COE33 Story and Theories

 I realize I incorrectly abbreviated the game's title initially, so here's a fix.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has one of those high-concept premises that immediately invites the player to question what, exactly, is actually happening.

To explain:

Decades ago, the world (and it does seem like it was probably our world) was shattered in some kind of supernatural transformation. The people of Lumiere, which appears to be a shattered, surreal version of Paris, have a view across the sea (yes, despite seeming to be Paris, which is quite far in-land) of a profoundly huge monolith upon which an entity known as the Paintress paints a number each year, ticking down. When this occurs, everyone that age and older evaporates into red petals. As the number ticks down, the people of Lumiere know they have only limited time before humanity is wiped out.

Each year, people who have one year before their "gommage," (French for "erasure") can volunteer for expeditions across the sea to try to stop the Paintress and save humanity.

Our heroes are members of Expedition 33, the 67th of these expeditions (they also mention that, ironically, while 99-33 have been in descending order, Expedition Zero was what they called the first one. Surely not important, right?)

The expeditions take them out of the city of Lumiere, and into the beautiful-yet-deadly realms beyond.

Let's get spoilery. I'm just starting Act Two of the game. Spoilers ahead: you have been warned.

The expedition immediately goes to hell with the arrival of an older-looking man, whom we later learn is "Renoir," and who instantly decapitates the leader of Expedition 33, and proceeds to carve through their ranks (possibly aided by the "Nevrons," which are the construct-like servants of Paintress (or are in theory).

Gradually, a number of survivors of this massacre find one another. Gustave is our initial protagonist, waking up by a waterfall in a forest, who nearly kills himself out of despair when he discovers the piled bodies of either his or some previous expedition, all petrified in death. However, Lune, another survivor, finds him just in time, and the two team up to continue their mission and try to accomplish at least something.

How Gustave got there is a big mystery. But the two find a note in the forest saying that Maelle, the 16-year-old foster-daughter of Gustave's, who joined the expedition despite her youth, is somewhere nearby.

You find Maelle in a bizarre place - The Manor, a sprawling mansion in which nearly every door is locked. There, the spooky-as-hell but apparently friendly Curator (who looks like a plaster man missing a face) shows that he's been keeping Maelle safe, and journeys with you (as one of your camp followers - not unlike Withers in BG3).

While the ongoing quest to go after the Paintress continues, Maelle begins to have bizarre visions of the white-haired-man, as well as a woman in a half-mask.

Now, here's where I get into speculation mode:

The masked woman has white hair as well, something that seems impossible given that humans all get gommaged before their hair can turn white. But, notably, despite some intense scaring visible on her face, her eyes look remarkably like Maelle's.

The white-haired man, I will say, also bears something of a resemblance to Gustave. While not voiced by the same actor (Gustave is Charlie Cox, best known as Daredevil in the MCU, and Renoir is Andy Sirkis) it's becoming clear that something very, very strange is happening.

Let's back up:

Upon leaving the forest, Gustave and Luna find a grove with a red rose very similar to the one that Gustave gave to his ex-girlfriend Sophie on the day of her Gommage. When Gustave picks the flower, a Nevron attacks them, seemingly distressed at the plucking of this flower.

And there's just something about it that made me wonder: Is Gommage truly death? What are the Nevrons?

Is it possible that the Nevrons are the humans who have gone gommage?

But furthermore, I think there's some strange convolutions about time and identity here. I'll just come out and say it: the masked woman, I think, is another version of Maelle, either from the future or that the versions of the characters we know are some kind of strange echo of the real person.

And I've suspected that Renoir might be an alternate version of Gustave.

That said, if that latter is the case (which seems less well-supported - mainly I think they bear a resemblance) it's got to be something strange, because Gustave is dead. At the end of Act Two, after defeating a rather tricky boss called the Lampmaster, the white-haired man shows up and kills Gustave.

Maelle is only saved by the arrival of Verso, who joins your party as a kind of replacement for Gustave, but is also a member of Expedition Zero, and while he doesn't look 100 years old like he probably ought to, he does have a lot of white in his hair.

Gustave's death is a pretty rough turn of events, and I find myself trying very hard to resist the urge to look up whether you can ever get him back (the fact that Verso takes his weapons when you get him makes this prospect seem more dubious). But with Renoir (as Verso identifies him for us) making all these claims of his actions being for the best, I really need to know what the hell is going on here.

What little of Act Two I've played so far has piled on some extra difficulty. I've tried to explore other parts of the map, but most things off the main story path seem crushingly difficult (there's even a kind of "world boss" that I decided to come back to after struggling with it for a while, only to find that I think it got more powerful).

Anyway, I'm a little surprised that I'm ostensibly already a third of the way through the game, but we'll see if the different Acts are of equal length.