I am obsessed with expedition 33 reactions.

Ive watched them all probably.

Yours is the best. When renoir shouted at maelle about the shadow of the worst day of their lived.. Youre so emotionally attached, its like watching my daughter when I get mad at her 😊

Verso was so pure, the painted memory of him saved the family from falling apart due to the grief of losing the real one

absolute cinema ✋😎✋

The most heart wrenching thing about this ending is that no matter what you pick, the whole scenario is left so that someone gets screwed over. Maelle and Verso’s respective traumas have shaped them in such a way that their ideals are completely at an impasse. To side with one is to rob the other of agency, even if it may well be doing what is best for them.

If you pick Verso, he is finally freed from the shackles of his immortality. Remember not only was this entire Canvas made specifically for him, he isn’t even truly Verso. And he’s been trapped in that existential nightmare for too long. Bound to memories that he knows aren’t his. And we finally let him claim agency over his mortality and let him go out on his own terms. But at what cost?

The Dessendres, as an outlet for their grief, made an entire world of living, thinking people, and consigned them to a ticking clock apocalypse because they got caught up in their creators’ family drama. And you’ve spent dozens of hours in this world connecting with it, coming to love these characters and fighting to give them a future. And just when it seems they finally have one, Verso takes it away. To take Verso’s side is to agree with Renoir, that this painted world isn’t real and doesn’t matter.

I love that the game makes you linger in every member of your party as they Gommage. Monoco and Esquie have known Verso longest and they saw this coming. They simply hug him and fade away without complaint. Sciel, despite how hard she fought to save this world has had enough experience with death to understand why Verso did what he did, and wordlessly empathises with him. But Lune? She just sits there. Coldly. She doesn’t offer sympathy. She doesn't offer forgiveness. Because Verso lied to her. Again. Despite getting attached, he stabbed everyone he’s come to bond with in the back (and those were relationships you developed and fostered as a gameplay mechanic).

And what about Maelle? Yes, rationally, this is the correct choice. Leaving the canvas gives her a shot at healing. And at Verso’s funeral we can see glimpses that maybe the fractured family has a chance to reconcile. But we have to rob Maelle of all agency. To force her back into a world of pain, consign her to a life altering disability. Maelle treasures her family as both Alicia and Maelle equally. But she is ultimately giving up a family either way. Her birth family or her painted one. But she didn’t even get the luxury of choice, after we just fought so hard to give her the agency her father denied her. So we basically sacrificed the very world we fought to save, just for the slim chance that Maelle might get therapy.

So does that make the Maelle ending better? Unfortunately no, because Christ this is a horror story. On the one hand, it seems like the one where everyone got what they wanted. Gustave, Sophie and all those who Gommaged are restored. All these people whose chances at life were stolen from them by the machinations of the Dessendres get a chance at life. And Maelle has clearly given Verso the ability to age, so he will one day die as he wishes, but can live a full life until that happens.

And yet, we come back to that point. The Dessendres are basically gods to the Canvas. That can never be put back in the box. Maelle’s relationship with her loved ones will never be the same. Letting Verso age might be a kindness in the same way sending Maelle back to her family was, but in the same way, it strips him of any agency. He’s literally performing for her on a stage. Symbolic of how that power dynamic of Painter and Painted will forever linger over them. She will never truly have her brother back.

Furthermore, that (absolutely terrifying) smash cut to Maelle with painted eyes like the Paintress shows the true horror of this. If choosing Verso meant validating Renoir, then choosing Maelle calls Aline to mind. Maelle, like Aline, is left drowning herself in a dream, chasing catharsis in a world she controls. It’s a gentle rule, but a rule nonetheless. She will always be a god, and her found family will always be her creations, and that may well drive her to lose herself as it did her mother.

