This article contains spoilers! Don’t read it if you haven’t beat the game!

A while back, I made a blog post about Expedition 33. I was optimistic about beating this one because I was having a blast. I already outlined my thoughts about the general gameplay and visuals of the game, and those words still ring true. In short, E33 is a beautiful piece of art with gameplay that works super well. Now that I’ve beat the game, I’d like to elaborate a bit more and spend some time talking about the difficulty, the story, and what I plan to do next. Keep in mind this isn’t an objective review, just my impressions.

Difficulty

I’ll be completely transparent here; I struggled with this game. Call me a weirdo, but I’ve never been one to do tons of side content. I like to complete the story first then do side content on my own time. I’m not a big fan of the sense of pointlessness that comes from putting off main content to go do side quests. This is how I played Cyberpunk, completing the main quests with only an occasional detour. Unfortunately for me, Expedition 33 becomes very difficult when you choose to play it like this. Every enemy encounter gives you XP you can use to level your characters, which means the more enemies you fight, the easier the game becomes. This is largely fine, as the majority of enemy encounters aren’t very hard once you memorize a few attack patterns. You only begin to realize you’re underleveled when you notice that your attacks aren’t making any noticeable difference in a boss’ health bar. When I was fighting the final boss, I died probably a dozen times before deciding to give up and go level my characters a bit.

This isn’t bad design at all. Most players probably will go out of their way to experience side content and explore the world. However as someone that doesn’t typically consume games in that way, this philosophy of design made the difficulty curve rather steep. That said, you always have the option to go farm XP. If memorizing attack patterns is too hard, there’s always a straightforward way to level up and make your life a little easier.

Story

Fair warning: this section contains extremely heavy spoilers. You will ruin the game for yourself if you read this section. You’ve been warned.

Expedition 33’s story is a masterpiece. At the beginning of the game, many of its elements seem rather arbitrary. The recurring picture frame motifs, the varying climates across surprisingly small areas, the various magical energies that rule the world, the fantastical yet childish Esquie. These characters, devices, and details all seemed rather disjointed and sloppy when I first encountered them. This is the GOTY winner? However the writing of the characters and the smoothness of the combat kept me playing until the game’s crucial plot twist. As it turns out, the entire game is set in an artificial world, Matrix-style. Renoir, Verso, and Maelle all exist in the real world and are responsible for “painting” the world that the characters inhabit. This is a massive oversimplification, but essentially the world is owned and ruled by this one family. They have suffered a tragic accident and they are torn about the fate of the Canvas. This is explicitly told through the narrative of the story, but it is also excellently portrayed through the events of the plot. Looking back over the story every silly detail, every inconsistency, every time Renoir seemed omnipresent, all of this is revealed and explained. It takes a while to get there, but the journey is well worth it. The ending presents you with an impossible choice, one that drives the emotional impact of the story home. Expedition 33 has the best story I’ve ever experienced in a video game.

What’s Next?

It took me about 35 hours to beat the game, according to my save slot. Some of that was spend idling, I estimate my actual playtime to be a little closer to 25-30 hours. I can see myself spending a little more time exploring the world, completing side content, fighting optional bosses, and doing endgame content. I truly enjoyed the story, and the gameplay is good enough that I can see myself coming back to this one a lot. I don’t see myself starting a fresh playthrough, but I might think about New Game+ at some point in the future.

The next game on my Backlog is Doom (2016). I’ve played about 2.5 hours so far, and it’s been quite entertaining. This game should be a good deal shorter, so I’ll probably be updating the blog after I beat that one. You can view the full backlog as well as the reason for them being on my list here.

Full List. Includes name, progress (if applicable) and estimated hours to complete.

• Expedition 33 Done!
• Doom (2016): 2.5/11.5 hours
• Black Mesa: 15 Hours
• Half-Life 2: 13 hours
• Elden Ring: 19/60 hours (optimistically)
• Fallout 3: ~10/22 hours
• Red Dead Redemption 2: 50 hours
• System Shock: 2/17 hours
• Callisto Protocol: 10 hours
• Sleeping Dogs: 15 hours
• Armored Core VI: 17.5 Hours
• Control: 2/11 hours
• Remnant 2: 18 hours
• Robocop: Rogue City: 12 hours
• Metal Eden: 8 hours
• Armored Core 3: Portable: 4/12 hours.