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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 already had stunning good looks on its side - now it also had a star-studded cast and a loose release window.
You might recognize Expedition 33 as the gorgeous fantasy game that wowed at this summer's Xbox Games Showcase by aping the spectacle (or budget) of 'cinematic' action games, but this time with the combat of classic turn-based JRPGs like Persona and Final Fantasy, both of which actually inspired the French developers at Sandfall Interactive.
Sandfall Interactive has today zeroed in on a spring 2025 release window for the game in a new trailer that doesn't reveal much outside of, again, how damn pretty the whole thing is. Oh, and it has one hell of a cast, including Charlie Cox (Daredevil himself), Jennifer English (Baldur's Gate 3's Shadowheart and the internet's champion), Ben Starr (Clive from Final Fantasy 16), and motion capture legend Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings' Gollum, Planet of the Apes' Caesar, countless more.)
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Andy Serkis has long pioneered mocap acting on the big screen, but he also has an interestingly deep history within video games, at first in Ninja Theory's overlooked action game Heavenly Sword and then in its follow-up Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, where he provided mocap for the main monkey man. That means Clair Obscur marks his 15-year-long return to motion capture performance in games.
"Renoir (voiced by Andy Serkis) is a man driven by ruthless determination," the trailer's description reads. "His sole focus is saving his family, but beneath that fierce exterior lies deep, agonizing loss." Meanwhile, Jennifer English plays "shy loner" Maelle who's eager to escape the city of Lumiere, and Ben Starr's Verso is a "mysterious, dangerous stranger" who tracks our party's every move and will probably join it at some point if genre tropes are anything to go by.
