Gaming: Painkiller's Creator Jokes That Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Team...

"There's an incredible amount of smart decisions that allow them to make a game that looks AAA."

One of the core elements of Lovecraftian storytelling is the idea that brushing up against knowledge changes you—the fear is not that you look upon something comprehensible, it's that you look at something no-one else can understand and, just for a fleeting moment, get that it is possible. Then you need to go back to your ordinary life.

The creator of Painkiller and current creative director of Witchfire, Adrian Chmielarz, sounds a little like a Cthulhu-stricken Lovecraft protagonist in his recent interview with Gamesindustry.biz. The cosmic entity in question? Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which has confounded executive suits and game developers alike by raking in enormous success despite being built by a core team of 30 people (and a large list of contractors).

At the very least, Chmielarz is talking from a place of comparison with Witchfire's similarly-sized team of just under 30 devs—he's cognisant of the above quibble, stating later in the interview "we use outsourcing, and Sandfall Interactive used a lot of outsourcing". And he boggles not at the size, but at the relative amount of novices on Sandfall's roster.

"We only wanted to work with the best," Chmielarz explains, "Because during the development of Bulletstorm or Gears, I had a taste of that, and then I thought, 'This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.' So I don't care if the project is big or small, I only want to work with like-minded people: really passionate, really talented people."

He uses Valve as an example of the kind of team he wanted to create: "Valve hires people that can be self-organized. They don't really need a producer with a whip in order to create something. But when you have passionate people, this comes naturally. You also remove a lot of traction, because you just mention something to the guy, he gets it very quickly, you iterate, and then it's done."

In other words, "There is this old saying that ten professional soldiers are as effective as a hundred amateurs, or even a thousand, and that's quite simply true. So when you have a small team, it's really important that you have the best people."

Which is where Clair Obscur comes in, because ostensibly, it's a team of first-timers. Its composer was stumbled into on soundcloud, its lead writer from Reddit. Director Guillaume Broche seemingly has a sharp eye for talented newcomers and the guts to give them a chance

Source: PC Gamer