السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
9 years. Nine very long years of hiatus. And not one for lack of trying. I've lost count of the many attempts to raise a pen and write. Just write. Something. Anything at all. But the words simply didn't form, the ideas simply vanish into nothingness. Until now.
This piece will be different. And long, but mostly different. For how does one start to condense nearly a decade of life into words? You don't.
***
What is art if not a manifestation of one's self? And every piece that came before - physical or digital - has been just that. A representation of what I feel, the people who grace my life and the experiences that come from those intersecting experiences.
The last 9 years was, to put it simply, devoid of that intersecting space. I experienced a great deal. Met many great people and helped birth and raise two of the most wonderful human beings I know of. But I didn't feel. It was numbing to not feel. And I thought that I was doomed to embrace this numbness forever.
Thankfully, I was wrong. Thanks to a game of all things.
On 3 May 2025, I booted a game that was recently released thinking it will be just another game. As with all the games I played in life, I expected to enjoy it for what it is: an opportunity for me to visit another world, meet new people and, for a few hours of my life, immerse myself into new experiences looking for that short burst of happiness. A way to be happy, if only for a short while.
What I did not expect was for this game to wreck me and make me think about my life.
Let me elaborate.
Fair warning, the following will draw upon my experience going through the world of a game released in 2025, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I highly encourage everyone to at least play this game once in their life, even if you are not a gamer.
The story it tries to deliver is just profoundly human and I would go so far as saying it is the best piece of media I have consumed. It does something that no book, no movie, no show, no singular piece of art, music or sculpture can evoke. It made me feel again. If you don't plan to play it yourself, then please join me in unraveling this piece of video game art.
This piece will be divided into parts touching upon the the world and its setting, the music and artistry presented, the story and characters and lastly my conclusion on experiencing the whole package. I promise this will make sense in the end, but for that let's start at the beginning.
The pieces I write will be accompanied by specific songs from the game. You can either look it up and listen to it on your own device but I also included a player (bottom right), just click the song named before reading. Just as in the game, each song will be integral to my piece of writing.
***
Part 1: The World As We See It (song: Lumiere by Lorien Testard & Alice Duport-Percier)
The world of Expedition 33 started of fantastical in every sense of the world. The remnants of humanity live in a fractured world called the Continent tucked into a destroyed city, Lumiere. Cradled in the shadow of a bent Eiffel Tower, It is surrounded by harsh seas and nothing else.
Far in the distance, a huge monolith looms with a solitary figure, the Paintress, her head bowed and tucked into her knees, sitting against the giant monolith, seemingly defeated. Above her head, a number painted in gold: 34.
The city itself is haunting and young. Or rather, what's left of its populace are young; you won't find anyone above the age of 34 here and far, far too many orphans roam its streets.
Every year, the Paintress wakes and paints a new number, decreasing by one. And year after year, as she stands, the city falls. Anyone aged above the number she paints dies in a burst of flowers. Gommaged from existence.
And every year, volunteers from Lumiere (mostly those with 1-2 years left before their own Gommage) leaves the safety of the city to journey the Continent. Their singular goal: confront and bring down the Paintress to end the cycle.
The group of characters you control are part of Expedition 33. And it is in through their lenses that we too journey the Continent. Seeing spectacular places from green meadows with lush greenery and beautiful waterfalls to underwater locales that defy laws of science to harsh, snowy mountains that house the last bastion for a dying species of human-like creatures.
And in every locale, we trace the trails of those Expeditions that came before. Learning of their owns trials and tribulations while leaving our own experiences "for those who come after".
***
Part 1: My Reflections of the World (song: Until Next Life by Lorien Testard, Alice Duport-Percier & Ben Starr)
Playing the game, I marveled at the level of beauty that each locale presented. Each new area reminded me of the different worlds I used to imagine when I write. Or the different worlds I get to visit and enjoy when reading or playing games. Worlds that seemingly dissipated from my mind nowadays when I try to grasp at it. Worlds that no longer manifest when I try to draw from the creative well that ran dry 9 years ago.
There's also a lingering sadness and melancholy even in the most breathtaking scenery the Continent has to offer. Everywhere you go, you get the joy of seeing the white sparkle of a journal left by previous Expeditions or the purple glint of items they left behind.
But just as quickly, joy turns to sorrow when, as you approach, you see the hardened bodies of people who made the very same trek you are making now. Dead and lifeless. Some with pain or shock from their last moments. Some impaled by weapons. Others just sitting, defeated. Perhaps succumbing to wounds after a hard-fought victory but too broken to continue. Most of them stacked upon bodies of others and discarded to the sides of roads.
The world I journey through is a stark reminder of the frailty of life. It paints a very difficult question and asks of me at every step of the way: if my own body fails and I too die today, what have I got to give to those who come after?
In my mind, my writings have always been a way to capture eventful things in my life for my children or their children. In the same way people take photos or videos, I chose to write.
The realisation that, in my own grief, I have let 9 years of my life go unrecorded on my own terms pains me. The salt on the wound is that those years contained some of the best parts of life. Starting a family with my one true friend, catching my two daughters as they made their way into this world and feeling the weight of responsibility that landed as they landed into my arms and seeing them grow from their first words to their first steps and many other firsts. I let those pass. And. It. Is. Painful.
That pain was what led me to writing again. I want to leave them with something. I want them to know what I know and feel how I felt spending my limited time with them. I want them to get a spark from seeing my journal one day and have a window for our minds to connect long past after my body have decayed. A way for my voice to reach them. And it only took 9 years and a silly game to make me realise this simple truth.
I will continue Part 2 in due time. But I will be forever grateful to this game and the creators. It spurred me to act when no other person, personal or professional, could. It let me know that you can paint beauty even with a broken brush or write even when you yourself are broken. I hope that, this time, it doesn't stop until the blood in my veins run dry.
For those who come after.
