Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's art director jokes how he wanted to make a 'realistic version of SpongeBob'

Nicholas Maxson-Francombe previously did concept art for stage shows – “like a Cirque du Soleil kind of vibe”, he says – and his role as art director on Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 marks his first job in the games industry.

Working on his first video game has been a learning curve, as he admits. “I’d never really, you know, placed elements, or made a set dressing for a level, or actually placed assets in a game, so that was definitely a bit of a chaotic moment.” But he really appreciates the huge amount of creative freedom he’s allowed on games, and on this project in particular, which has already garnered plenty of attention for its intriguing design.

I recently discovered how the team made use of Unreal Engine 5 in developing Clair Obscur, but here Nicholas reveals more of the artistic choices behind the game's world design. One aspect he has worked on tirelessly is attempting to make each level of Clair Obscur feel utterly unique. “I try to look at landscapes that haven't really been explored before,” he says. “Like if you had an underwater level that’s not underwater.”

The watery design of Clair Obscur

He’s talking about Flying Waters, an almost dream-like level in Clair Obscur that looks like it’s under the sea - complete with rippling light, swimming fish and rising bubbles - but it’s actually out in the fresh air.

“That was an idea I’d had for quite a while,” Nicholas says, adding that he kept pushing it further and further. “After finding the landscapes, I managed to find the creature designs, and it all came pretty much naturally.”

Tom Guillermin – CTO and co-founder of Sandfall, and lead programmer on Clair Obscur – adds that “there was no way” the team was going to do an actual water-based level due to the complications of adding underwater gameplay. Instead, they just used the aesthetic. “SpongeBob has the same kind of idea where they’re just walking normally underwater,” laughs Nicholas. “So I was like, why not try to make a realistic version of that?”

Each zone of Clair Obscur is assigned a specific set of colours, shapes and textures, so the player knows exactly the kind of environment they’re entering, says Nicholas. There are main colours that are used throughout the game, he adds, but he also wanted to make each environment feel refreshingly different with bespoke shades and plays on those colours.

“So you're not in the green forest all the time, basically,” Nicholas explains, sharing how the final game features some wildly different biomes. “It will go from some crazy-shaped levels, to more floating, or more on the ground, and certainly some secretive ones – but I'm not going to tell you everything!”

Nicholas says that Arkane Studios’ Dishonored partly inspired some of the designs in Clair Obscur. “That was a big game that really influenced me artistically to come up with some of the outfits, the more asymmetrical motifs,” he says. “There's a bit of Bioshock in it as well.”

More generally, Nicholas says that steampunk and the Victorian era were big touchstones at the start of development. But partway through, creative director Guillaume Broche advised him the style had been overused in other games. “I needed to try to find a mix between something like that, and something a bit more modern,” Nicholas says. “So I think we got more of a fantastical approach: the outfits are more Final Fantasy-ish.”

The final costume designs for the five main characters evolved from “scavenger type” outfits to more of a standard uniform, although each character’s uniform has distinctive flourishes that reflect their personal traits. There are plenty of other outfits to discover, too, like the recently revealed ‘baguette’ costumes. “We definitely have quite a few surprises,” says Nicholas.

Making the move to Unreal Engine 5

The transition to Unreal Engine 5 during development helped enormously in terms of providing the characters with realistic faces, says Nicholas, thanks to the power of Metahuman. But is there a worry, perhaps, that with studios converging on the same powerful tools and engines, all pursuing ever higher fidelity, we will end up with games that all look, well, kind of the same?

“Maybe more games are going to be realistic, because it's kind of became easier to do,” thinks Tom. He adds that crafting a unique look for your game will probably end up taking more development time than creating something photoreal, which is rapidly becoming the standard.

But creating a unique look is exactly what Nicholas and the team have aimed for with Clair Obscur: he wants it to stand out in a sea of similar-looking titles. “I've been literally playing the same types of games over and over, where it would be just in space, or would be just zombies. The same kind of creatures: if it's fantasy, it's always dragons. The characters all seem the same, always the same attributes. And it was getting incredibly stale for me, personally, when I was playing those games. So I certainly wanted to get out of that loop and really think out of the box for all the designs.”

From the positive reception to Clair Obscur so far, it feels like it’s something the team has achieved. Although it never felt like a certainty. “The big fear that I've had for a while is, ‘Are people going to like it?’” says Nicholas. “After working for about five years on it, you're releasing it to the wild, so that was a big step for us. And I was pretty overwhelmed with the positivity that it got. I was pretty happy about that.”

What do you think of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's unusual art direction? Let us know in the comments below.