French indie title “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” dominated the annual Game Awards in Los Angeles, winning a record of nine categories including best video game of the year. “What a weird timeline for us,” Guillaume Broche of video game studio Sandfall Interactive quipped, thanking his team as he accepted the top award. “And also I want to extend thanks to the unsung heroes of this industry — the people who make tutorials on YouTube on how to make a game — because we had no idea how to make a game before.” “Clair Obscur,” the first game from Sandfall Interactive, tells the story of a group of characters battling seemingly impossible odds in a post-apocalyptic universe with a distinctively French visual style.
It was nominated in a record number of categories, winning many despite squaring up against heavyweights like “Death Stranding 2” from industry legend Hideo Kojima of “Metal Gear Solid” fame, or Nintendo’s “Donkey Kong Bananza” starring the eponymous gorilla. “Clair Obscur” began in 2020 as a project of Broche, a developer at French games giant Ubisoft. He brought ex-colleague Tom Guillermin on board to create the small studio that same year in the French city of Montpellier.
They struck a publishing deal in 2022 with UK-based Kepler, which provided funding for the project. Some 5 million copies of “Clair Obscur” have been snapped up since its realease in April of this year. “This was supposed to be a joke; I have no idea what’s happening,” Broche joked.
Read Full Article on The Witness
