Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a miracle in many ways. The composer was found on Soundcloud, and the writer was on Reddit. The team comprises about thirty juniors; the game’s scale is beyond anything gaming has seen. It even has the gaming industry hooked on turn-based combat, a form thought of as out of date in today’s modern age, yet with a few tweaks, an intensity is added to turn-based combat that makes it exciting again. Clair Obscur is a work of art, a game beyond most AAA developers, made by an indie-sized studio.

Sandfall Interactive has proven that what many thought impossible is possible with enough passion and a great idea, which is refreshing in an industry filled with lazy sequels and ‘good enough’ AAA games that don’t elicit anywhere near the emotions of Expedition 33. Still, indie projects have remained a stalwart alternative to the AAA scene for a long time, and one studio has a strangely similar story to Sandfall Interactive with a game that also tried to innovate with turn-based combat. The studio is the indie darling Supergiant Games, known most for Hades, and the game is the gem Transistor.

Transistor Is The Perfect Indie Game For Fans Of Expedition 33

A Heart-Achingly Beautiful Story Told In A Broken World

Although isometric and on a different scale, Transistor shares much of what makes Expedition 33. As seen in Transistor‘s trailer on YouTube, there’s passion behind the project, an achingly beautiful yet broken world, with a story that made me contemplate my life for days on end, all tied together by a mesmerizing soundtrack by the incredible Darren Korb. The voice acting is amazing, just like Expedition 33‘s, and while Transistor isn’t as cinematic, the artwork is breathtaking, taking inspiration from The Kiss, a famed Austrian painting, giving the game a European charm despite coming from an American studio.

Transistor takes place in Cloudbank, a retro-futuristic city where the people have such control over the city that they can vote for what weather they want or the color of the sky. The Camerata, a group of four influential individuals in Cloudbank, oppose this, hoping to artificially stabilize the city with the Process, a legion of semi-automated robots performing many of Cloudbank’s functions. With the Transistor, a USB-like sword, the Camerata sought to use the Process and steal the voices of influential people to change Cloudbank, but failed when attacking Red, Cloudbank’s famed singer.

The game follows Red after losing her voice, guided by the voice of her late bodyguard within the Transistor as she attempts to right the wrongs of the Camerata. In many ways, the game is a cautionary tale about the dangers of stagnation, the importance of moving on, accepting things as they are, and not trying to force everything to remain the same. Although Expedition 33‘s main theme is a little different, with its story largely revolving around grief, there is a theme of moving forward and fighting for tomorrow, hoping to change things. In many ways, the themes are comparable.

Transistor’s Turn-Based Combat Innovated Before Expedition 33

Both Helped To Take The Genre Forward

Expedition 33 has made turn-based JRPG party combat exciting with its QTE inputs, dodging, and parrying systems, keeping players on their toes throughout an encounter. Players are forced to learn attack patterns like it’s a Soulsborne game, and this added excitement has injected turn-based RPGs with new life. Transistor tried something a little different back in 2014, using a time-stop mechanic that needed to recharge with time as a player’s turn. While recharging, Red would have to dodge attacks, but while using her time-stop, players could plan her next move with the power of the Transistor.

Although no one knows Red’s bodyguard’s name, many have taken to calling him Blue (opposite to Red in reference to their possible romance), Boxer, or Auden, given his designation in the game files.

During the time stop, players can only use a finite number of actions, whether moving or attacking. Red’s more powerful attacks can be used less per time stop, mechanically somewhat similar to how Larian does CRPG combat with Divinity and Baldur’s Gate 3, except players have to dodge projectiles and Process trying to crush them while their ‘turn’ recharges. It makes positioning after a turn important and adds a new layer of intensity and strategy to combat that is otherwise absent in other turn-based games by blending the genre with action-style isometric games.

There is a chance that Expedition 33 might cause a turn-based revolution in the gaming industry, similar to what the Soulsborne series has done for Soulslike games, especially after BG3 pitched in with its turn-based combat. The problem is that many might lack the imagination of Sandfall and Supergiant, with Transistor being a great game, mechanically, to visit for those looking for innovation in the genre. Thanks to being an indie gem, no one else has done what Supergiant did with Transistor‘s turn-based combat, and it gets addicting fast.

Sandfall And Supergiant’s Stories Mirror Each Other

Both Left Massive Companies To Make Passion Projects

Custom image by Katarina Cimbaljevic

It is well-known now that Guillaume Broche, CEO of Sandfall and mastermind behind Clair Obscur, was a former Ubisoft employee who got bored and left to create a passion project. Supergiant’s founding is similar, and although it doesn’t involve as many miracles (getting a composer as talented as Lorien Testard of Soundcloud is ludicrous), team members left EA, specifically the Command and Conquer series. This led to the indie darling, Bastion, Supergiant’s debut title, and later Transistor, Pyre, Hades, and the soon-to-be-released Hades 2.

Having left big companies to pursue dream projects, the passion is evident in Clair Obscur and Transistor. Both tell wonderfully haunting stories in intriguing, dying worlds that are mesmerizing and heartbreaking in equal amounts, and are both beautiful in different ways. Transistor is less approachable by nature, with an isometric angle that is distinctly indie, but its art style still shines, being what makes Clair Obscur‘s continent such a sight to behold. With Transistor being on almost all platforms and often going on sale on its Steam page, it’s worth checking out, especially given its price.

Many studios might want to cash in on the turn-based trend that Sandfall may have started with Expedition 33, and there will probably be an equal number of good and bad titles. Before this starts, looking back at titles like Transistor, which innovated turn-based combat but couldn’t achieve Clair Obscur‘s impact before, is well worth the time. Fans of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are clearly fans of heartbreak too, which Transistor has in boatloads. While its isometric angle and indie aesthetic might not be for everyone, there’s enough there for Clair Obscur fans to sink their teeth into.