The game has undergone tremendous changes over the years, and this resurfaced video highlights how dedicated Guillaume Broche was to building his team online from day one.

Broche, the game’s director, openly admits to recruiting collaborators via SoundCloud and Reddit, and the result turned out to be a superb title. The resurfaced video also preserves the origin of the game’s development. Five years ago, when the idea was still in its infancy, Broche posted on the RecordThisForFree subreddit, trying to put together a rough concept demo and a teaser trailer. He wrote at the time: *“If this project takes off, we’d likely want to continue working with you as part of the team.”*

That trailer has since been made private, but a user named Palmoleum managed to get a saved copy through a friend. The footage is charmingly clunky and primitive. While a few familiar names pop up, the differences are so stark it feels like a product from another dimension. There’s the generic writing: *“Did you kill everything?”* asks a robotic TTS voice, to which the answer is: *“I don’t have an answer to that question.”* And this narration: *“As I clean my blade from the blood of the innocent, I wonder: Is there no one left to save? Now it all ends. We turn our backs on humanity as we condemn it. This is our story: The story of how we fought. And the story of how we lost.”*

Though the game has changed significantly, it’s clear that Broche‘s existential and emotional vision was just as intense back then. There are other notable differences too. The final version has no Paper Mario–style QTEs, no parry or dodge mechanics. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started off as a far more traditional JRPG before morphing into the genre-blending experience we see today. Some steampunk and futuristic settings can be glimpsed, but the hand-painted aesthetic clearly came later in development.

So much has changed since then, and it’s fascinating to see where the journey began!

Source: PCGamer

Early draft trailer for the game
byu/Palmoleum inexpedition33