“It’s okay to create a small game,” said Astro Bot Director Nicolas Doucet at this year's GDC. For many, Astro Bot was 2024's Game of the Year, a game that may have been made by a PlayStation-owned studio but was, according to Doucet, based on sensible AA ambitions.
“A lot of the choices we made with Astro Bot could be considered AA… like team size, game size, no voice, it's not open world, but it doesn't really matter,” he said. “We can still do something that makes people truly happy.”
In a sense, it could well describe Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33. A year later, Sandfall Interactive has once again proven that small games can be critically successful and find an audience.
Of course, “small” is a relative term, and it refers to both the size of the team and the game itself. There's been a lot of discussion this year about the number of developers working on Expedition 33 (a core team of 30, but with outside help) and whether it should even be called an indie game from an indie studio, given the support from publisher Kepler and investment from Microsoft.
When I spoke with the game's director, Guillaume Broche.he described the studio to me as “a small art house where we make games that we love and want to play.” The game was initially based on Brosh's unique vision, which was maintained throughout the development process. Moreover, the JRPG style of play allowed for acceptable scale; said Brosh: “I really like games that have a lot of labels – like JRPGs – and so the overall gameplay also fits the team size very well. Of course, we would have to struggle a lot more if we made a big open world with thousands of quests.”
In terms of size, Expedition 33 pales in comparison to its peers – Final Fantasy 7: Rebirthas one example – but that was intentional. It may not include a ton of puzzles, dungeons or mini-games, but when the team tried it, it “broke the rhythm we wanted for the game and made it less stressful,” Brosh said. “I think it would be great if the game was that long because people would be stuck for hours. But overall we wanted something shorter than traditional RPGs and more intense in terms of pacing, cutscenes, story and combat.”
I think this focus is the strength of the game. There's a lot to like about Expedition 33, from its surreal painterly aesthetic to its already award-winning performances and score, which combines classical styles with powerful synths and French flair. But at the heart of the game is a combat system – part turn-based, part rhythmic – and by reducing the overall size of the game, it allowed Sandfall to focus on its strengths.
The result is genre-best combat with enormous depth, not only in party composition and the varied playstyles of its members, but also in the wealth of customization options for abilities and power-ups using the Pictos system. At its core, Expedition 33 is a game for RPG enthusiasts who love to spend hours tinkering with builds and then parrying blows with extravagant abilities. Combat is your primary way of interacting with the game world, but it's strong enough to carry the entire experience.
Overall, Expedition 33 is an impressive game in its own right, worthy of the praise it's received all year. But it also represents a hopeful future for the industry. While AAA studios chase trends with big teams and big budgets, inevitably tripping over platitudes in an attempt to appease the masses, resulting in layoffs and disruptions to live services, Expedition 33, by contrast, has a clear sense of direction, a bold, clear vision and a whole lot of passion.
Indeed, it's clear that Brosh and the development team are as passionate about the broader genre as they are about their own game. He described Xbox 360 exclusive: Lost Odyssey as “the last game that made me cry”while Expedition 33 fans will have already noticed plenty of references to JRPGs past and present in both the base game and its new expansion. And while there are certainly many passionate developers out there, Brosh's openness in his love for the genre absolutely resonated with audiences.
It reminded me of Larian CEO Sven Vincke at The Game Awards 2024 before presenting Astro Bot with the top prize. “The studio created their game because they wanted to create a game that they wanted to play themselves,” Vincke said in his speech, describing the magic formula for a winning game. It will not treat its developers or players as numbers to be exploited, nor will it be aimed at increasing market share. Essentially, it will be a game created by passionate creativity. “The first thing they cared about was their game,” Vincke said, “because they love games. It's really that simple.”
His prediction turned out to be absolutely correct when Expedition 33 received the award this year. A small team, a focused vision and a passion for the craft of video game development. The game's success has proven that this is what players respond to. Let's hope this is a positive indicator of the direction the industry is heading.
This article is part of our final series, Games of 2025, where we highlight great moments, great games, and our personal favorites of the year. You can read more in our Hub “Games 2025”. Thanks for reading and happy holidays!
