34-year game dev veteran says Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 "ruined" his worldview because Sandfall had a bunch of junior devs finding "shortcuts" to make an RPG that "looks AAA"

Now as part of a studio called The Astronauts, Chmielarz served as creative director on the 2014 narrative game, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and now works in the same role on Witchfire. The Astronauts is a little smaller, even, than Sandfall – and both studios make use of outsourcing – but it's specifically the relative inexperience of the Expedition 33 team that Chmielarz can't get over. "When you actually look at Expedition 33 from a designer's point of view, there's an incredible amount of smart decisions that allow them to make a game that looks AAA, but is in reality full of shortcuts" he says.

Author: dustin.bailey@futurenet.com (Dustin Bailey) , Dustin Bailey

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