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Digital Trends
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Can we all just be normal about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for a second?
Whether or not it actually wins the award come December, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the Game of the Year. No 2025 release has sparked so many long-lasting conversations usually reserved for tentpole releases like Grand Theft Auto or Zelda. It has been gaming's main character for months, standing in as a shining example of what a modern video game should rise to. Yet for all the mainstream conversations that it has generated, so few of them actually seem interested in Clair Obscur. Instead, Sandfall Interactive's critically acclaimed RPG has been submitted as evidence in on-going litigations against what gamers paint as a stale industry in need of new blood. While there are meaningful conversations to have about what game studios can learn from Clair Obscur's success, the way that it has been weaponized and reduced to a piece of confirmation bias in any landscape-shaping argument it fits into leaves me hungry for more substantial dissections of the games we love. Recommended Videos It was clear that Clair Obscur was going to be a big talking point when it launched in April to a wave of glowing reviews. Critics and fans hailed it as a generational RPG that revitalized turn-based combat, delivered an emotional story, and crafted an astonishing original world. 'Game of the Year' talk came fast, which is par for the course when a new game breaks the 90 mark on Metacritic. But the watercooler chats didn't stop there. Soon, mainstream conversations yearned to place it in a broader gaming landscape. Its originality was painted as a shining light in a sea of perceived 'AAA slop.' It wasn't just a good game, but a blueprint for how a boring industry could be saved. Even this very site opined about that immediately following its release. That over-the-top idea only ballooned as the months went on. Sandfall Interactive's slim team size became a talking point. Articles popped up that praised the studio for creating such an accomplishment with only 30 people — a figure that was quickly debunked once critics started adding up all the external developers involved. That didn't stop the disingenuous factoid from setting the stage at Summer Game Fest, where host Geoff Keighly used the number to sell the idea that he was presenting viewers the future of video games. Tons of trailers for smaller games followed, with Keighly often pointing out how many people made them as an indication of quality. My growing frustration with that trend reached a boil this week thanks to a different debate that Clair Obscur has been unwittingly roped into. For years now, some RPG enthusiasts have lamented the death of turn-based games. That anxiety seemed to come most from franchises like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest experimenting with real-time action. Clair Obscur is a loud and proud turn-based game, which made it the perfect spoiler candidate for an industry abandoning a classic way of play. Never mind the fact that turn-based gaming hasn't gone away. Octopath Traveller 2, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and Metaphor: ReFantazio (a game that released just last year to similar praise) have all proved that major studios are still very much invested in the subgenre. And yet, the narrative persisted. It all came to a head during a Square Enix investors call, in which the company reaffirmed its commitment to turn-based games and acknowledged Clair Obscur's existence in the process. According to Automaton, those typical business responses were mistranslated and blown out into a larger story: Clair Obscur's success had convinced Square Enix to start making more turn-based games. Finally, the video game industry was saved. Mission accomplished! Every conversation like this is so riddled with holes that you couldn't get them across a puddle, yet they are inescapable. Fans want it to prove their long-standing theories about the video game industry right and treat its success like an irrefutable data point in every argument. It's not a new phenomenon either; this cycle tends to happen with lots of both successes and failures. Baldur's Gate 3 inspired a wave of talking points about what players actually wanted from games. That line of thinking was met with backlash from developers who cautioned against using a very specific win as a crusade. Black Myth: Wukong became a rejection of Western ideology. Concord was viewed as proof that live service games are dead. I both understand where this comes from, because I'm as guilty of it as anyone. It's fun to search for meta-narratives in the things we care about. I'm a football fan (go Pats) and I love nothing more than creating a story out of a Super Bowl matchup. This year's clash between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles became more exciting to me when I viewed it as the Chiefs needing the win to finally prove they were every bit as good as the Tom Brady era Patriots, but they'd have to beat the giant