Among the immense praise that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has received so far, there's been particular love for its story and characters. But the game's lead writer had an unusual path to penning the plot, as she originally joined the game as a seemingly inexperienced voice actor.
"I saw a post on Reddit by [director] Guillaume [Broche] asking for voice actors to record something for free for a demo," eventual lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen tells the BBC. "I was like: 'I've never done that, it sounds kinda cool,' so I sent him an audition."
At the time of that call for auditions, Svedberg-Yen was under lockdown in Australia, and she did get the part of a "major" character, according to the BBC. Who that character is – or if they made it past the early versions of the game – isn't clear, but as it stands Expedition 33's main cast is performed by a cavalcade of Hollywood talent and veteran voice actors.
While Svedberg-Yen's path is unusual in the wider industry, it's not that odd for Expedition 33 – after all, composer Lorien Testard was also discovered through Soundcloud. "I call this the Guillaume effect. He's very good at finding really cool people," Svedberg-Yen adds.
For his part, Broche says he often made "a list of 15 people to contact" to add new developers to the studio, expecting that ultimately none of them would be interested. "Every time the first one is like: 'Yeah, let's do it,'" he says.
Clearly, that process has resulted in a special team, given the critical and commercial success Expedition 33 has already seen. Maybe there really is something to this whole turn-based RPG thing after all, right?
Expedition 33 takes inspiration from many of the best JRPGs ever made.
