The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are two of the biggest and most successful games of the year so far, for a variety of reasons. TES 4: Oblivion Remastered brought a whole host of updates, improvements, and an impressive sheen to Bethesda’s beloved classic 2006 open-world fantasy RPG while retaining the core of the original’s appeal. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, on the other hand, was something of a dark horse ahead of its release. As an ambitious modern ARPG combining turn-based and real-time combat with a unique vision from a newly-formed indie studio, it at least had its work cut out for it.
As it turned out, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 shattered expectations and is now counted as a front-runner for game of the year. Coincidentally, its arrival came within mere days of Oblivion Remastered‘s surprise shadow-drop, with both being day-one Game Pass titles. While Oblivion‘s launch could have stolen some of Clair Obscur‘s thunder, that didn’t stop it from also becoming the talk of the town. And as an interesting deeper connection, there’s a certain quest in Oblivion that strongly resembles one of Expedition 33‘s intrinsic elements.
Major spoilers will follow for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion.
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Clair Obscur Publisher Comments on New Game’s Success After Oblivion Remastered Surprise Launch
Kepler Interactive commented on the games success despite launching 2 days after The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered was shadow dropped. Kepler’s Senior Portfolio Director, Matt Handrahan talked about the games blend of Western and Japanese RPG styles. He also said that the he believes the dual release brought a lot of attention to the genre.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s World Isn’t What it Seems
Clair Obscur thrusts players into a strange and surreal but stunningly beautiful setting. In the Belle Epoque-inspired city of Lumiere, the haunting and menacing figure of the Paintress literally looms over everyone’s lives, and her gigantic and ominous monolith sits in the distance across the sea for all to see. Lumiere’s citizens watch every year as the god-like Paintress lowers the number displayed on the obelisk, marking those whose age corresponds with a death sentence. Her inscrutable motivations for this are the purpose behind each expedition sent out in the hopes of unraveling the mystery and putting a stop to it.
Eventually, fans discover that nearly every main cast member, and indeed every other NPC, creature, and inhabitant they met along the way are all imaginative constructions. Aside from Maelle and Renoir Dessendre, most of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33‘s characters only exist entirely within the realm of an elaborate living painting, called the Canvas. What seems like a fantastical, impossible world is shown to be precisely that, but one still sustained by powerful magical means in another layer of reality beyond.
How TES 4: Oblivion’s A Brush With Death Quest Captures Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s Entire Plot
Exploring the lands around Tamriel’s golden city of Cyrodiil, fans can seek out or happen upon the abode of Rythe Lythandas in Cheydinhal. Investigating further into the dark elf artist’s mysterious disappearance while in his studio, the Hero of Kvatch will find themselves pulled into The Painted World. Here, Rythe explains, he became trapped when a thief made off with his paintbrush supposedly connected to Diabella, one of the Nine Divines. This brush apparently allowed Rythe to enter the painting itself to work on his masterpiece from inside it. The Hero must retrieve the brush in the now-hostile world-within-a-world in order to rescue Rythe and escape.
The entire premise of A Brush With Death is like a super-condensed version of Clair Obscur‘s plot…
The similarities to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Oblivion‘s A Brush With Death are quite apparent. While the quest isn’t particularly long or involved, it is one of the more memorable ones, with the visuals of the Painted World appropriately reflecting an impressionistic watercolor style in the way that Clair Obscur uses the techniques of French art. The entire premise of A Brush With Death is like a super-condensed version of Clair Obscur‘s plot, and the idea and presentation share the same broad strokes. It all makes for a neat circumstantial situation where one of the highest-rated new games of 2025 so far has an entire counterpart of sorts, albeit on a much smaller scale, within the game world of TES 4: Oblivion Remastered, itself likely to be counted as one of the best releases of this year.