Verso’s ending was a cruel vivisection, one where the treatment was arguably more extreme than the result. Cutting everything away chasing an uncertain future. Maelle’s ending preserves life, but offers only stagnation. Even after defeating both Aline, and Renoir, both Maelle and Verso were ultimately shaped by their parents, and repeat their perspectives. Even at this final choice one that is theoretically theirs without their parents’ influences, they can’t shake off their legacy of grief and pain. As such, there is no golden ending for these two traumatised souls.

Both endings come with their share of disturbing implications, and both can make sense to a player at the time. A player might agree with one of the two in the moment but be horrified at the consequences. Like Verso said ‘we’re all hypocrites’ none of these chances are pleasant. The Dessendres’ grief, and the lives they toyed with as a result, will have consequences one way or another.

Ultimately, I would pick Verso’s ending as the lesser evil, if only because it offers some kind of hope that SOMETHING good may come with this. Maybe the family really can move on. Maybe tomorrow will finally come, as the game’s been constantly saying. But you as the player, are still gonna have to carry the weight of Lune’s cold, judgemental stare. Remember how much you threw for even the slimmest chance at another outcome. Is that arguably better than leaving Maelle to a prison of her own making, to nothing but stagnation? Maybe, but that doesn’t make the alternative any less pleasant…

Young Verso created the canvas as a play space for him and his family to enjoy and in doing so bound a fragment of his soul into the "void". All canvas require a fragmented soul from the initial creator, with it acting as a sort of maintainer of the world within. As far as we know this is the only canvas real Verso created, or at the very least the only one remaining.

Verso's soul enjoyed the act of maintaining this world as it allowed him to bring a lot of happiness into both his and his sibling's lives as they got to play with their creations together much like kids do in real life. That all changed after real Verso's death, with Aline and Renoir now inside the canvas for over 60+ canvas years, fighting each other over their dead son's memory. Verso's soul has been forced to continue maintaining a canvas that has now been twisted into something he never wanted for both it's world and the family that it was created for. He wants for his family to just grieve naturally and realise eventually that they were going to be ok without him.  He continues to paint for them in hope that they will heal and be able to move ahead with their lives without him, but we see from all the interaction with the faceless boy that even the soul is being tormented, not knowing if they will ever truly free themselves from this world and allow him to pass into nothing more than a fading memory.

Painted Verso intervenes when he realises that Maelle has become fully addicted to the life within the canvas, much like Aline. Bargaining like an addict, making excuses why they can't do the right thing for both themselves and their immediate friends and family. Instead choosing escapism through substance abuse, or in this case drowning oneself in a world that hurts them far less emotionally than their reality, but far more physically as their body begins to break down from malnutrition. Their friends and family miserable as they watch on unable to help. Anyone that has felt any layer of depression understands the internal struggle of doing what is right over doing what feels good in the moment. Eventually that short term rush mixes in with greater amounts of guilt and only makes the desire to do the right thing more difficult.

I love this game. It paints grief for what it is, anything but clear-cut.

YASSSSSSSS I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE BACK!!

Omg Alicias weakness was fire I never realized thats FOUL.

The thing is she will never mature, she will never grow up and she will never move on from the past, the way I know this is her decision to keep verso alive against his will for her own selfishness. Also to me it looks like verso lost the will to live now that he can’t save his sister from a fate worse than death that he will against his will play a part in.

"Maelle will mature and heal"
Nope... Even worse... XD

Absolutely loving every video❤

Those damn baguette glasses covering the emotion in Verso's eyes at Alicia. Wish the bread, beret and glasses were toggles.

Great reaction Tokiori!

Everything with Esquie and Monoco becomes so fun when you realize they are dogs. THEY ARE SO MUCH LIKE DOGS.

Gustav/ 10, Love this game and Love your reactions ❤️❤️

FINALE TIME LES GOOO !

Every single time someone chooses maelle that quote just rings loud "see things as they are. Not how you want them to be" so many people have to say "maybe she does this. Maybe she does that. Maybe it's all going to be perfect" but if you see everything she's already let slip it was never going to be that way

Angela sucks!