Summary
For those of us who speak English,Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’sname is… well… Obscure. The ‘Expedition 33’ part makes perfect sense—it’s the story of the ‘Expedition 33’ team from the France-inspired island of Lumière. However, the Clair Obscur part has raised questions (it comes from the French word chiaroscuro, for those wondering, an art style that focuses on the juxtaposition of light and dark).
It seems like us English-speaking folk aren’t the only ones having problems with its name, though, as those in Japan are struggling so much that they’ve affectionately given it a name that’s much easier to pronounce.
Introducing Sandfall Interactive’s New Game - Something 33
While in the West, we’re struggling with the meaning of ‘Clair Obscur,’ those in Japan are struggling with the pronunciation of the game’s entire name. The title includes letters and letter combinations that are not common in the Japanese language, making it exceptionally difficult for native speakers to read and pronounce.
According toAutomaton Mediain Japan, the name has become such a problem that they’ve scrapped the ‘Clair Obscur: Expedition’ part of it and now simply refer to the game as ‘Something 33’. The site says that ‘Clair Obscur’ especially is “an unfamiliar word, and many people don’t even know how to pronounce it,” citing its difficulty in spelling and lack of abbreviation options as other reasons for the new name.
A quick search on Twitter shows just how widespread the name has become in the country, with a new tweet containing the word ‘なんとか33’ (roughly translated to ‘something 33’) being posted every minute or so.
It’s little surprise that the game has started to become popular in Japan, given that the team at Sandfall Interactive confirmed it was taking inspiration from some of the country’s biggest RPG exports, includingPersonaandFinal Fantasy. If this volume of tweets is anything to go by, the Japanese public may have played a significant role inthe game selling so well,reaching a large number of players, andbreaking audience review records on Metacritic.
