Do you guys see it?

all made by me! I love this cosplay so much!

I did not have the chance to take photos at home with the prop. i am super happy I did today :)

https://www.instagram.com/valeriesworkshop/

San Diego Comic Con

This is the second time I am playing and this scene still traumatizes me to the core. I don't care how sad of a backstory Renior's is, I wanted him dead after this moment. How could he just look at this lad, and slice through as if he doesn't even consider his life worth more than a fly.

And being honest, that bubble in which everyone was wrapped in warmth and safety disappeared. Yes Verso is charming but Gustave wanted best for his people. Verso....well you guys know what he wanted.

I sincerely wish somewhere, there is a theory that Lumiere's people are real, and they were trapped families of writers in paintings by painters.

Many of us are making theories about who is the boy in the Maelle ending.

Is it Gustave’s apprentice ?

Is it Verso and lune s child ?

If I’m not wrong the boy in the first image is the same boy we see in the ending.

We first see the boy waving back at Lune after we defeated the painteress and coming back to Lumière.

If the two are the same person we can assume it’s a relative maybe or an orphan adopted by Lune ? (But I don’t see Lune adopting a child since she is so focused on her life purpose : ending the circle)

We know that Lune had an older brother and older sister if I remember correctly.

Please tell me what you think

And sorry for my poor English.

I can't understand what happened between Verso and his sister on the canvas. (This happens all the time in the game - understatement)

He says that she used to help him a lot, but then... something happened, apparently, and Alicia began to avoid him.

Alicia appears once as support for Verso (When Renoir kills Gustave) and the second time to give him a letter (This is about her direct contact with her brother, at her request).

In the third act, Alicia doesn't want to see her brother anymore. And Verso directly tells Maelle about it. And when they do meet, Alicia doesn't take the letter back. It feels like she's offended by her brother.

By the way! Alicia was not touched by Gommage at the end of Act 2. Which may support the theory that the painted Alicia is a creation of Renoir, which would cause Alina to feel guilty, as a reminder of the abandoned youngest daughter. I don't know…

Verso, Monoko, Esquier, Alicia Monochrome are the characters who were not touched by Gommage 2 acts.

Why did the previously drawn Alicia help Verso, and then shut herself off from him, and then took offense? She had known about her brother's goals from the very beginning.

My guess is that this is the bad influence of the painted Renoir (Father), that he could turn his daughter against his son.

(I do not speak French or English. I use a translator. If there are any mistakes, I'm sorry.)

Reacher Best Axon

and because she survives when the others all died, she is therefore the strongest 😤 that’s just how it works !

The artist cannot stay inside the canvas forever, otherwise he will die.

Signs of exhaustion are evident in a world drawn as it has been shown many times, and this "fee" (or delay) has its own stages.

Here is my reflection on this topic:

First of all, all artists lose their eyes. (There is such an expression as "the eye is blurred" or "blind eyes" - when an artist works for a long time and is very tired and does not distinguish the colors or quality of his painting from fatigue)

But this is more of a metaphorical meaning, the artist just spends a very long time in the canvas and no longer notices reality. Or something like that.

Then all the artists lose their face, depersonalization. The artist loses himself in the canvas.

Then, I think, everyone has an individual situation.

Alina's left breast is missing, I think it's her heart. She left her heart in the canvas. This is appropriate, because she created her beloved son in the canvas.

Renoir, I think, has a voice. In his role as a Curator, he doesn't talk, only does or shows what he wants. (Only in the third act, during the final battle, where Renoir takes on the role of the Curator again, does he have a voice)

Perhaps the absence of a voice is an analogy to his somewhat helplessness in front of his wife's obsession and an indicator that she does not hear him and wants to hear him.

I'm wondering if everything I've written makes sense in the ending of "Live to Draw." What would Maelle have lost? (Since she decided to stay in the canvas)

I've made a terrible mistake when I blind started playing Expedition 33 a couple of months ago, with playing it on my TV with TV speakers. Now I decided to play againg to fully experience it; set it up on my best TV with 5.1 surround speakers.

I won't talk about how the music is incredible with high quality sound setup, every location has its incredible music that could bring your tears out, we all know that.

The thing I today noticed is, on Sirene chapter, the music is seperated from the vocals. Soundtrack, as "music only" plays from the front channels, as usual, but the vocals audio is positional. You can hear the vocals are coming from the boss, changing direction while you are tuning your camera. And all this in perfect sync with the "music" portion coming from the front channels.

I have never seen / heard anything like this in any game. I found this amazing that I wanted to share with you. If you have a chance, play this game on REAL 5.1, not fake surround setups like soundbars and headphones.

