Throughout several last years, we all have seen how bloated the gaming industry has become, and how it gets rid of that bloat now: AAA publishers are making round after round of layoffs, closing entire studios, and place unrealistic expectations upon whoever remained, all while blaming piracy and investing into invasive, prohibitive DRM systems like Denuvo; indie games one after another keep blasting TikTok, switch places in Steam top charts, leaving little for AAA; and AA space often gives us the best of both worlds - AAA-level graphics, music, and production quality with rich stories, experimentation, and much more affordable price indie is so known and loved for.
Today, I'd like to focus on one particular game that became the third, and final, apogee in my picture.
Act I: It's Personal
Let's begin with what made the game click with me personally.
The first trailer I saw was the gameplay reveal trailer. I didn't like it in overall, mostly because the combat in Clair Obscur is turn-based, and oftentimes, the systems in such games are either too obscure, like in Persona series and countless Final Fantasies, or too simplistic to my taste. Worldless is, although outstanding in soundscape and art, a good example of "simplistic" turn-based combat.
Graphics of Clair Obscur, though, were spectacular. No, I'm not talking about details, every strand of hair being rendered so well, yada-yada, it's about art direction. This game feels like a realist painting brought alive. Last game that evoked similar feeling was DEATHLOOP (2021), though it was more llke futuristic fantasies of sixties brought alive. This was enough to forgive turn-based combat, just like with Worldless.
Then, a week later, the first wave of Expedition 33 OST dropped. I fell in love with it so hard that I set Lumière as alarm soundtrack and began learning French by trying to sing along what was eventually called Une vie à peindre. I can't get enough of that sweet, sweet contrast between raspy male and soft female vocals even though this is the whole theme of the game - the contrast.
At a time, I left a comment under launch trailer - "holy hell, OSTs ALONE are so good that I would pay full game price just for these tracks!" I still stand by my words. The combination of soundtrack and graphics was enough to persuade me to try the game. Gladly, it released without Denuvo, so, let's say, I owe Sandfall a copy. I'm glad I do - they deserved it, it's the first game I seriously plan to buy. Clair Obscur conquered my heart, ears, and eyes. I deeply loved the story, especially tie-in and rugpulls in Acts I and III. It's cohesive and movie-worthy, unlike Halo that got a whole freaking TV show. The music sounds even brighter when put in context, and the world looks much better without notorious YouTube compression. Personally, I can say that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 deserved the top spot in my heart, just like Dishonored and DEATHLOOP. I thought no one will ever come close to Arkane Studios' best titles!
Act II: It's Global
Okay, enough about me, how about the rest of the world? In pure numbers, Clair Obscur sold 1 million copies in three days, 2 million copies in 12 days, and 3.3 million copies on 33-rd day after launch, excluding Game Pass, including retail copies sold on disks. For comparison, Mortal Kombat 1 got its third million of players 11 days post-launch. The marketing team of Warner Bros. has done awesome job. How about those who actually worked on the game?
It was doing... modestly worse than good on its first launch week according to Metacritic with numbers sligtly improving as of now - the user score of 5.6 on the first week after launch and 6.5 at the time of writing, with some spikes here and there on new DLC launches. Coming back to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Compared to [insert AAA game name], it received zero love from the marketing team. It literally consists of one person - Benjamin Dimanche. I hope Uber offers interdimensional travels. You'll need it; I'mma kick your jaw into another dimension: 9.7 both at the time of writing and week after release. For those uninitiated, you can get 10 points of user score rating at max.
Don't believe me? Open Bluesky or Twitter and search for "expedition 33". All you see will highly likely be praise, streamers announcing their, well, streams of that game, and Sandfall Interactive warning you to not buy "official" Esquie plushies. (Please, DM me at @bpavuk.neocities.org on Bluesky if you see them actually selling these.)
This was an eye opener for a lot of people. Many began talking about how it "shattered the narrative", proven that "the industry wisdom was wrong", and likely contributed to nightmares of middle managers alongside R.E.P.O and Balatro. (Ahem, "deprofessionalisation")
Act III: It's a Piece of The Puzzle
Expedition 33 was the final, third piece of the puzzle representing current state of gaming as I view it. It shows that, with right people, coherent vision, and right amount of resources, you can impress the world with the game indistinguishable from AAA titles in production quality. Seriously, I'd think that Clair Obscur development costs almost as much as DOOM Eternal or Halo Infinite. But with other two pieces, even without Clair Obscur, this is still obvious: fat middle management layer, combined with lack of experimentation, suffocates those with ideas through bureaucracy. A lot.
For the apogee of AAA gaming, I'd choose these games: Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Gears of War series, and Horizon: Forbidden West Remastered.
Concerning Valhalla, graphics are good, sure. Idea is awesome. Creative people? Heck, Ubisoft was built on creativity and experimentation! Yet, the execution is bland. It triggers the same taste buds as any other Assassin's Creed. Same with Gears, by the way, beginning with Gears of War 3 - last good Gears game. Oh, and, let's sprinkle some launcher/console lock-in - Gears of War 2 and 3 are still tied to Xbox 360, the PC version of Gears of War 4 is only available on Xbox app, and Ubisoft began locking up their games behind unbearable Ubisoft Connect/Uplay long time ago.
As for Horizon... Dear Sony, please, stop remastering games that don't need it. Stop forcing your unstable PSN on PC. Unlike you, Xbox resolves its Live issues within hours. Thank you.
Now, to indie games. It is incredibly hard to choose two, three, or even just five games that would show the state of indie games. I bet you can compile your own list of indie games you loved much more than any Call of Duty, any Halo, you have ever played.
There is one particular game, though, that can sum it up and represent the narrative fairly accurately: Balatro. It was almost Game of The Year 2024, is indie by all means and measures, and has a spot among top 100 Steam Deck games. Ah, the cream of indie!
Yes, I totally accept that this is an idealistic example of indie development realitites, yet too many dollars of gamers belong to indie, too many hours are spent in Hollow Knight worldwide to not accept that indie saves the gaming.
No wonders that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, if viewed as a cataclysm for AAA, happened. People were ripe for it. People are tired of DRM, launchers, poor quality, inability to play the game offline. Imagine Denuvo servers going down. How about Xbox Live? Or PSN going down again? If that happened to Steam, you would at least be able to play your games in offline mode while other DRMs are alive. Nintendo allows you to play Switch games completely offline. Heck, GOG allows you to download the installer without any DRM in place!
But what if there is just nothing to play? Gladly, indie and AA cover our backs hand-to-hand. Let's celebrate this by sharing your favorite AA/indie game you think no one else knows about.
