Act Three
Everything Film Does,
Games Do Too
The shared foundation — and why it already makes games extraordinary
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — character design, visual direction, and world-building as a unified language. 2025.
3
Everything Film Does, Games Do Too
The shared foundation
Narrative
Story structure, pacing, dramatic tension — the craft of making people care. Every game with a story needs a writer who understands narrative at a fundamental level. And unlike film, the player controls the pace.
Character
People don't connect to plots. They connect to people. Creating characters who feel real is as hard in games as anywhere — harder, because you may need to write a character the player inhabits rather than observes.
Visual Design
Every frame is a choice. Colour theory, composition, atmosphere — all of it communicates before dialogue starts. Games need this across hundreds or thousands of environments, at consistent standard, built by a small team.
Sound & Music
The invisible layer that tells you how to feel before you consciously know why. Games need all of this — and it must respond dynamically to what the player does. Hades swaps music stems mid-bar as you move between biomes; Celeste layers melodies in as the emotional stakes rise. Adaptive audio is a discipline in its own right.
World-Building
The world has to feel like it existed before the story started. Environmental storytelling — objects, architecture, NPC placement — communicates without a word. Players feel the absence of depth even when they can't name it.
Games must do all of this. At professional level. That alone makes it one of the most demanding creative endeavours there is. But they don't stop here.
