GOTY? Paint it French - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will have you happily lost in translation

After almost a month of online voting for our favorite games of 2025, the Game Awards ceremony is just around the corner, going live on December 11th. The nominees were announced on November 17th and created a lot of debate as usual, especially for the biggest award of the night - Game of the Year. While the snubbing of Split Fiction as GOTY contender caused a bit of a stir online, the nomination of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 did not come as a surprise.

Created by Sandfall Interactive, Expedition 33 took the gaming community by a storm upon its release on April 25th, 2025, selling 3.3 million copies in 33 days. Those numbers feel even more impressive considering that the title was created by a core team of circa 30 people between Montpellier and Paris. Expedition 33 deserves and received praise for many reasons: from its unique story and design, to its turn base combat system, flawless acting and heart wrenching soundtrack.

In addition to all of the above, the game’s linguistic and cultural identity caught a lot of attention - including Wordfoxes’!

Here are some linguistic fun facts you might have missed.

SPOILER WARNING: Read with caution if you have not completed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

You do not have to be an expert Francophile to notice the game is culturally French. What you might not know is that the team at Sandall actually started with English drafts, but eventually switched to French for the final rewriting and version of the game. As creative Director Guillaume Broche explained, the final version was then translated to English and the lip-syncing capture for VOs was done using French actors speaking in English.

Talking of VOs: while the game is localized in 12 languages, the voice over is available in English and French only.

French speaking gamers probably had a few laughs upon encountering some of the enemies of the Clair Obscur universe. The team at Sandfall created a series of funny names that span from a mix of French words to cultural references. Those names were kept in the English version of the game, but their roots and meaning likely went unnoticed by anglophone users. Below our nominees for best enemy names - are they also yours?

PÉTANK

This spherical enemy is named after pétanque, a sport played with metal balls. The sport consists of throwing your ball as close as possible to a smaller target. As a nod to the French sport, a Pétank will roll around without attacking and players will need to chase it for a chance to defeat it and win its loot.

SAKAPATATE

Literally "Potato sack", Sakapate will be encountered in different shapes and difficulty levels. Created by Gestrals, they owe their name to their appearance, which resembles a bunch of potato sacks sewn together. In French, defining someone as a "sac à patates" implies they are badly dressed, unstylish and possibly clumsy... rather fitting for this enemy category!

SERPENPHARE

An optional boss enemy, Serpenphare can be found east of the forgotten battlefield, lingering in the sky above the sea. This pink serpent will not bother you, unless you run into it by flying. If you do, you are in for a big fight: Serpenphare is as visually impressive as hard to beat. It is almost comical that such a challenging enemy has a rather mundane name, inspired by its appearance. Take its serpent-like figure, combine it with its head shaped as a lighthouse... and there you have it: serpen(t) + phare (lighthouse in French).

The prologue sets place during the heartbreaking Gommage ceremony. All citizens of Lumière over the age of 33 will cease to exist by physically disintegrating.

The term “gommage” is rooted in the verb ‘‘gommer’’, which means ‘‘to erase”. For French speakers, this is the first clue regarding the nature of the Clair Obscur universe: its characters are literally drawings being erased from a painting. ‘‘Gommage’’ remains untranslated in most of the supported languages (at Wordfoxes we checked English, Italian, Portuguese, German and Spanish).

Deciding whether to translate a key element of the game such as this one is not an easy choice. The challenge of finding an appropriate translation can be rewarded with the satisfaction of giving international players the same linguistic cues as in the source.

For Expedition 33 however, keeping ‘‘gommage’’ seems to make more sense within the other linguistic choices made in the game. The whole localized gaming experience is characterized by references to French language and culture. This is true for any supported language, and especially for English: even the English VOs have lines containing expressions or entire sentences in French. 

Whether Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will win the title of GOTY or not, it remains one of 2025 most successful games. Its success at the Golden Joystick awards is a testimony of the community's appreciation for this original, well rounded and beautifully crafted game. Its French roots, along with consistent (and fun) linguistic choices made it Wordfoxes’ preferred game among the nominees for GOTY.