Given how emotional and intense Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is from the start, it’s no surprise that its ending is even more impactful. The final act is a flurry of plot twists, lore reveals, and missing puzzle pieces, each leading to a realization of the tragic chain of events.
The final moments of Clair Obscur leave a lot to chew on, to say the least. With so much going on at once, it’s easy to miss important details as the Monolith’s mystery is finally revealed.
Let’s look at the full story of Holst and the ultimate fate of Expedition 33.
Warning! Spoilers!
Act 2 Climax: The Artist’s Defeat and Aftermath
Act 2 concludes with Expedition 33 completing their mission and defeating the Artist in a tough fight. Maelle, using the power taught to her by the Curator to erase the immortal Renoir, banishes the Artist from the world.
Verso reveals that the Artist was his mother, Aline, and that with her death, he and the rest of his family are finally mortal, but does not explain further until the Expedition returns to Lumiere. Lune, Mael, and Ciel are hailed as heroes for defeating the Artist, and Verso slips away from the celebration to read a letter from his sister, Alicia.
As Verso reads the letter on the dock, a wave of energy emanates from the Monolith, instantly unleashing Gommage on all Lumiere residents, regardless of age. Only Verso, Monaco, and Eskey survive.
Estate, Year 49 Monolith: True Identity Revealed
The game takes place in a flashback set in the Manor sixteen years before the events of Expedition 33. Alicia, still recovering from the fire that disfigured her face, is called to the atelier at the back of the mansion by her older sister, Clea. Upon exploring the house, it becomes clear that it is in Paris, not the fictional city of Lumiere, and that in this reality, Verso died in the same fire that crippled Alicia.
Alicia discovers her parents, Renoir and Aline, in a trance-like state with vivid blue hues painted over their eyes, in front of a giant swirling Canvas. Clea says that they are fighting for dominance within the Canvas, and that she does not have time to continue trying to get them out. She insists that Alicia enter the Canvas to intervene while Clea hunts the Writers, the rival guild responsible for Verso’s death.
Alicia, not being a skilled Artist herself, attempts to enter the Canvas, but is overwhelmed by Aline’s lameness. Instead of drawing herself into the world as her own avatar, she is born as a character in the Canvas, controlled by Artist Aline. With her memories and personality suppressed, Alicia is “redrawn” into the Canvas world as Mael, and lives for sixteen years without knowledge of the Manor, her true family, or her power as an Artist.
The Truth about Holst: The Artificial World and the Struggle of Parents
When Mael undergoes the Gommage at the end of Act 2, she is banished from Canvas back into her real body, with full memory of both her lives – as Alicia and as Mael. The world of Canvas in which the game takes place has all along been an artificial creation that Verso drew as a child as a fantasy land for his sisters to play in.
When Verso died in a fire, Aline began spending too much time in the Canvas, which contained a fragment of Verso’s soul, as a way to cope with her grief. As her physical body wasted away from malnutrition and overexposure to chroma, Renoir followed her into the Canvas to force her to leave, fearing for her life. The rift was caused by the battle between the two – Renoir trying to force Aline to leave the Canvas, destroying the world within it if necessary, and Aline fighting to preserve the Canvas and remain within.
Aline imprisoned Renoir beneath the Monolith, but was herself bound to its summit to keep her husband there, creating a stalemate between the two powerful Artists. They could still interact with the world to a limited extent through their respective Estates and painted avatars – in Renoir’s case, the Curator.
Defeating Aline and removing her from the Canvas freed Renoir, allowing him to unleash his full power and instantly erase all of Lumiere’s human inhabitants. Verso, Alicia, Esqui, and the Gestrals were spared because they are immortal and cannot permanently die unless the Canvas itself is completely destroyed.
Alicia’s Return: New Powers and Confrontation with Renoir
Knowing that Renoir plans to erase the Canvas entirely so that Aline can never return to it, Alicia re-enters the world, this time painting a full-fledged avatar of herself. In effect, she is now both Mael and Alicia, with the former’s sword skills and the latter’s Artist powers.
Finding Verso to inform him of his return, Mael attempts to reason with Renoir. He categorically refuses to spare Holst, even though the destruction of his son’s only painting pains him, because he fears that now both Alicia and Aline will wither and die from overuse of Holst. When Renoir attempts to destroy Mael and send Alicia home again, she and Verso flee back to the Continent with Esca.
Quickly mastering her powers as an Artist, Mael redraws Lune and Ciel, bringing them back to life after Gommage (though, strangely, not Gustav). Verso and Mael explain the situation – for his part, Verso reveals that he is Aline’s creation, created to replace her lost son in the world of Canvas.
The Greatest Expedition in History: Assembling an Army of Ghosts
With control over most of the world’s chroma, Renoir is able to summon his own Neuron-like creatures to protect himself, as well as create and destroy at will. He simply needs time to gather enough power to erase the world entirely. Without her own chroma, Mael is unable to resurrect the inhabitants of Lumiere or draw her own army of monsters, so she devises a plan to use the dead Expeditionaries from across the Continent.
The Neurons—which several side quests reveal are Clea’s creations—take over the chroma of their victims in their corpses. This function was designed to rob Renoir and Aline of the strength to fight, but Maelle is able to use the impure chroma of the dead to recreate half-formed versions of the fallen Expeditionaries. In essence, she creates an army of ghosts with which to attack Lumiere and break through to Renoir’s position in the Crooked Tower.
During the assault on Lumiere, Expedition Log 60 can be found on the beach, revealing that they discovered the truth about the Artist and the true reason for Gommage, but their time ran out before they could warn the town.
Mael and her companions encounter Renoir, who assumes his Curator form for the battle. Despite the Expedition’s strength, they are no match for Renoir, who repaints Siren’s Axon to aid him. Aline re-enters the Canvas, despite the grave danger to her health, to restrain Siren with her Artist form, allowing Expedition 33 to defeat Renoir and banish him from the Canvas.
The Last Choice: A Duel for the Fate of the World
Using the rifts created by Renoir and Aline, Verso enters the heart of the Canvas, where a fragment of Verso Prime’s soul resides. Thinking he is alone, he convinces the child-like creature to stop painting, which would destroy the Canvas and everyone in it – including himself. Mael appears with his sword drawn to stop him.
Verso wants his immortal existence to end, and knows that destroying the Canvas is the only way to do so, even if it means everyone else – Monaco, Eske, Ciel, Lune, and everyone else – will also be erased. He also tells Mael that staying in the Canvas will kill her, as she has been inside it for too long already.
Mael responds that Verso has no right to kill the inhabitants of Holst, and that she knows she will die in Holst, but that it is her choice. She would rather live a short, false life in an artificial world than her empty life of constant pain and silence in the real world.
Realizing that the matter cannot be resolved with words, Verso draws his own swords. The player is then asked to choose which character to play as in the duel for Holst’s fate, which determines which ending is shown.
Conclusion – a tragic choice between reality and illusion
The finale of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a profound meditation on the nature of reality, attachment, and grief. The confrontation between Maelle and Verso embodies a classic philosophical question: which is better, a happy illusion or a painful truth?
Alicia/Mael chooses to remain in the artificial world, where she can live a full life, albeit limited in time. Verso sees the Canvas as a continuation of suffering and seeks to end the endless cycle, even at the cost of the lives of all its inhabitants.
Mael’s ending
If Mael wins the final duel, she refuses to erase Verso, despite his pleas. Like Aline, she is unwilling to let Verso die a second time, and redraws him while he repeats, “I don’t want to live like this.”
After some time, Lumière is fully restored and all the inhabitants return to life. Eski greets the people gathered at the Opera House, and Mael meets his friends, including Gustave, Sophie and their young son.
Verso appears on stage to play the piano, but his movements are stilted, stiff, and almost mechanical. Mael has redrawn him against his will to become the brother she wanted, causing irreparable damage to his personality. Although it is not stated explicitly, she has likely altered the lives and personalities of others to her own liking, turning the world she saved into her own personal dollhouse. As Verso begins to play, Mael’s eyes begin to show blue chroma spots, a sign of overexposure to Holst, and the screen fades to black.
Verso ending
If Verso wins, he consoles Mael as she is banished from the Canvas once more, knowing that this is the last time they will see each other. Each member of the Expedition shows up to say goodbye: Eskey, Monaco, and Ciel understand Verso’s decision, but Lune simply falls to the ground with a silent stare, realizing that he is destroying everything she has dedicated her life to.
As everyone else is Gommaged, Verso takes the hand of a child (a fragment of Verso Prime’s soul) and together they fade into oblivion, erasing the Canvas forever.
In the real world, the Dessandre family gathers at Verso’s grave to lay flowers on the anniversary of his death. Aline and Alicia are alive, and the family is finally beginning to heal from the trauma of their tragedy. Alicia holds Eska’s stuffed animal as the ghostly memories of the inhabitants of Holst wave goodbye.
Regardless of the choice, Clair Obscur’s ending remains melancholy and ambivalent, leaving room for reflection on what it means to be real, the power of art to create worlds, and the lengths people will go to preserve the memory of those they have lost.