Receiving feedback at work is almost always terrifying, but waiting for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review scores was especially intense for actor Rich Keeble. He’d been hurt before, by a shriveled thumb named Gollum…
Keeble, the voice of Expedition 33’s helpful, mystic creature Monoco, the turtle boss François, plus other characters in the French JRPG, shares during the recent Clair Obscur cast panel at Game On Expo 2026 that he “was starting to get a bit nervous” before the game’s 2025 release. He was used to receiving negative attention for past projects, including now defunct developer Daedalic Entertainment’s action-adventure game (in theory) Lord of the Rings: Gollum in 2023.
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But just as the actor could never have predicted the sad sight Gollum would make – though Daedalic choosing to add what looks like hair plugs to Tolkein’s already tragic character might have provided a decent hint – Keeble wasn’t prepared for how beloved Expedition 33 would immediately become. It was unprecedented. Fellow actor and voice of grizzled warrior Verso, Ben Starr, didn’t see it coming, either, when Keeble called him up ahead of Expedition 33’s launch for moral support.
“They were getting a lot of views on those trailers, and there was a lot of attention to it,” Keeble says about developer Sandfall Interactive. “So yeah, I just said to Ben, I said, ‘Can we meet up and just talk about it?’ And, yeah, Ben was very graciously saying, ‘I think it’ll be good, but I just want to manage your expectations. I think it might be Metacritic 80-something.'”
In reality, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 ended up spending most of its release year as Metacritic’s best-rated game, and it still boasts the highly competitive Metacritic score of 92, placing it in a “must-play” category with historical greats like Minecraft (which has a 93 Metascore) and Guitar Hero (91).
“I’m still nervous about it,” Keeble admits, because receiving an avalanche of attention over a good thing, instead of Gollum, is still overwhelming. “It’s going crazy.”
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 gets a surprise update for the RPG’s first anniversary and, my god, Monoco has braids now: “This expedition WILL be strutting around.”
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