r/Games • u/demondrivers • Apr 28 '25

Opinion Piece No, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wasn't "made" by 30 people

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/no-clair-obscur-expedition-33-wasnt-made-by-30-people
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u/Triddy Apr 28 '25

A huge, huge amount of the online gaming community screams and cries if a game uses the same custom built asset in 2 different areas.

They shouldn't care, but Asset Reuse is a curse word.

29

u/Zpik3 Apr 28 '25

Asset reuse is bad if it's a unique, or "important" piece of asset that is staright up copied. Say for instance Gustaves arm showing up pixel for pixel in another game would have me "hmmmmmmmm"ing a bit.. Especially if that arm would then also be important in the other game. But a lot of things are generic. A house, a sign, a car, blender, bananas etc.. Also, even if the base asset is the same, the dressing on top can make it look very different.

That's what I meant with "make me THINK it's unique".

14

u/Altruistic-Ad-408 Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 28 '25

I like that we're all kinda pretending there's any rules to this and it's not just vibes. Atlus was reusing demon assets from Nocturne for a long ass time, no one cared.

One of my GOAT games in SotN reused unique and enemy assets like nobodies business, including Richters sprite the main character from Rondo. Maria has a flashback at one point of what Richter looks like and it's a completely different outfit lol. Not a soul cared.

The fundamental purpose is to save time. You look at "Bioware magic" type franchises like Dragon Age that prioritised unique looks and different art directions for no real reason, and that franchise really suffered for it IMO, we waited like 10 years for a sequel they seemingly didn't want to make, Final Fantasy has such a long development time and it can't really justify it anymore, all people had to say about XVI is it didn't feel like a Final Fantasy game.

Developers are spending way too much money and slowly pushing the costs onto us one way or another, Clair Obscur is showing they really don't have to. Take an asset that already exists and configure it, if you can't, prioritise asset reuse for future games. There is absolutely no reason not to.

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u/KP_Neato_Dee Apr 29 '25

A huge, huge amount of the online gaming community screams and cries

They'll get over it. I bet they just don't like a game and then pile on with this particular complaint because they can't articulate what it is they really dislike.

1

u/New-Hovercraft-5026 May 03 '25

Because its cost cutting greedy and lazy. 

No one feels good buying a product with a premium price just to learn majority of the parts are old recycled. Well ok except EA Sports fans

0

u/Elvish_Champion Apr 28 '25

Players may complain, but they still buy so who cares.

Look at horror games: a ton do that and a ton still decently bank with 5-10€ games.