Expedition 33 has landed in the prison!

Hello everyone!

Keeping this secret was hard, we've been bursting to share it, and what better stage than the Triple-i Initiative to announce it. We're proud to reveal our collaboration with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33!

You must fight to break the cycle ! For those who come after !

Astral Ascent x Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is here!

A world you thought you knew is about to feel a lot more unfamiliar, new faces, new fights, and a few old friends showing up in places they were never meant to be.

A Word From The Team

"We've wanted to do this for a long time. Getting to work with Sandfall Interactive on this crossover has been one of the best experiences we've had making Astral Ascent, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a game we fell in love with, like so many of you did, and this update is our way of paying tribute to it. Our biggest challenge was translating this world into our own pixel art, staying true to what makes these places feel alive while making them ours. We're incredibly proud of what came out of it, and we hope it shows. "

Three Exclusive Bosses

Golgra, the Mime, and Petank have made their way into the Prison. Each one comes with combat mechanics built specifically for this crossover, so expect to relearn your patterns.

- Golgra - She performs devastating kick attacks and small gestrals from the public jump in to join the fight. Everything is fine as long as she is calm but once she gets angry her second phase starts!

- The Mime - They will be relentlessly attacking you with their hammers, nails, brick walls and more! You will have to defeat both of them almost simultaneously or they will revive!

- Pétank - Running away at first, Petank will then make projectiles rain on you, creating clones and big explosions!

Three New Rooms

Step into three rooms pulled directly from the world of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 :

- Lumière - Fight Petank & The Mimes with Lumière in the background!

- The Gestral Village - Fight Golgra in her own village with Gestral cheering for the good fight to come!

- The Campfire - A restful and calm area for the Expedition 33 with their goal at the horizon: the Paintress & the monolith!

These rooms appear at random before the world-ending boss. Each run, one world is randomly chosen where you’ll be offered the choice between the Andromeda Bar and Expedition 33 content, choose wisely, because if you pass it up, it’s gone for the rest of your run!

Around the Campfire

Pull up a seat. At the Campfire, you'll be offered 3 of the Expedition's members as a special summon giving you access to a unique mechanic! Gustave :

A versatile ally, Gustave heals you, boosts your attack and strikes alongside your basic attacks. Every time he is summoned, his arm charges up a little more until it’s ready to unleash a devastating blow.

Maelle :

Maelle fights according to a stance system tied to your HP, shifting her focus between attack and defense. Hold the same stance long enough and she will unleash a powerful attack built around it.

Sciel :

Sciel fights with a set of cards that trigger under different conditions: draw Moon to regenerate mana, Sun to have Sciel strike enemies directly or Twilight to unleash a powerful attack.

Lune :

Lune casts elemental spells based on the affinity of the spells you’ve been using. Summon her enough times and she will unleash a powerful spell of her own!

Verso :

Verso tracks a rank that climbs with every enemy you hit and drops every time you get hit. He starts with an attack penalty but push your rank high enough and he will reward you with a massive attack bonus.

Monoco :

Every so often, Monoco draws a random card from a set of five, each one triggering a powerful monster summon depending on which card comes up.

The expedition 33 makes appearances across your runs, but you'll only get to pick one each time. Take a moment to chill by the fire, and while you're there, give Esquie a hug!

The Expedition 33 content is free and unlocks once you've beaten the game on base difficulty (Destiny Level 0).

New: DLC & Additional Content Menu

We've also added a new sub-menu to the main menu, dedicated to DLCs and additional content. It gives you a clearer view of what you've unlocked along with the exact conditions to access the content in-game.

Next update: Boss Rush sneak peek

A Boss Rush makes a lot of sense for Astral Ascent, given the sheer number of bosses we have and the fact that they are the highlights of every run! This update has actually been on our minds for years now (the Boss Rush cinematic and assets were already done back December 2023!), but rather than rushing it out, we wanted to make sure it would be genuinely interesting and worth playing, so we kept refining the design instead.

Everything shown below consists of mockups and is subject to change, we have started integrating it in-game but it’s not ready to be shared yet!

First of all, a whole new area, accessible from the main hub thanks to Ikki’s help!

From there you will be able to access Archetypes which define your base build for starting the different Challenges! We will be creating a range of different builds with distinct playstyles, unlockable using a new currency earned completing challenges!

These builds can include anything, from spells to summons and more letting us create truly unique builds and base playstyles for you to experiment with!

Once you have a build you will be able to fight either in Arena mode versus enemies and minibosses…

Or versus Zodiacs!

As you can see above, the boss rush has its own difficulty curve built on the Destiny Levels progression, and you will have to defeat all of them in the right order, starting easy and working your way up to challenges that will test even the most experienced players!

Between fights and waves, you will be able to power up your archetype: level up your spells level, boost the rarity of your gambits,auras and more!

Or even by adding new elements to your archetype like new summons for example!

Each world will have a unique theme!

We’re confident this design will bring an engaging sense of progression and let us craft fights that are both fun and challenging! As you can probably imagine, there’s still a lot of work ahead for us to bring this system to life, but we’re fully committed to seeing it through!

None of this would have been possible without your support. Thank you for sticking with us through it all! And as always, one of the best ways to support us is by leaving a Steam review for the game or its DLCs, so if you’ve already done that, thank you, and if not, please consider it!

Stay tuned, the boss rush is coming in the next few months! Thanks for liking and sharing the news, it helps us a lot!

See you in the Garden!

The Hibernian Workshop Team

Complete patch-notes: