The following contains major spoilers forClair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Judging by its success alone, there is little doubt thatClair Obscur: Expedition 33is only the start of something big for Sandfall Interactive. It may only be the studio’s debut game, butClair Obscur: Expedition 33has already proven that its world and ideas are too large to keep confined to one game. As such, it’s likely the new IP’s legacy has only just begun, and there is plenty more whereClair Obscur: Expedition 33came from.
While it’s still too soon to know where thehugely successfulClair Obscurmight go from here, there is at least one confirmed element thatExpedition 33’s story left players with for the path forward. By introducing another faction in the real world apart from the Painters, as well as what is implied byClair Obscur: Expedition 33’s subtitle, there seems to be more than one route Sanfall’s new IP could go.
Clair Obscur’s Future Is Wide Open
Clair Obscur Could Feature the Writers in Future Games
One of thebiggest revelations inClair Obscur: Expedition 33is that the entire world is actually a world that has been painted onto a magical canvas by the late Verso, and the Paintress, his mother, later entered his canvas and reshaped it to preserve his memory. In the real world, Verso and the Paintress actually come from a group of talented individuals known as “Painters” who have the ability to bring whole worlds to life by painting them onto a canvas. It turns out they aren’t the only ones with any talent either, as another group called the “Writers” seemingly oppose the Painters for some reason not yet fully disclosed.
Nevertheless, as a new IP,Clair Obscurcould take its future in the direction of featuring the Writers infuture gamesrather than the Painters alone. In the same way that Painters can bring worlds to life on a canvas, it would presumably work the same way with the Writers, only they would create these worlds by writing them into a book rather than painting them onto a canvas. A future game in theClair Obscurseries could see a brand-new world brought to life by the Writers, and potentially even show the ongoing conflict between the Painters and Writers taking place in the real world as well.
Clair Obscur Could Explore the Stories of Other Expeditions
Another directionClair Obscurcould go in as a series is in featuring the stories of other Expeditions. It’s possible to acquire audio logs of previous Expeditions whileexploring the world ofClair Obscur: Expedition 33, but getting a firsthand look at their experiences would be an even greater way to tell their stories. After all, the fact thatClair Obscur: Expedition 33already uses the number of an Expedition in its subtitle suggests that it could easily be replaced by another Expedition in a future game.
The only problem with this direction is what is revealed inClair Obscur: Expedition 33’s story. There are really not a lot of questions left without answers onceClair Obscur: Expedition 33’s credits roll, and its conclusion is very finite. As such, if the series were to tell the story of another Expedition at some point, it might find some difficulty making it worth the investment with the way the current game ends. Instead, it might be more likely that the subtitle would simply be replaced altogether with a different concept that is more relevant to whatever original story it wants to tell.
In the same way that Painters can bring worlds to life on a canvas, it would presumably work the same way with the Writers, only they would create these worlds by writing them into a book rather than painting them onto a canvas.
In any case, the world thatClair Obscur: Expedition 33has started is massive enough that this series could really go places. This is, of course, not to mention how unbelievably successfulClair Obscur: Expedition 33has been, which means it has undoubtedly kickstarted something for Sandfall Interactive that is surely going to continue for the foreseeable future.Clair Obscurmay go the direction ofFinal Fantasyand feature entirely different worlds and stories in every entry, but it seems likely that the Writers will be involved at some point, sinceExpedition 33introduced them but never really explored them, nor their conflict with the Painters.