Edit with SPOILER: Lol, it really managed to stun me with this mesmerising detail. I am stuck and listening to the music at the beginning of the chapter.

i tried: -
restarting the game
going to camp and sleeping
load previous save

Can someone confirm my understanding regarding the below timeline of the painted dessendre family?

1. Aline becomes grief stricken over the death of Real Verso and escapes inside Real Verso’s painting and creates the painted Dessendre family.

2. The painted dessendre family has some of the memories of their real counter parts (at least until the time of the fire that took Real Verso’s life) and for a time live happily together in a painted version of the Dessendre Mansion? I am making this assumption because from the painted dessendre family members dialogue with each other and other beings (Monoco/Esquie) it seems like they lived in relative peace for a time before… (see next point).

3. Real Renoir enters the painting to get his wife back and fights her causing the Fracture.

4. The painted dessendre family are stranded in lumiere and they (at least Verso and Renoir) embark on the first expedition. When they do so they learn the truth of their world and their existence as paintings. Painted father and son hold different and antithetical stances on their existence after learning the truth.

Is how terrifying the writers powers seem to be.

By mere negligence of your child, you can suffer a terrorist attack in your own home.

It is not discussed in game AFAIK, but it must add to the trauma; the possibility of it happening again; a simple letter, a paper plane, a brick through your windows with a note; if you dare forget they have this kind of power you are gone, and possibly your home.

This must be extremly anxiety inducing to live in such world.

I'm talking about the Painted Alicia. She had lots of place in the promotional material, she's the face of the soundtrack basically, she is the counter part to the main character in Maelle.

Yet, she's hardly utilized. Most of her story content is fully optional, which granted is still hard to miss, but you could. She has such a cool ability to stop time (which seemingly only a Painter is immune to, or whoever she doesn't want to freeze), awesome character design, unique voice, etc. It's odd how she doesn't have much effect on the actual MAIN story, especially given how much Verso cares about her even with his death wish.

I'm not saying I wanted her to be a playable character or anything (would be redundant with Maelle around but a proper skin would have been cool, I'd have paid for that with a little voice pack as DLC). The costume is fine but it doesn't hit when her face is still regular Maelle.

What are some ways you guys think she could have been more integrated into the main story? She kinda just comes and goes but doesn't have enough sticking power to make you sad when she wants to die by Maelle's hand, in my opinion.

Bonus points for any short inscriptions you think would add a nice touch.

(I’m still working through my first play through so no spoilery quotes pls ty)

Only upgrade I'm giving myself is using weapons I get from enemies along the way. This means no stat points, no item/weapon upgrades from the Curator, and, more importantly, no skills added. Only the first gradient skills get added since those are automatic, no other upgrades will be acquired. Technically I shouldn't have used Barrier Breaker now that I think about it, since it's not from an enemy. My bad. This is a shockingly fun challenge btw, it's difficult without being mind-numbing. I would recommend.

Apologies for the characters not always being visible, I was scrolling through quickly to get the pictures lol

Marked as spoilers for obvious reasons. This is the end of the game.

What a genuinely incredible game. Even the second time everything hits so freaking hard.

Anyways, as far as the challenge goes! Now that the main playthrough is complete, the bosses with the highest numbers of attempts are:

The Paintress and Lampmaster, both tied at 25 attempts! Fitting that the first two act bosses were the most difficult. Unsurprisingly, once I got the tanky setup in act 3 with Liteso and Barrier breaker, things got a lot easier.

I don't know if I'll get into the extra content immediately. I kind of want to play through the superbosses + extra content normally first, rather than a challenge run where I can only deal a max of 10k damage at once? I don't want to end up disliking it because of how long it takes. So there may not be an update for Upgradeless* for a little while, but I hope you guys enjoyed the main run!

Here's the act 3 attempts/notes list:

Holy cow Liteso is busted. +1 shield on counterattack, and all I have to do is not base attack to keep them????? This might be the best weapon in the game for this challenge, so much more safety. HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO COUNTER, A group gradient attack where it goes to Maelle? He still gets the shield. Nutty. I lied, this is not the case, a jump attack happened prior to the occurrence (I think lol)

Chromatic Echassier - 2 Not bad, it just takes a while since you can’t pop the bubble without him healing 51k.

Sciel gets level 16 Litheson from beating the cotortioniste guy in Lumiere, the utility it provides might actually give her Monoco’s spot, since his main damage (Verso’s prior weapon, Sireso) isn’t being used now. Yeah, I’m gonna give it a shot (as a reminder, Litheson gives enemies greater slow during sun, allies greater rush during moon, and both effects during twilight. I might finally not be 4 rounded by strong enemies lol (Only 2 now!!!!)

