"As a huge fan of RPGs, a person who was raised on these things – what an amazing thing to have a game that is so widely loved, and celebrated, and represents so much of the reason why I continue to play games," Starr continues. "It's the reason I'm in games. And I think it's a timely story." With characters hopeful for salvation as often as they are forced to despair, Expedition 33 is a storm "in a very specific way that asks incredibly hard questions, and it doesn't give you an answer, and it doesn't resolve," Starr says. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Verso actor thanks fan fic writers for "taking very specific license with this classic masterpiece" – "We see you, we hear you, we appreciate how detailed you can truly get" "After Baldur's Gate 3, I didn't think we'd be in this position": The team behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 can't quite believe they've matched Larian's award wins Despite the JRPG love letter dominating award shows, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creative lead insists the game really was "not supposed to be big" "It basically says, 'Here is existential pain, live with it. Ask yourself questions, go out in the world and see how you feel about it,'" he continues. The JRPG's angst is familiar to its most dedicated players, who perform the ultimate act of devotion: wearing a beret. "If you go to a convention you'll see thousands of people – I mean, literally, hundreds of people – in berets," says Starr. "Every time any person who says, 'OK, this game affected me, I'm going to spend hundreds of hours making something, and allowing this to empower me as a person, and I'm going to walk up to the convention dressed like this because Maelle empowers me, or Sciel gives me strength, or Lune's loss is my loss,'" Starr says, addressing director Guillaume Broche and writer Jen Svedberg-Yen, "that's the power of what you guys have created." Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Jennifer English says it was "hard" playing two characters in the RPG: "I had to find the subtlety of it being the same but different."