Expedition 33’s Ending Was Saved by Mocap Actors

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s ending could have looked very different. Creative director Guillaume Broche revealed that two scenes planned for the finale were cut during development, and a major change to Maelle’s ending was made at the last minute thanks to the game’s motion capture actors. The result is a closing sequence that works without dialogue and leans heavily on physical performance, matching Broche’s vision of a bittersweet, interpretive conclusion.

Expedition 33 offers two choices: save the canvas but doom Maelle to grief, or destroy the canvas to save her from that grief. Broche designed both endings to avoid a clear “good” or “bad” outcome, aiming instead for complexity and emotional conflict. He wanted players to face a decision with no easy answer, where both paths carry their own pros and cons. The absence of dialogue in these endings leaves much to interpretation, allowing players to project their own meaning onto Maelle’s fate.

"I like the fact that there is no dialogue," Broche says, " leaves a lot open to interpretation, and people can project what they want on the ending. I think it's something that's really really important."

He believes games are uniquely able to give players impossible choices, and this finale is meant to reflect the way grief can drive people to make questionable decisions for understandable reasons.

Let's first remind you that the game sold perfectly at its launch. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sells 2 million copies in 12 Days. Then it became 3.3 million in 33 days!

One of the scrapped scenes involved Maelle and Verso talking over each other in a heated exchange. While this technique can work in writing to show tension, it fell flat here. Broche thought it was going to be “awesome and very innovative,” but after recording it during a mocap session, he realised it was “very bad” and didn’t fit the tone.

Another big change came during Maelle’s final scene. Initially, the team recorded a newer version of the script, but it didn’t have the impact Broche wanted. He decided to return to an earlier draft and asked mocap actors Charlotte Hoepffner and Maxence Carzola to learn it with only an hour’s notice.

"Massive props to Charlotte and Maxence … I gave them like an hour to learn the text—there are not so many lines, so it was okay. So we just tried the old one, and it was just a thousand times better."

The strong performances of Hoepffner and Carzola were key to making the silent ending work. Broche says their body language carried the emotional weight, filling in the gaps left by minimal dialogue. This approach also ties into his broader creative philosophy, as seen in scenes like the gommage, which has only two lines but delivers a major story moment through subtle actions.

Broche admits this was a risky choice that could have gone wrong, but the combination of carefully framed visuals, measured pacing, and the actors’ nuanced performances turned the ending into one of the game’s most powerful sequences. For a story built on loss, moral compromise, and shades of gray, the silence proved more effective than words.

Read also: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Might Be Too Perfect to Continue.