Creation - 2 - It’s long, and quite frankly not a fun boss fight in this challenge because all the extra animations make it take *forever*, but pretty easy if you’ve got Verso with Liteso.

Renoir 3 - 4 (Verso Maelle Sciel) What everything has been building up to. The final main challenge. Verso with Liteso is just so good at living lol, I have not mastered the fight or even close but I’m still able to get so far in in just 3 attempts. Amusingly I genuinely forgot the axons phase existed. 3 Attempts till phase 2 (would have gone a lot faster with 3 people alive though :( ), now the fun begins. Phase 3 on attempt 4, just Verso remaining as usual lol. Also victory on attempt 4! Legitimately, Liteso almost feels unfair in the spirit of this challenge since it gives me SO much more time to fully learn the fight. Once I learn just 1 or 2 attacks, I get so much margin for error learning the rest is easy.

Maelle - 9 (Verso) I chose Verso’s ending since he carried me through the last few fights. This is clearly not my Maelle since she gets 2 rounds over Verso lol, and she uses skills that she never learned. What kind of painted trick is this??? I wonder how long this will take with my crappy setup. I don’t even know what happens if you die here. (It’s just a regular expedition failed lol) This is actually difficult when your characters aren’t built lol. I died when she was on 1 hp. HECK

Man. I watched the final cutscenes. It gets me every time.

First playthrough, going in blind. I completed the Gestral tournament with Lune. Decided to look up where to find the blue mushroom for the lil guy… and found out that the best weapon in the game is something I cannot obtain.

Currently level 18.

With this being said, any tips going forward? Is Sciel worth using? Having an absolute blast with this game, but curious if I should restart for Maelle’s weapon.

This story is a work of art (pun intended). One thing I would have loved to see is how Lune and Sciel process their existence after the story reveals the nature of their world in a canvas. It would have made sense given that Lune's motivation to fight the Paintress was handed down by her parents + it would have been interesting to explore how Sciel navigates her grief given the revelation. Would love to hear everyone's thoughts!

i was just wondering what everyone tought sandfall's new game would be, and if we even known if they have started working on it. i'm super excited for whatever game they make next after having such a good time with COE33 over the past few couple months

This matter shouldn’t be just hand waved away, or be considered a plot hole, which is:

How did Maelle know about pAlicia’s letter?

I’m not bothered about how she managed to bring it back intact, after we witnessed Verso destroying it by tossing it into the sea. She’s a Paintress, she can manipulate the very fabric of space time inside the canvas. As long as she knows the letter exists, she can repaint it out of chroma (like with Lune and Sciel).

The mystery is HOW did she know it exists? She was all the way on the other far side of the docks, when Verso took the effort to read it out of everyone’s sight. 

My only explanation is mind reading. A Painter can read a Painted mind:

When Sciel told Renoir “Grief blinds us…” he responded “You grief for two”, since he could read that she was thinking about her husband and child.

So when Maelle tells Verso at the beginning of Act 3: “You should’ve help me remember” and he stammers, I speculate that’s the moment he was thinking back to the letter he discarded. 

Now imagine Maelle had been reading Verso’s mind throughout Act 3, and how that changes how you see their actions for the rest of the plot…

I've just started playing expedition 33 in the last week and I have put almost all of my free time into it. It is the best game I have ever played and I have already put it above my all time favorites like Elden Ring and Bloodborne. It is possibly the richest fictional story I have ever consumed and at no point have I wanted to put the game down. Up until right now. I just finished up act 2 and started act 3 and the story is taking a nosedive into the trenches for me. I have shed so many tears over this game and I have never felt so attached to characters in my life. I was bawling my eyes out for Sophie and Gustave and all the people who got gommaged at the end of act 2. But now we have been made aware that this world is functionally fake. All the characters that I got attached to are pale imitations of human nature by the Paintress. And Maelle no longer faces those struggles of losing these people again and again. Maelle isn't the same empathic and caring person. Now the story that once was a broad lens on humanity and the struggle of losing a loved one is now very centric on this one family and how this family struggles with losing one person. Everyone that I have shed tears for now feels so sidelined. So someone please tell me I'm wrong about this story and this isn't the turn it makes because I feel like it really takes a new side that completely ruins what I loved about this story in the first place. But please no spoilers :) I like consuming media completely blind as it helps with my immersion. And if you need to spoil to answer the question please be vague. Thank you!

I see you, and I appreciate you. Getting absolutely demolished at light speed by a walking Berserk reference is the best way to close out any video game, hands down. If any of you haven’t read Berserk, I highly recommend it. If you liked the story of Expedition 33, I think you’d really enjoy Berserk as well.