Video games are full of great quotes. Some are iconic and emotional, others meme-worthy. Polygon recently ranked the 100 best video game quotes and, despite it still being relatively new compared to other heavyweights on the list, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 showed up twice. (Unfortunately, Maelle’s “PARRY IT!” didn’t make the cut.) One entry was for the expeditioners’ most notable motto, “For those who come after,” and it perfectly reflects the spirit of the game and its themes.
While Expedition 33 is a metatextual narrative heavily about grief and the creation of art, it’s also about perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds, and that theme is so often reflected in its dialogue. Expeditioners are constantly saying “tomorrow comes” and “we continue” like they’re motivational sayings spotted on signs hung up at your local gym. They need to be continually reminded to persevere because no expedition has ever succeeded in its battle against The Paintress. Dozens of expeditions have left Lumière and never returned.
An early scene that perhaps encapsulates those themes finds Gustave encountering the piled-up corpses of past expeditions. It’s immediately after his expedition is wiped out upon landing on The Continent, and he realizes that they were doomed from the start. Devastated, he puts a gun to his head.
Fellow expedition survivor Lune, whom players meet in the game’s prologue, arrives just in time to save Gustave. Filled with despair, Gustave argues it’s only a matter of time before they end up dead like the expeditioners around them. “This is not a foregone conclusion,” Lune says. “‘When one falls, we continue.’” She sets the tone for the rest of the game.
