. Human life is mystically shrunken, the various stages of life compressed into an increasingly smaller box, while the remnants of humanity struggle in the ruins of slow 19th century France. All the while, the world seems full of strange creatures painted by a distant madhouse. Previously, developers Sandfall Interactive revealed Andy Serkis of Gollum Fame Among the English voice cast. Although I bet there’s a compact part of him.
As for the title. Clair Obstur: Expedition 33 is definitely a bunch of words in a certain order with a number attached to them. Eyes pass over him like a faded road sign. It can say something significant beneath all the dirt and vowels. But it could also be a Windsock photo. Let’s be generous and say that the baroque title is just another example of a game following in the footsteps of JRPGs, right down to its often impenetrable naming conventions. LAXADOLIA: ZAGNANIE SHARDS X. SEPHICAL Lights: Code Wonder. QSY XIV: Last Awakenons. Yes sir, these are Google’s unique terms.
Edwin glanced at the game’s preview demo with an engaging raised eyebrow, drawing Parallels not only to Persona games, but ancient mid-2000s Xbox 360 games like Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, not to mention the similarly alt-history JRPG Valkyria Chronicles. However, Edwin is dead, having lost several expeditions ago. I too am lost in Expedition 36, leaving my thumbs too dusty and unable to salvage this particular fantasy world. But maybe, April, some of you will make it through.
