Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has achieved widespread success, a fact that hardly needs elaboration given its numerous Game of the Year awards and millions of copies sold since its release. However, not everyone anticipated such a phenomenal breakthrough, including Ben Starr, the voice actor for Verso, one of the RPG’s pivotal characters.
What Starr Said About Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Speaking with Alexa Ray Corriea, narrative designer for Aztech: Forgotten Gods, on the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ YouTube channel, Starr reflected: “2025 was an interesting year for me because I remember talking to you about the release of Expedition 33 and trying to temper a lot of people’s excitement.”
Starr admits that he generally avoids over-inflating expectations for projects he’s involved with, preferring that games speak for themselves and demonstrate their own quality. Yet, in the case of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, he was genuinely convinced it wouldn’t be a massive hit.
He continued, explaining, “It wasn’t a lack of faith in the video game. I believed in the quality of that material long before it was published.” Starr added that everyone he spoke with knew “how excited he was for the video game,” but he also noted that “no one could have predicted” the level of success.
Indeed, he thought his greatest achievement in 2025 would be dressing up as a Balatro clown at the BAFTA awards: “being an idiot” would be remembered more than his contribution to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. This, of course, proved not to be the case.
Furthermore, Starr fears that the market might learn the wrong lesson from the success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.