The developers behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have revealed one of the RPG's most distinctive design choices: its thunderous, bass-driven combat audio takes direct inspiration from the anime adaptation of Fire Force. At a recent GDC post-mortem panel, Sandfall Interactive's audio team broke down how the series shaped the game's entire sound direction.
The Fire Force Connection
Audio lead and music designer Raphael Joffres, principal sound designer Maxance Playez, and technical and cinematic sound designer Olivier Penchenier walked through the creative process that defined Expedition 33's audio identity during their GDC talk.
Playez stumbled on Fire Force, the anime produced by David Production and based on the manga by Soul Eater creator Atsushi Ohkubo, while watching combat highlight clips during production. The series follows fantasy firefighters using fire-based attacks against flame-born monsters, with every hit punctuated by slowdown and heavy bass. That energy was exactly what Playez wanted to capture.
"When I started sound design with electronic bass music influences, I found a video about the sound design of Fire Force," Playez said. "And at this moment, I was like, it's exactly the same energy."
He showed the reference to creative director Guillaume Broche, and the response was immediate. "Guillaume was like, let's do more of that, and it shaped the direction of the game," Joffres recalled.
Bass as a Design Language
The Fire Force influence wasn't just aesthetic. It became a functional design tool that helped the team differentiate between attack types in Expedition 33's combat system.
Playez explained how the team applied this thinking in practice:
- Standard attacks use powerful but grounded sound design
- Gradient and counter attacks receive sub-bass distortion to signal their increased impact
- The contrast between normal and powerful sounds gives players an audio cue that reinforces the visual feedback of each hit
"When Guillaume asked me to do some sound design, he always was pushing me to do something more powerful, more bass, more and more and more," Playez said. "I thought I couldn't do more powerful."
This layered bass approach wasn't just about making the game sound cool. It was a deliberate communication strategy, using sound to tell players when they had landed a meaningful hit.
GDC audio post-mortem panel
From Joke to Blueprint
Joffres noted that the Fire Force reference started almost as a joke. "I think it kind of got started as a joke, just showing some stuff from Fire Force," he said, "but they started to do it as a reference."
Playez also admitted he hadn't even watched the full series. He found it through clips specifically highlighting its combat scenes, which speaks to how targeted the team's research process was. They weren't fans first. They were sound designers hunting for a specific energy.
Expedition 33 is a French-developed RPG drawing heavily from JRPG traditions. The team was deliberately trying to blend Japanese and Western sound design sensibilities, and Fire Force gave them a working proof of concept.
"Because it was a JRPG, we tried to find a mix between Japanese sound design and European or American sound design," Playez explained. "Somebody already did it. So I think it was more confidence to go in this direction."
The result is a combat audio identity that feels distinctly its own, built on a foundation that players would likely never guess without this kind of behind-the-scenes transparency.
Source: Tech Yahoo
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What anime influenced Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's sound design?
The anime Fire Force, adapted by David Production, was a key reference for the game's combat audio. Its sound designers treated audio as a musical element emphasizing power, rhythm, and bass rather than realism.
Who handled audio on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?
The audio team at Sandfall Interactive was led by audio lead and music designer Raphael Joffres, alongside principal sound designer Maxance Playez and technical and cinematic sound designer Olivier Penchenier.
Why does Expedition 33's combat sound so heavy and impactful?
The team intentionally built a bass-heavy audio identity inspired by electronic bass music and the sound design of Fire Force. Different attack types, from standard hits to counters, use varying levels of sub-bass distortion to communicate power to the player.