killers who previously thwarted Bill Belichick at the big game. That added stakes to a matchup I wasn't invested in, even if it was imaginary. This sort of meta-breakdown of video games follows a similar line of thinking. Sandfall Interactive becomes the Eagles circa 2018 in this story. As harmless as that can be in small quantities, its forced nature has become unbearable when trying to navigate conversations around Clair Obscur. It's not enough for it to be a great game. It has to be a masterpiece. It has to be a counterpoint to everything we don't like. It has to be the savior of the RPG genre. What's ironic is that none of those hollow platitudes actually tell us anything about the game itself. Engagement with what Clair Obscur actually has to tell us has taken a backseat to imperfect armchair analysis. That's a shame, because there's meat on that bone. Clair Obscur asks us to think about how we, as a species, push on in the face of mass grief. It's a story of sacrifice, where expedition after expedition fights in the face of extinction. Many die for that cause, but their sacrifices aren't in vain. Each one helps the next party get a little closer, asking us to rethink success and failure in the context of long-term collective action. It's a thematic cousin to Death Stranding and its sequel, games that stress the importance of human connection as a means of making the world easier to navigate in times of crisis. Perhaps that's just as much a reason why Clair Obscur is resonating with players as the fact that it's turn-based or made by an indie studio. There's a familiar trauma in it, as the fictional Gommage and its impact on the world can be connected to the Covid-19 pandemic. We just went through – and are still going through – a period of mass suffering. Those wounds are fresh. I still remember seeing the pop-up morgues on the streets of Brooklyn. I remember watching the infection rates fall and then spike again, ripping any hope I had for an ending from me. I remember how hopeless it all felt. But I also remember how many people put in hard work to stop it together. Even if some people refused to do their part, many masked, stayed home, kept six feet apart, and anything else they could to stop the spread. It was a collective effort built on selfless sacrifice. I feel all that fueling Clair Obscur's emotional resonance. It begs to be discussed, because what is the point of something being a generational classic if we take nothing else from it? One of the only meaningful conversations I've had about Clair Obscur came before it was out. I had been playing it alongside our reviewer, Tomas Franzese, at the time and we dissected its themes together in isolation. We both cooled on it significantly in Act 3, taking issue with its sudden pivot into a meta-reflection on the nature of art and its role as an escape from grief. It felt like a betrayal on its more human focus earlier on; a needless swerve into a piece of art evaluating its own importance. It was a memorable discussion that helped crystallize where I felt Clair Obscur worked best and where it ultimately fell apart. I hope that discussions like that become more common as the hype settles down. Just as I felt turned off by the 'art about art' pivot in Act 3, I am similarly bored by the tedious talk about how Clair Obscur is changing the industry. None of it does anything to honor Sandfall Interactive's vision, even if it is designed to gas the studio up. Real engagement comes from critics like Ian Walker and Kenneth Shepard, who respect the game enough to interpret what it has to say. It comes like podcasts like Girl Mode that aren't afraid to criticize where the story is ineffective. If you love Clair Obscur, really talk about it. Not what it represents, but the actual game in front of you. If you find that you don't have nearly as much to say about it as you do its influence, maybe it's worth questioning whether you love the game or just the idea of it.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Outer Worlds 2, the most expensive Xbox game yet
The Outer Worlds 2, from RPG makers Obsidian, will be the first first-party Xbox game to cost $80 (£70). Given that Nintendo Switch 2 games are already priced at least that high, and Sony's own PlayStation 5 games have been pushing towards it for a while, you might not expect this development to ignite a pricing debate among gamers – but it did. The increased cost of video games is a hotly contested topic, given the unsustainably ballooning budgets that most blockbuster games are working with these days. But I can say that The Outer Worlds 2 is a much larger, more in-depth game than the 2019 comedy sci-fi original. If we're going to talk about value, it can certainly be argued that its higher price point is justified. I loved The Outer Worlds, which was jam-packed with the kind of wry, sardonic humour you'd expect from an Obsidian RPG (this is the studio behind Fallout: New Vegas, after all). Its super-saturated space world, populated by colourful flora, bumbling corporations and strange zealots, was a joy to live in for 20 or so hours, though its combat left much to be desired. According to game director Brandon Adler, Obsidian knew The Outer Worlds' gunplay needed improvement even before the game launched, and especially if they developed a sequel. 