When games aren’t tough enough on their own, the players invent their own challenges. Now, a new challenge is taking over the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 community, and it is called the Expedition 34 Challenge.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has options to cater to anyone’s playstyle. Whether you are into this game for the story or for the challenge, you can adjust the game’s difficulty level to your liking. If you are among those who love a challenge, there is the ever-popular NewGame+ feature when you beat the game, allowing you to play through the story again, but now everything is way harder. But for some players, even that may not be enough, as some builds and abilities can still steamroll through everything, even after nerfs. So players that are looking for greater challenges, or a bit of spice in their playthroughs, invent their own challenges. And one challenge is becoming increasingly popular.
The Expedition 34 Challenge – A New Craze in Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Community
People will always find ways to make stuff interesting for them. We all heard of some more common challenges in games, like speedrunning or the “no-hit” challenge, popular in games like Dark Souls or Hollow Knight. But for Clair Obscur, some more appropriate ones are getting more popular. What we will talk about today is the Expedition 34 Challenge, and we will keep it spoiler-free as much as possible (only some mild story spoilers for folks who are just starting the game).
Background
Very early on in the story, you find out that Gustave, one of the protagonists, invented a device called the Lumina Converter. It creates copies of Pictos powers by absorbing and refining Chroma from defeated Neverons and turning them into something called Lumina. That is why you need to win a couple of battles to “unlock” each Lumina. Before Gustave’s invention, every Expeditioner was limited to three Pictos each. With his invention, Expeditioners can have extra Lumina powers, along with the regular three Pictos, allowing them to be significantly more powerful than the rest. This only goes to show how much of an impact Gustave has on Expedition 33. So, what does this have to do with the challenge?
The Expedition 34 Challenge
The idea of the Expedition 34 Challenge is to play like you are Expedition 34 (or any other expedition before 33), meaning there is no Lumina Converter for you. In game terms, this translates to you not being allowed to use any Lumina – the only passive bonuses you have are the three you have equipped. This means only one character will benefit from Second Chance, teamwork, or even Painted Power.
And fans really do love the whole idea. “I’m doing an ‘Expedition 34’ run rn, without equipping luminas, just to prove how much of a hero Gustave really is,“ said Forward-Spirit4389. Some even went so far as to add that Expedition 34 tattooed themselves with Picto runes (like the ones Lune has), in order to manipulate elemental forces, so you should only be using elemental weapons and attacks, meaning no Physical or Void damage. Though ultimately, it may become a chore when only one of your characters can go above 9.999 in Act 3. Though there are solo builds for situations like that.
Ultimately, this challenge is for those players who want to go a bit further (or truly immerse themselves in the world before Expedition 33) and are looking for more of a challenge. The fans have been asking for DLC since the beginning, so having a spinoff about Expedition 34 would be great. Now, let’s see when the Expedition 60 challenge will appear.
