Sandfall Interactive Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Art Blast
Writing about our journey to make Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 feels like an impossible task. It’s beyond words!
From the very start of the project, I was given complete creative freedom over what we were crafting. A lot of ideas felt “done” and a little oversaturated in the market, and we set out to create something bold and new, searching for things that had not yet been implemented in games.
With the script, the idea of Lumière (our version of Paris) came to us early on, with a mix of Belle Epoque and Art Deco Architecture as visual influences. From there, the process snowballed.
The environments were such a joy to create, as my ideas were inspired from surreal artists as well as my own background in theatre artwork (think similar stuff to Cirque du Soleil). Our level and environment designers were pivotal in laying the foundations for me to essentially set dress the environments, and add that final layer of ultimate polish for me. For some small levels, I also had some freedom to make a few of those from complete scratch, and I had some incredible fun creating abstract objects that leave players guessing a little.
For character design, landing on the aesthetics of the Expeditioner outfits was quite difficult, and end-to-end our character exploration took around four years, which is pretty long. The result is something we are all incredibly proud of, and seeing artist’s interpretations of these character designs has been an honour.
The final UI was made by myself and our UI programmer, who laid the groundwork for where every widget should go, and I designed it in a way that felt native to our world. From our Pictos designs, to our damage counters and Expedition Journal entries, we wanted it all to feel quite natural, which can be a challenge when there is so much information to present. I particularly loved designing our Character Overviews, because that aforementioned challenge of making a large amount of information aesthetically pleasing was super satisfying and exciting to me.
You’ll discover works from our art team below, and I am so incredibly blessed to have worked with these wonderful human beings, the amount of passion they all brought to the game is reflected so clearly in the final product.
I’m still kind of stunned about all of this, and certainly always will be…
Thank you,
Nicholas Maxson-Francombe.
Nicholas MAXSON-FRANCOMBE – Art Director
Alan REYNAUD – Lead Character Artist
Amandine MAREST – Hair & Technical Character Artist
Armande LECOINTRE – Technical Character Artist
Ophélie GOMES – Character Artist
Carla DEVEZE – Lead Environment Artist
Mathieu COSTAT – Environment & Props Artist
Alexandre BRETON – Technical Artist
William TOMASI – Cinematic Artist
Lucile FOURNIÉ – 3D Generalist & Cinematic Lighting
Tristan FLEURY – Lead Cinematic Animator
Lucie HENNET – Cinematic Animator
Julien DE VALERIOLA – Cinematic Animator
