Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was originally set in a steampunk England with aliens and zombies
France is definitely a more ambitious England
All creative work goes through several iterations before arriving in its final form. This very post, for example, began as a little notice of the release of The Midnight Walk, before I realised Edwin had already done that. Now it's instead about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, an RPG which Nic definitely described in his review as "operatically, hauntingly, and slightly unhingedly French".
Turns out it wasn't always so, as early in development Clair Obscur was set in "a steampunk Victorian England", and there's some early footage of it in action.
Five years ago, Sandfall Interactive CEO Guillaume Broche posted on Reddit in search of voice actors for the project, described at the time as "a 3d modern take on the JRPG genra with western style characters". The project was called "We Lost" and Broche shared early video footage of the game, the original links to which no longer work, though it's available via reuploads.
Early draft trailer for the game
byu/Palmoleum inexpedition33
"Steampunk" equals "I dunno, put big cogs on the buildings 'n' that."
One of the people who applied to be a voice actor on the game, Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, went on to instead be its lead writer. In a recent interview, she told The Gamer about how the project changed. "The gameplay would have been similar, but the story was completely different. It was set in a steampunk Victorian England with zombies, aliens, and various things."
Apparently it was a call with investors that caused the project the change course.
"Guillaume called me, and he's just like, ‘Alright, reboot. We're starting from scratch,’” she said, following a call in which potential investors told them, "You know, you can think bigger, don't hold yourself back just because you're worried about funding. If you could do what you wanted to do, what would you write?"
There are some memorable games set in London already - a city which Nate memorably referred to as "hard mode Paris" - so I'm glad Clair Obscur reached for a more distinct flavour, one that Nic named in his review as "French French FRENCH IT'S FRENCH FRANCE French French French French!". Love that guy's writing.