Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 / Sandfall
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — the debut RPG by the French studio Sandfall — received 91% positive reviews on release. And a few technical problems.
In the game, players take part in an expedition to stop a magical curse. Every year, the mysterious Artist draws a number on a monolith, and exactly that many people die. To break this cycle, the team embarks on a dangerous journey. All of this — against the backdrop of a setting inspired by «the Belle Époque» of France
Despite all the technical problems — users were able to appreciate it for its other advantages. At the time of publication, the game had 91% positive ratings on Steam, which corresponds to high praise from the press. Players praise the visual style, music, voice acting, and combat system. Even those who encounter bugs often leave positive reviews with the hope of a quick fix.
«I have only just finished the prologue and can already tell how special Expedition 33 is going to be. If you’re a fan of games like Final Fantasy, Chrono & Persona or even CRPGs like Baldurs Gate, make sure you add Claire Obscur: Expedition 33 to that list», — write in the reviews.
Some explicitly write that «don’t let people push you away from a game if it’s about [technical] specs». And at the same time, there’s a bit of a joke in the reviews that when 30 French developers ran away from Ubisoft and created their own game — it’s great. Because the real problem with big studios is not a lack of talent or heart, but terrible corporate leadership.
And if we move on to complaints, most of the negative reviews are not about the gameplay, but about the technical state of the game. It is especially problematic to play on ultra-wide monitors — after battles, the camera «breaks» and cuts off the image, leaving only part of the screen. The only way to fix this is to restart the game after each battle.
Users also complain about poor performance even on top-of-the-line builds: RTX 4080, i7-13700KF, Ryzen 7800X3D, 32 GB of RAM, and SSD do not save from FPS drops to 40 frames per second and below. DLSS doesn’t always work correctly, and there is no FSR at all, so you have to resort to TSR and lower the resolution. There are other typical complaints, such as stuttering in cutscenes or unstable work with AMD (even with video cards like 9070XT).
«I have an all around good 4080 super build, crashes every 1 to 2 min. Game looks perfect but so many on PC are having crashes atm», — the player notes.
There have been many cases in game development where a game was released unfinished and then some. Just to mention the long-suffering Cyberpunk 2077 or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. But the technical problems can be solved, so together with the story and the Clair Obscur setting: Expedition 33 turned out to be interesting. Or as they say: «Good, but with glitches».
In the meantime, it is on sale with a small discount in Steam (and it was put up even before the release) — until May 1, the game will cost ₴1,349, and the Deluxe Edition — ₴1,619. The game was released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series. From the first day, the game has been available on Game Pass.