Audio Score · July 2026
In early 2020, a French guitar teacher did what he always did — uploaded a track he’d written that week to SoundCloud, then casually shared it on an indie game forum. He didn’t think much of it. Over the past year, he’d done this every week, building up over fifty compositions.
That track was called We Lost.
A few days later, a message appeared in his inbox — from Guillaume Broche, game director of a little-known French indie studio: “I’m working on a project, and I’d like to invite you to write the score.”
Five years later, that guitar teacher — Lorien Testard — saw his composition top both the Billboard Classical Album and Classical Crossover Album charts, holding #1 for six consecutive weeks. By year-end, it ranked #2 on both charts — the highest-ranking game soundtrack in Billboard year-end chart history.
He is the composer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
From Guitar Teacher to Game Composer
Lorien Testard’s story sounds like a Hollywood screenplay, but every line is true.
He started teaching himself composition at 16 for three years, then entered formal music school for three more. By day, he was a guitar teacher; by night and weekends, he locked himself at home writing music. One piece every week, rain or shine, uploaded to SoundCloud. “I just dreamed that one day I could create an entire universe through music,” he wrote on the official blog.
Back then, he barely scraped by teaching guitar. When the pandemic hit and his students dried up, he quit his job and went all-in on the project originally titled We Lost. Game director Broche gave him enormous creative freedom: “Basically, I could do whatever I wanted,” Testard recalled.
“The first time Guillaume told me about this project, he said: ‘You arrive at the starting point after the heroes have already lost.’ That one line set the tone for the entire work.” — Lorien Testard
154 Tracks, 8 Hours, 5 Years — A Symphony of French Aesthetic
Expedition 33’s soundtrack scale is unprecedented in the indie game space. Testard and Broche initially aimed for three tracks per map — one ambient piece, one standard battle track, one boss theme. But as development progressed, the ambition snowballed.
In the end, Testard created 154 pieces over five years, totaling over 8 hours of music. This doesn’t even include in-game ambient tracks excluded from the soundtrack release — purely because “they were too similar, and we had to cut them for the album listening experience.”
A year and a half into development, Testard discovered singer Alice Duport-Percier on YouTube, reached out via email, and invited her to join the team as co-composer and lead vocalist. Her voice became the soundtrack’s soul — “the vocals are almost the voice of this world itself,” Testard said.
The final recording involved over 30 musicians, including a 9-person choir. Participants even included Victor Borba (singer for Devil May Cry 5) and mezzo-soprano Axelle Verner.
An Auditory Treasure Trove: From Saxophone to Turkish Cümbüş
What’s most stunning about Expedition 33’s score isn’t its scale — it’s its astonishing sonic diversity.
The game is set in a world blending Belle Époque French aesthetic with dark fantasy, and the score perfectly echoes this vision:
🎷 Saxophone — Monoco’s theme uses saxophone as its lead instrument, perfectly capturing the Gestral race’s madness, energy, and vitality. This is my personal biggest surprise across the entire album — hearing jazz-style saxophone solos in an epic RPG doesn’t happen every day.
🪗 Accordion — The clown enemy theme In Lumière’s Name deploys accordion for an effect that’s both ironic and unforgettable. Testard deliberately used this instrument to create something “catchy and memorable” — when an enemy theme makes you want to hum along, you know the music team means business.
🌿 Bawu — This Chinese Yunnan minority reed instrument creates a mysterious, ancient atmosphere — the core timbre of the game’s most breathtaking ambient music.
🇹🇷 Cümbüş — This Turkish banjo variant adds exotic Middle Eastern flavor to certain scenes, leaving you geographically disoriented — exactly what the dev team wanted.
These instruments aren’t randomly stuffed decorations. Testard carefully selected timbres for each character and scene: Gustave’s cello theme took the longest to write — because his death at the end of Act I is one of the story’s most crucial turning points, and Testard had to find exactly “the right melody.”
18 Million Streams in Two Weeks, Then Billboard
Expedition 33 launched on April 24, 2025. Global sales surpassed 2 million units in 12 days, making it the year’s biggest dark horse.
The soundtrack’s reception was even more explosive than the game itself. Within two weeks of release, the soundtrack accumulated 18 million streams across major platforms; by September (five months post-launch), that number had exploded to 333 million. On iTunes, it hit #1 on the Top 100 Album charts in nine countries.
But what truly shocked the industry was its Billboard performance. The soundtrack topped both the Billboard Classical Album and Classical Crossover Album charts, holding #1 for six straight weeks, and placed alongside Andrea Bocelli’s album at year-end (with only Bocelli ranking above it) — making it the highest-charting game soundtrack in Billboard year-end chart history.
This wasn’t just gamers celebrating. No matter how popular game soundtracks get, they rarely break into Billboard’s Classical chart — that’s a different world entirely. But Expedition 33 shattered that ceiling with its French aesthetic, diverse instrumentation, and profound emotional storytelling.
In December 2025, the game won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2025, and simultaneously released the free update “Verso’s Drafts” with 6 new tracks.
France’s Pride — Even the President Talks About It
Interestingly, this soundtrack’s influence has extended far beyond gaming. French President Emmanuel Macron publicly praised the game and its score for their cultural significance.
Laced Records collaborated with the dev team to release a deluxe vinyl set (6×LP and 2×LP editions, plus a complete 8×CD collection with 179 tracks), shipping in February 2026. An orchestral concert tour produced by Bleu Citron Tournées kicked off in October 2025, with a second tour leg expected in Spring 2026.
From an unknown guitar teacher posting on SoundCloud to topping Billboard charts and embarking on world tours — Lorien Testard’s story is the most inspiring embodiment of every independent creator in this era.
Afterword
If Expedition 33 the game is Sandfall Interactive’s bold declaration of French RPG aesthetics, then its score is the soul map of that journey. It’s not background music you listen to while playing — it’s a standalone work of art meant to be listened to from beginning to end, over and over.
When you press play and hear Alicia sung in a made-up language — the track Testard deliberately kept from belonging to any real-world language — you’ll understand. Music truly needs no translation.
🎵 Recommended Tracks: Alicia, Gustave, Lumière – Continuer à t’aimer, In Lumière’s Name, Monoco
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