Expedition 33 is VideoGamer’s Game of the Year because it’s actually two stories

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 distinguishes itself not only through conventional avenues of video game excellence and meaningful political relevance but also through unerring commitment to its central theme. Expedition 33 is a game about knowledge and ignorance, where story moments and character development beats are granted wildly different contexts depending on what you know of the true nature of the game world. 

This quality allows what is already one of the best RPGs of recent years to distinguish itself, offering not just a profound meditation on innocence and experience but also a deep sense of replayability. Expedition 33 possesses a profound psychological staying power that you won’t find from any other Game Awards 2025 nominee, making it VideoGamer’s Game of the Year. 

This article contains significant spoilers for Clair Obscur Expedition 33.

✓ VideoGamer Summary

• Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is VideoGamer’s Game of the Year.
• The title is more than just a phenomenal RPG; it’s a profound meditation on what it means to be burdened by knowledge.
• This isn’t just thematically brilliant; it also makes Expedition 33 highly replayable. 
• Thanks to this flourish, Expedition 33 will stand the test of time.
• Stop reading this and go play it. I’ll wait.

Le jeu obscur 

High-minded artistic considerations aside, Expedition 33 offers a highly impressive experience even at face value. The premise is both refreshingly novel and grounded in universal human experiences.

Every year, the people of the pseudo-Parisian city of Lumière suffer a tragedy known as the Gommage, where every member of their society above a certain age is spontaneously killed by a mysterious woman known as the Paintress. Every year, this age decreases, creating a prevailing sense of doom. It’s high-concept, sure, but the premise speaks to a powerful feeling of crisis and desperation. 

Statistically, your average Expedition 33 player is economically worse off than their parents, and staring down the barrel of a global geopolitics where the forces of fascism and violence are prevalent to an unprecedented extent. In a way, the Gommage is about us.

Against such sweeping, structural forces, the individual feels small and powerless. This is what gives the Gommage its emotional resonance and why the people of Lumière venture out to stop the Paintress in the form of the eponymous Expedition 33. 

Add to this a slick, robust turn-based combat system with zesty combat mechanics, a relatable cast of characters, and a transcendent soundtrack, and you have the makings of a sure-fire Game of the Year nominee. However, once you reach Act 2 of the story, Expedition 33 turns its premise on its head, reinventing itself in a flourish worthy of the all-time greats. 

Le jeu clair 

At the finale of Act 2, we learn that the world of Expedition 33 is a fabrication, succinctly described as a pocket reality created by a man named Verso Dessendre, the now-dead son of two paint-wizards.

What’s more, we learn that Verso’s mother, Aline, entered the canvas and painted a simulacrum of her family in an effort to live out a fantasy life where her son was still alive. Keen to rescue Aline, her husband Renoir ventured into the canvas with the goal of forcing her out. 

Alicia, their daughter, followed suit, in part to assist her father, in part to escape her wounds at the hand of the fire that killed Verso by ‘painting over them’ in the canvas. However, Aline’s powers overwhelmed her on entering the painted world, transforming her into protagonist Maelle. 

With this knowledge, it becomes clear that almost every person you meet in Expedition 33 is a painted human, someone created by a member of the Dessendre family. In this light, every word of dialogue between our protagonists is reinvented. The extent of their powerlessness and victimhood is laid bare on a second playthrough in a cruel twist of the emotional knife. 

Contrary to the majority of other RPGs on the market, knowing Expedition 33’s great twist doesn’t detract from subsequent playthroughs; rather, it augments them. In the light of truth, every line of dialogue takes on a new dimension. 

Our drafts collide 

For instance, the painted version of Renoir, played masterfully by Andy Serkis, delivers a series of cryptic threats in Act 1. On the surface, these are ominous, mysterious, and intriguing moments that take on the tone of a melodramatic villain monologue from a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest.    

However, knowing that Maelle is the daughter of the real Renoir and not simply another painted human, these threats take on a far more tragic tone. “You should never have come,” says Renoir, “you’re only going to make things worse, for everybody.”

Before knowledge of the twist, this comes off as a patronizing threat against the Expedition’s arrival on the mainland. Afterwards, it is reframed as a sad acknowledgement from the painted Renoir that Maelle’s presence in the pocket dimension itself is a complicating and heartbreaking factor for the family. 

The following line, “take your friends and go home,” takes on another layer of meaning, too. Pre-twist, it simply suggests that Maelle should go back to Lumière; post-twist, it comes off as an entreaty for Maelle to leave the canvas entirely. 

This dual meaning is writ across almost every line of dialogue, creating an ‘obscur’ (dark) and a ‘clair’ (light) way of viewing Expedition 33’s tightly constructed cutscenes. Completing Act 2 and learning the truth of the canvas lifts the dark from your eyes, making the world ‘clair’, and all the more emotionally resonant as a result.

Aux lendemains non écrits

While you will never be able to recreate your first, ‘obscur’ playthrough of Expedition 33, the stellar performances of the central cast ensure that you remain invested in their struggles on subsequent playthroughs despite your awareness of their profoundly limited worldviews. In fact, this often raises the emotional stakes.

For instance, stoic spellcaster Lune’s quest for knowledge becomes all the more poignant in the knowledge that the answers to her questions are harrowing, tragic, and cast doubt as to the very nature of her personhood.  

In the same way, Maelle’s efforts to emancipate herself and forge her own destiny become more powerful in the context of the wounds she sustained outside the canvas as Alicia.

What initially comes off in the first playthrough as an idealistic, if naive, expression of adolescent rebellion becomes a tragic and moving attempt at self-actualisation in the face of debilitating wounds and significant physical and psychological trauma. 

These layers of meaning are the gift that Expedition 33 gives us. By being more than its face value and using the power of perspective to endow its narrative with rich, variable meaning, Expedition 33 invites audiences to engage in dialogue. 

It asks us to decide if it is better to take the ‘clair’ or ‘obscur’ perspective. Does knowledge set us free or curse us? Can the world of the canvas be considered real in any concrete sense? Are painted lives less valuable than those outside the canvas? 

By asking us to wrestle with these questions, Expedition 33 not only makes itself replayable, but positions itself to stand the test of time. It invites us to explore its canvas and wrestle with these ideas again and again. 

It is this rare, distinctive, and powerful quality that makes Clair Obscur Expedition 33 VideoGamer’s Game of the Year. 

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