'We did a full breakdown on Destiny, because we love how that felt,' he says during an interview held after an Outer Worlds 2 demo in Los Angeles. 'We also talked to the Halo folks … They gave us a huge list of stuff and said, 'You guys should target this … you should add that to your weapon configurations.'' Obsidian's research has paid off: not only are there more weapons to play with in The Outer Worlds 2, but they all feel good to fire, and offer a variety of combat options depending upon the encounter (and that's if you want to fight, as a solid stealth approach will let you creep through rooms of foes without a trace). In the original game, I'd simply avoid large-scale combat, or preemptively sigh before getting into a firefight because the gunplay just wasn't enjoyable. That has changed in the sequel – I relished each encounter, giggling manically as I hucked grenades and dropped down from above to take out a target. 'We didn't want small changes. Every weapon feels very different; every weapon has a cool, unique purpose,' Adler says. 'You can even take those weapons and add mods on to them to do all kinds of crazy things.' Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion And with an updated game engine (Unreal Engine 5) and the capabilities of current-gen hardware (The Outer Worlds released on the Xbox One), expect The Outer Worlds 2 to feel bigger than before. Entering buildings no longer requires a loading screen that can take players out of the fantasy, for instance. 'Little things like that give a big, immense feel,' Adler says. 'Exploration is probably the thing that's most important to me. I want the players as they're going through this big world to feel like they should go to every nook and cranny and open every door and go behind every little thing, because it's always gonna be a cool, fun thing for them to find.' The Outer Worlds 2 offers a larger world, improved combat and even more customisation options that deepen its role-playing features (such as more perks and flaws for your character, which can drastically change how you play). Though Adler declines to comment on the $80 price tag, it's clear that this sequel justifies itself. The Outer Worlds 2 is released on 29 October for Xbox, PlayStation 5 and PC.
Jordan News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Jordan News
Israeli Army Admits to Death of Officer and Six Soldiers, 17 Injured in Khan Younis Ambush - Jordan News
Israeli Army Admits to Death of Officer and Six Soldiers, 17 Injured in Khan Younis Ambush The Israeli occupation army has acknowledged the death of an officer and six soldiers during battles in southern Gaza, following earlier reports by Israeli media that four soldiers were killed and 17 injured in a complex ambush in Khan Younis. اضافة اعلان The army also confirmed that 16 other soldiers from the Combat Engineering Battalion 605 were wounded in the ambush. According to the army, the seven soldiers were completely burned after an explosive device detonated under an armored Puma engineering vehicle in Khan Younis, and evacuating them was extremely difficult. Israeli media described the incident in Khan Younis as one of the most severe the army has faced in recent months. Yedioth Ahronoth reported that a preliminary investigation revealed the armored carrier caught fire with the soldiers inside, and it took the army many hours to identify the bodies. The evacuation helicopters returned empty to their bases after the army was forced to transport the burnt carrier and remains back into Israel. The paper also reported that the perpetrators who planted the explosive device have not yet been located, and intense battles broke out in the area. Palestinian fighters reportedly targeted Israeli rescue forces. Israeli media said on Tuesday that some soldiers were missing at the ambush site, prompting increased aerial surveillance to evacuate the wounded and search for the missing. The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, claimed responsibility for the ambush, stating via Telegram that their fighters targeted an Israeli force inside a house in southern Khan Younis using a 'Yassin 105' rocket and an RPG, resulting in Israeli casualties. These developments come amid continuous Palestinian resistance attacks on Israeli forces in both the southern and northern Gaza Strip. Al-Qassam Brigades also announced that they targeted a Merkava tank in southern Khan Younis with a Shawaz explosive device and a 'Yassin 105' round in the Old Licensing area. Meanwhile, Saraya al-Quds (the military wing of Islamic Jihad) said it shelled Israeli troop gatherings in the 'Western Satar' area north of Khan Younis with mortar rounds, reporting direct hits and subsequent military vehicle movements and helicopter evacuations. They also confirmed that their fighters destroyed an Israeli military vehicle using a high-powered explosive device in central Khan Younis. Earlier today, the al-Qassam Brigades said they killed three Israeli soldiers in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip. (Source: Al Jazeera)
