TITLE
We Have Now Entered the Age of Covid-19 Inspired Games
AUTHOR
Maddy Myers
PUBLICATION
Endless Mode
YEAR
2025
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
The opening to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a master class in grabbing the player’s heart and wringing it out. That’s partly because the opening of Clair Obscur makes it clear that it’s a pandemic game.In Clair Obscur, the people who live on the island city of Lumière have been besieged for 67 years by a magical curse that methodically kills certain people every year. Specifically, the curse kills older people—at least, at first. The curse counts down by one year every year, first killing everyone aged 100 and older, then everyone aged 99, and so on, every year until the events of Clair Obscur begin. At the game’s outset, a monolith in the distance of Lumière bears a glowing “34,” and as the opening unfolds, a mysterious goddess-like figure called the Paintress replaces the 34 with a 33. As soon as she does this, all of the 33-year-olds in Lumière disintegrate before the eyes of their peers and loved ones.
[…]
There is a very important clue, though. There are no elderly people in the city of Lumière. There are no middle-aged people, either. In fact, there is no one over the age of 33, anywhere, at all. It was one of the most haunting parts of the game.
Why? Because seeing all of those young people in Lumière transported me instantly to specific experiences I had in my own neighborhood in Massachusetts in 2020. Even after my state’s stay-at-home advisory was lifted, the virus and its capacity to spread remained ill-understood. Many people remained at home and chose to do internet deliveries for essential resources like food and prescriptions, especially middle-aged and elderly people. This meant that, like in Lumière, there were young people on the streets. And yet these younger people nonetheless carried a shroud of fear upon them. Not always fear for themselves, specifically—a more generalized fear of the unknown force surrounding all of us, a force that could and did take older loved ones away from us.
GAMES MENTIONED
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Cronos: The New Dawn
Date Everything
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
TOPICS MENTIONED
COVID-19
ALTERNATE LINK
Archived Copy @ Internet Archive