Intermission Lounge - Clair Obscur Expedition 33 [Audio]
Added 2025-07-11 19:19:46 +0000 UTCWe couldn't hold off on it any longer. In this month's visit to the lounge, we talk about the generational new RPG, Clair Obscur Expedition 33.
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Comments
I'm super late, but I chose Verso's ending too. For me, it was not about the painting as much as it was about the painter family. I lost my brother a couple of years ago and grief is just something you have to endure with grace and patience. Denying it and running from it is unhealthy. One of the painters can just make another world and it'll be fine. Keeping this sick and tortured consequence of your inability to accept reality will keep them from creating a new, healthier masterpiece
Rus Gabriel
2025-12-09 22:13:09 +0000 UTCJohn made the right choice for the wrong reasons, Woolie made the wrong choice for the right reasons.
Lemon
2025-11-25 23:56:13 +0000 UTCi just finished the game after hearing about you guys disagreeing for weeks. Woolie is right.
QueenElixa
2025-11-09 11:44:18 +0000 UTCHaha same here, just beat it last night
Lukeshef
2025-10-28 08:55:08 +0000 UTCHere I am, less than 48 hours after finishing the game. First place I wanna hear a conversation about E33
Guilherme Alves
2025-10-15 23:12:56 +0000 UTC"I think we're on the same page"
Nico PuzzleRat
2025-09-08 04:02:00 +0000 UTCThe argument here is mainly centered around whether or not the painted people are real people or not, but honestly, I think that even with acknowledging the fact that they are just as real and human as the Dessendres, I still think the Verso ending is the correct choice. I fully believe that the colorful cheerful Lumiere where everyone is happy and together again isn't an honest depiction of what's happening, and is instead a delusion that only Maelle can see. In the last 30 seconds, once everything is in black and white, Sciel and Lune both look different, and the expressions on their faces are awful. It feels like they're suffering just as much as Verso is, while Maelle looks so distant and deluded that it reminds me of someone dissociating or experiencing hallucinations of some sort. Everyone there in Lumiere is probably in the same position that Painted Verso was while in the canvas, being tortured by a life that he doesn't truly want to live. The happy future where everyone in Lumiere is reunited and Everything is Fine is a lie, and everything about Maelle's ending feels like it's trying to convey that to you. Expedition 33 is a story about grief, and the Maelle and Verso endings are representations of how you respond to grief in your life. You can deny it, try and comfort yourself with the things that remind you of what you lost, even try and recreate it if possible, but ultimately what this is is trying to delude yourself into thinking that the bad thing didn't actually happen, and therefore you don't have a reason to be sad. The example John uses of AI is an especially notable version of this: if you miss someone or don't want to accept who or what they are, you can just create a version of them that's just how you remember them. It doesn't matter that it's hollow and fake, or that it's directly interfering with the process of healing and moving on, it's something that in some way soothes the giant gaping wound that is the hole where that person used to be in your life. The Verso ending is painful, but it represents the reality of moving on. You have to say goodbye to not only who you lost, but also to the person that you were before that loss. The saying that "time heals all wounds" is ultimately true, but indirectly: the thing that actually heals all wounds is changing and growing as a person, something that is ultimately unavoidable as we move forward through time. You will change, meet new people, move to new places, experience new art, and also experience new loss in turn. You are not the same person at 10 as you are at 20, 30, 40, etc. The core element of grief is wanting to hold on to something forever, instead of swallowing the pain and accepting that everything comes and goes, even the most important and wonderful parts of our lives. You can't go back to who you were before, and trying to will only ever hurt you and leave you to stagnate and die.
John doe
2025-09-01 19:33:29 +0000 UTCWhat John fails to realize is that it’s a videogame so none of it is real
Jeffrey Moore
2025-08-27 07:40:11 +0000 UTCReferencing Fear and Hunger to be clear!
Bradley S Grosser
2025-08-17 18:48:16 +0000 UTCJohn killed the dog AGAIN
Bradley S Grosser
2025-08-17 18:47:46 +0000 UTCMaelle's ending starts with telling Verso she'll allow him to die (Presumably including his soul, which will end the canvas), we know staying in the canvas is going to kill her, and we know Renoir is going to destroy the canvas as soon as she's gone. I don't think the choice is the Dessendres vs Lumiere, it's the Dessendres vs another ~30 years for Lumiere. The third act also goes out of its way to frame the ending choice as beautiful escapism vs painful reality, with Lumiere and its people being kind of secondary to that choice. Act 3 Maelle doesn't care about Lumiere as a real place with real people, or about Verso as a human being - She cares about them as the only pieces she has left of the brother she lost. If Lumiere could be truly given a future I think Maelle's ending could be compelling, but the city's continued existence would be a few more years under the thumb of a petulant goddess and then total erasure once she finally dies. At best they suffer another cycle of apocalypse if Aline comes back to grieve Maelle's death and starts another battle with Renoir.
Kyle Williams
2025-08-02 01:55:39 +0000 UTCI fell for the same trap as John. I thought Verso was right. If there is a "right" it is that I completely forgot the themes of the title Clair Obscur as Woolie so kindly points out. The title is filled with contrast, of light and of dark. The "wrong" should in turn be taking only the parts you like, only the parts that feel justified or convenient in your single personal perspective. The game began with Gustave and ended with Verso. The light shifting from one perspective to the other. Gustave's death and last stand had a purpose other than just shock. It was a forceful turn to open your mind once more to the very concept of "Verso", the left hand page, the other side, the reverse. John and Woolie, the confidence that Maelle's or Verso's choice is "right", that confidence is what is "wrong". As a player we were given a choice, and that choice in a cruel way was forced upon us by the very story we spent hours following. There are 3 groups of people in this story. The Painted, the "Real", and the players. Of these groups of "people", the game makes a point that outside of their group, the others might as well not be alive, or allowed to live. Why "Writers" are the villains of this story. I hope you can see why we see the word bigotry as something that is wrong.
Bradwin Legaspi
2025-07-27 08:02:30 +0000 UTC