National Post
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- National Post
Wemade Max's 'Lost Sword' Sets Global Launch with Over 500,000 Pre-registrants
Article content 'Lost Sword,' Korea's Hit Subculture RPG, Coming to Global Players More Than 500,000 Pre-registrations in Just One Month, Fueled by Strong Interest from North America and Europe All Pre-Registration Players to Receive Diamonds, Gold, and the 5-Star Character 'Guinevere' Article content SEONGNAM, South Korea — Wemade Max (KRX: 101730, Independent Representative Directors Sohn Myun-seok and Lee Gil-hyung) has officially announced the global launch of its subculture mobile RPG ' Lost Sword ', scheduled for July 10. The game is developed by Codecat (CEO Kim Je-hun) and published by Wemade Max's subsidiary, Wemade Connect (CEO Lee Ho-dae). 'Lost Sword's unique RPG elements are resonating with a broad global audience across diverse regions. We will remain committed to delivering engaging content and customized promotions that meet the needs of players.' Originally released in the Korean market in January, the subculture RPG Lost Sword received strong acclaim for its dynamic presentation, distinctive character designs, and advanced optimization. Building on this domestic success, the game is now gearing up for a global launch across North America, Europe, and other key markets. Article content Following the announcement of the global launch, the pre-registration promotion has drawn widespread international attention. Since its opening on May 20, it has seen remarkable momentum with over 200,000 users registering within the first week alone. The total number of pre-registrations surpassed 500,000 last week. The greatest participation was observed in North America and Europe, where interest in the subculture RPG genre continues to grow steadily. Article content To commemorate the milestone of 500,000 pre-registrations, all participants will receive special in-game rewards at launch–including diamonds, gold, and the 5-star healer character Guinevere. Those who complete their pre-registration by the event's end on July 9 will also be eligible to receive the same rewards. Article content Song Moon-ha, Business Director at Wemade Connect, said, 'Lost Sword's unique RPG elements are resonating with a broad global audience across diverse regions.' He added, 'We will remain committed to delivering engaging content and customized promotions that meet the needs of players following the official global launch.' Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts
Geek Culture
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
Daredevil's Charlie Cox Responds To 'Clair Obscur
Amid the hype for triple-A titles, it's always nice to have the underdog fight against the odds and find their place among the big boys. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a dark-horse favourite that has outshone some of the competition, selling two million copies in 12 days, and then, coincidentally, 3.3 million copies in 33 days. Suffice it to say, the RPG is in the running for Game of the Year, led by a strong ensemble cast that includes Charlie Cox, best known for his portrayal of Marvel superhero Daredevil. In light of the overwhelming praise, the Daredevil: Born Again star admits to feeling 'like a total fraud', which, well, isn't quite the expected response, but there's a reason for that: he hasn't clocked in a single minute of gameplay, as shared in a clip circulating social media. 'And people keep saying how amazing it is and congratulations and I feel like a total fraud' CHARLIE 😂 #Expedition33 #ClairObscurExpedition33 — Ann 👻 (@bursinxmurdock) June 22, 2025 'Apparently, the game is awesome — I'm not a gamer, I have no idea. I haven't played it,' said the actor during a panel at Washington State Summer Con, adding that he recorded most of his lines in about four hours as part of a voiceover gig set up by his agent. 'People keep saying how amazing it is and congratulations, and I feel like a total fraud,' Cox continued. 'But I'm so thrilled for the company, I'm so thrilled it did really well.' Talk about maximum aura points — four hours is lightning fast! Cox voices Gustave in Sandfall Interactive's debut entry, joined by Jennifer English ( Baldur's Gate 3 ), Andy Serkis ( The Lord of the Rings ), Ben Starr ( Final Fantasy XVI ), Kirsty Rider ( The Sandman ), Shala Nyx ( The Old Guard ), and more. The story follows a group of Expeditioners who have set out to destroy an entity called the Paintress, who paints a number on a monolith every year that dooms everyone of that age to death. Moving forward, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is set to explore new content, accessibility features, and 'all sorts of bits and bobs', alongside expanded localisation options. 'While we don't have specific timelines or confirmed languages to share just yet, we wanted to let you know that it's very much on our radar,' said the team then. Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth's theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia's greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
