"For Those Who Come After" - The Symbolism in Expedition 33's motto

During the last The Game Awards, where Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was the big highlight as the most awarded game in the event's history, the phrase “for those who come after” often echoed when the Sandfall Interactive RPG received an award — the motto was first uttered by Jennifer English when she received the award for best performance and later by Guillaume Broche when the title was named Game of the Year for 2025.

At the awards ceremony, the phrase was also a way of acknowledging that no creative milestone is born in a vacuum and that every success carries a debt to the past and a responsibility to the future, but it offers more layers when delving into the lore and universe created by the Sandfall Interactive team.

While it might sound somewhat generic at this point, the Expeditions' motto has several possible interpretations, ranging from Clair Obscur's themes, the core concept of one of its characters, the recognition of the legacy of other titles and major developers that inspired the Sandfall team, and our collective commitment to the future.

So, let's dissect this discourse within and outside the game and its narrative and existential implications.

“For those who come after” is, in essence, the principle of one of Clair Obscur's themes. In the game, it's a common motto among the Expeditioneers, a mantra almost always repeated by Gustave, and its main symbolism is the sense of legacy in a universe where death is a certainty.

Time is a concrete countdown, and in Lumière, it's represented by a huge number written in the distance by the Paintress. Each expedition sets out knowing that their days are limited and that, at the end of the cycle, the Gommage awaits them. To live the last year on a journey, for those who decide to confront their destiny, is to contribute to something that will outlive their own existence and build hope for the future.

The motto represents the continuous effort of each expedition to leave something that facilitates the path of the next, like a collective work for future generations in pursuit of a common goal. What matters is contributing to a greater goal, even knowing that the final result may never be seen.

Therefore, as we explore the world, we find incomplete maps, hastily scribbled research notes, and hooks embedded in walls to make future climbs possible—all composing a collection of attempts, failures, and small victories that, added together, bring the next Expedition closer to its ultimate goal: destroying the Paintress.

This progress, however, also comes with the macabre reminder of uncertainty and death: one of the most symbolic scenes in the first hours of Clair Obscur is when Gustave comes across a pile of petrified bodies just minutes after setting foot on the Continent, members of previous expeditions killed the moment they arrived, not unlike most of his group—the bodies are a recurring visual element in various regions of the game, serving as reminders that someone was there before, tried, failed, but advanced a little further, and that their arrival there is the collective result of previous efforts.

This philosophy is condensed in the character who most often utters the motto in the game, Gustave. We see the protagonist lose his beloved—with whom he broke up at some point due to, apparently, having disagreements regarding having children, and whose regret at not making the most of the time they had left was evident—which serves as an impetus for him to have even more determination to leave, and even when everything was about to collapse, the protagonist manages to find the motivation to move forward.

Gustave also understands his sense of duty towards future generations. The phrase "for those who come after" is used whenever the character notes a new discovery about the world in his diary so that once the notebook returns to Lumière, or if a future expedition finds it one day, he will have left his mark and his lessons so that, if he fails, another may succeed by following in his footsteps and learning from his successes and failures.

The character's approach and the purpose of the phrase are also linked to the central theme of Expedition 33: grief. Living in Lumière is learning to live with absence and with the certainty that one day your time will come —the same certainty we have in our material existence, but which we tend to ignore— and when loss and death are so evidently inevitable, the need arises for them to offer something: that each finite life leaves marks that facilitate the life of those who have not yet arrived. To give purpose to loss, like a silent pact between generations that will never meet and an ethical response to the inevitability of death: if the end is certain, meaning lies in what remains when we die.

Of all the characters in Expedition 33, Gustave is also the one who best understands his role in this contract and strictly follows what he expects of himself and other expeditioneers.

The transmission and purpose of his legacy take physical form in the plot through Maelle, to whom he passes on his teachings and for whom, in a way, the objective of Expedition 33 best represents: until she reaches Gustave's age, Maelle will still have half of her entire life to live, and like her, there are many other young people who depend on each Expedition to have a full and free existence to enjoy without countdowns or the haunting reminder of inevitable death.

The sense of continuity, of passing the baton between generations, is not new in the gaming industry and emerges in tributes to creators who paved the way and in thanks to influences that shaped entire careers.

When the team behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took the stage at The Game Awards to receive the Game of the Year trophy, the director's speech was spot-on in its approach to legacy, presented in the game's main motto, thanking Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Final Fantasy, and even YouTube tutorials that taught how to create games. It was his act of recognizing that creative dreams only exist because someone paved the way, experimented, had their successes and failures, and taught future generations.

It's no coincidence that this recognition occurred at a historic moment for Sandfall Interactive: from that point on, Expedition 33 became a landmark for independent studios, especially outside the major traditional centers of the industry. The game proved that it's possible to compete at the level of industry giants without replicating dominant models, with a smaller budget, creative freedom, and passion, leaving its mark on the history of artistic creation.

No movement arises from nothing: musicians learn from previous musicians, filmmakers from filmmakers, writers from writers. Games are no different. Final Fantasy inspired generations of developers, as did Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Persona, and so many others. Now, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 occupies that same space for future generations of developers as part of the chain of influence that will shape the future of the industry and, especially, the RPG genre.

“For those who come after”, in this context, is the metalinguistic statement of the purpose of developing a work. The team behind Clair Obscur recognizes that the title is the culmination of creative legacies and that it now also sows the path for the industry in the coming years, a reference that will serve as inspiration for future developers of the next generation.

On the other side of the screen, there are us. We can broaden the scope of the motto beyond the industry and into our individual existences.

Everyone, to some extent, leaves something for those who come after; whether teachers in classrooms, parents raising their children, friends who leave lasting marks, or even professionals from all kinds of fields who, through their small individual and collective actions, also do something for future generations.

The motto in Expedition 33, in the end, invites us to think about what we are building for the future. What do we leave behind when we depart? What paths do we facilitate? What mistakes do we record so they are not repeated? In the face of our immediate achievements, what steps are we taking in relation to the ethics of continuity for our world? Are we building the reality we want our children, nephews, younger siblings, or their friends, and anyone else who is yet to come, to live in?

When we depart, what remains are the memories, but also the teachings, stories, and legacy we leave behind. They will not eliminate the pain of loss—it will be up to those who remain to know how to manage it—but they give it a purpose, making our actions meaningful, fulfilling the contract between the us of today and the them of tomorrow.

Knowing that someone left behind something important —a work, an idea, or a positive influence— doesn't erase their absence but transforms it into memory, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 understands this. The game doesn't offer easy answers or comforting, happy endings to grief but seeks to communicate the perspective that living, even under the shadow of death, can be meaningful if there is an awareness that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We all move forward, together.

Perhaps that's why the motto made so much sense and was so symbolic at The Game Awards: in a world addicted to immediacy, Expedition 33 reminds us that tomorrow comes and that when one falls, we continue.

All of us, to a greater or lesser extent, participate in this chain. What we leave behind—in words, gestures, works, or examples—is what will give meaning to our passage in the face of the certainty that one day we will no longer exist, our living memory and legacy for those who have not yet reached where we, collectively, have arrived, and who will walk the paths we helped to open.