Today’s games vary between the hyper-realistic AAA look and the more artsy indie aesthetic. Expedition 33 stands out for looking realistic, yet dreamy enough, with the plus of having cost a fraction of what most modern AAA games cost to make. There’s one possible caveat, though.
While this article contains no story spoilers, I warn you that it might contain visual spoilers that could forever change how you perceive Expedition 33.
The issue is that some players claim that the human characters in Expedition 33 have weird bodily proportions. Now, you likely belong in one of two groups: the players who are reading this and thinking “wtf?”, or those who’re finally feeling vindicated, wondering why no one else is talking about it. I’m talking about the character’s head-to-body proportions, specifically. These players are complaining that the characters’ heads are just a bit larger than a regular person’s would be, how they noticed that in the game’s very first trailer, and how that completely kills the game for them.
The gold vs blue dress of gaming?
I never got that impression from the game. So, to give you a more objective representation, I believe that the more eagle-eyed players see Expedition 33‘s characters the same way we, normal people who are happy with the game in its current state, see the characters of the obscure PS1 title Technomage.
And, well, although “technomage” is an excellent description of Expedition 33’s Gustave, Expedition’s supposed “bobbleheads” are far more discreet. So much so that most players simply haven’t noticed them, if there’s anything to notice at all. Whereas these players say that this problem isn’t equally evident in all characters, they state it to be pretty clear with Maelle and Gustave, and not just because of his gorgeous mane.
This is such a big deal that a subsection of players asked modders to come up with a fix for the characters’ proportions. This poor guy on Nexusmods seemingly even asked for it as a Christmas gift.
“I find it crazy that people don’t even comment about this. The heads are so big they almost look like bobble-heads. This makes the game unplayable to me.”
And someone did begin working on that mod, only to then accept defeat, explaining that the task somehow just proved too difficult.
And that critical expedition failure is quite the extreme case, but the whole case remains interesting, even as simply an interesting mystery to be explored, and not something to be fixed. As I noticed in Reddit comments, the people who more quickly caught the issue with the characters were artists, people who are usually fully aware of natural human proportions.
The case for an artistic decision would be strange, as E33 chases ultra-realism in its character design. It makes sense, as that’s the best way to evoke the empathy of human players to the unfolding drama of the plot. Also, the game’s characters were designed by professional artists, so again, they likely know about body proportions in-depth. So, I wonder if it really was their decision to make the characters like that, or if it was a simple mistake.
The case for a mistake is easier to make, as it seems this is actually something relatively common with UE5 assets, as their base metahuman proportions are difficult to tinker with when it comes to certain body types. Reddit user takokato was nice enough to come up with an insightful little infographic:
So, what do you think? Did Sandfall secretly model the characters like that as a psyop to ease indie fans’ acceptance of the inevitable POP! collectibles? Are all characters in the game secretly turning into those creepy wooden mimes found throughout the game?
I’d really like to get to your take in the comments so we can get to the bottom of this.
The post I never noticed this small detail about Expedition 33 before, but it seems it ruined the game for many eagle-eyed players appeared first on Destructoid.
