There are only so many ways a game can begin, or so I thought. I’ve seen so many beginnings they’ve all begun to merge into one, and because of it, they’ve begun to collectively fade from view. A game will begin and a loved one will be taken, and then I’ll probably utter a vow of revenge and set about trying to realise it. Something like that. Honestly, I’ve stopped paying much attention. I don’t know who the characters are at the beginning, or the places we’re in, so I let myself be swept along until things start to make sense, to sink in, and sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
But with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 it’s been different. For the first time in a long time, I’ve paid attention from the start, and this strong hook, I think, is one of the secrets of its success.
A lot comes from the set-up’s originality. In Clair Obscur, the story goes that every year, an entire age-range of people are wiped out by an entity known as the Paintress, for no apparent, discernible reason. The age-range in question is defined by the number on a giant tower out at sea. Every year, at exactly the same time, the colossal, long-haired Paintress unfolds from a seated position to magically reduce the number by one. And this is the crucial bit: when the Paintress does so, everyone of that age or older will disappear – die, in other words. Turn into flower petals and float away.
Clair Obscur begins with you in the middle of this. You, as Gustave – a character who bears an uncanny resemblance to the perfect-faced actor Robert Pattinson – make your way to the docks of Lumiére for the festival of flowers there. You don’t know what the festival is about at this point, but you can tell by Gustave’s sombre mood that something is amiss. Sure enough, the more of the city you see, and the more people you meet there, the more certain you become that something bad is about to occur.
I should say that the framing of all of this helps enormously. Clair Obscur is, as I’m sure you’ve seen in screenshots or many praise-laden social posts, a gorgeous game. It’s painterly in the sense that no frame is left undressed or undecorated. Lumiére, the city, bathes in a kind of golden grey, overcast light as you run through it, and the rich, luxurious colours of flowers – deep reds and blushing pinks – carpet the streets all around. The architecture is ornate and grand, and in the background, heavy, emotional piano music plays. Nothing is left to chance here: the sequence screams “feelings!”.
Then, those feelings manifest. You and everyone else on the docks of Lumiére look out to sea as the Paintress emerges to change the number 34 to 33, and in doing so, makes anyone above the age of 33 disappear in an eruption of petals and colour. (The number has been steadily decreasing year by year so the older people have already gone.) And there are many people who do disappear; it makes sense now why so many people are at the festival, because there are not only the people destined to disappear but the loved ones here seeing them off. Their lovers, siblings, children. People who held hands and now hold nothing. It’s a tremendously moving moment.
Then comes the clincher: Gustave is 32 years old so he only has a year left to live, and so, in a now time-worn tradition, he joins an Expedition of fellow 32-year-olds to sail to the Paintress’s isle and try and snuff this devastating cycle of events out. Expedition 33 – the game’s subtitle. But no Expedition has ever been successful, clearly. Will yours? The game begins in earnest as you sail away to find out.
I get everything I need from that as a player. Personal motivation: check. Intrigue and mystery: check. A desire to find out more: check. Stakes: check. I get a sense of the game’s world and the tone of it, and all without the game sitting me down to lecture me about it. Nowhere am I barraged by exposition or expected to care about names, places, faces or a political landscape or war I’ve never heard of before. Instead, I’m given a relatable and understandable – on a human level – hook. Find a solution or die: I can hardly argue with that.
I wish more games did this – did less in their opening moments and kept it tight, kept it brief. Too often I feel as though games overexplain out of a fear we’ll miss something otherwise, as though there’s a need to make sure we’re impressed by the breadth and depth and the trouble a development team has gone to. Look how detailed our world is! But the effect it has on me is contrary: my eyes glaze over. I can’t take it all in.
Case in point: Avowed. I grew to love it, but early on it was so thick with information about the political make-up of the Living Lands that it repelled me. Who? What? Where? None of it meant anything – and I say this as someone who’d already bought into the Pillars of Eternity fiction and world. Eventually, it did make sense, but not until I was a dozen hours in. I’d much rather the game had eased off and let me play, and care about things in my own time – let me come to it. All I really needed was a compelling reason to go on. Clair Obscur gets that.
I realise it’s hard to gauge what’s ‘too much’ when you’ve been working on a game for so long that you do care about the things you’re imparting. All I’m asking, I suppose, is that developers take a step back and consider where we’re coming from, the players – the other worlds our minds are clogged up with, the other places we’ve probably just been. Give us a chance to acclimatise. We’re not yet all-in, we’ll get there. Trust us. Entice but don’t overwhelm us. A strong hook goes a long way, as Clair Obscur shows.
