How to get both Expedition 33 Endings and their implications explained.
Expedition 33 is an emotionally charged game, dealing with themes of grief, depression and how people deal with loss.
And these themes come to a head during the end of the game, as you the player, have to make an important decision that will decide the fate of Lumiere and the lives of its citizens.
Expedition 33 has two endings, and the ending you get depends on the decision you make.
In this article we’ve explained each ending of Expedition 33 and their implications.
However, to understand Expedition 33’s ending, we need to understand the story so far and the motivations of each key character.
WARNING: MAJOR STORY SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
The Story So Far
Act 2 ends with Expedition 33, under Verso’s lead, finally defeating the Paintress. During the end of the battle, the Paintress stops attacking the expedition and starts casting protection spells on them. At the end of the battle, Maelle banishes the Paintress from the world, using a spell she learned from the Curator.
After the battle, Verso reveals that the Paintress was his mother. And with her death, he and his family would finally be mortal.
The expedition then returns to Lumiere, where they receive a hero’s welcome. It is during this celebration, however, when a wave of energy erupts from the now broken Monolith, and everyone in Lumiere, regardless of age is Gommaged. Verso, Monoco, and Esquie are the only survivors.
The Dessendre Family
The game then transitions to a flashback 16 years before the events of Expedition 33. Maelle wakes up in a manor that the expedition visited earlier in the game.
We also learn that Maelle is an alternate version of Alicia, the masked figure that accompanies Renoir. Moreover, the manor exists in a different reality, one similar to our own, and the manor itself is in Paris rather than the fictional city of Lumiere. And in this reality, Verso was killed in a fire which also scarred Alicia.
Alicia and her sister Clea are part of a family of Painters, who can create worlds with the power of their creativity, and their brother Verso was killed in a fire started by a rival faction of Writers.
Consumed by grief, their mother Aline has lived every moment since then inside Verso’s canvas, the world of Lumière. The Verso that we know is a copy created by Aline, who you might know as the Paintress.
Alicia and Clea decided that Alicia would enter the Canvas, where she is reborn as Maelle and would eventually grow up to defeat the Paintress. Meanwhile, Clea would hide the Canvas so that Aline could never enter it again.
However, Renoir, their father, already followed Aline into the Canvas to try get her to leave. The numbers Aline paints weren’t a threat, rather they’re a warning that Renoir is trying to destroy their world.
Defeating Aline therefore allowed Renoir to unleash his full power and kill all the inhabitants of Lumiere. Verso, Alicia, Esquie, and the Gestrals survive and can only be killed when the painting is destroyed.
Confronting Renoir
Maelle and Alicia now merge, and along with Verso, confronts Verso and tries to get him to restore the people of Lumiere, so that Verso’s Canvas can go on to live without Aline inside.
Renoir refuses, believing that Aline would not be able to control herself from entering the Canvas again. Renoir then tries to destroy Maelle so that Alicia is forced out of the canvas. However, along with Verso, she manages to escape to the continent with Esquie.
Maelle then uses her paintress powers to revive Lune and Sciel, and decides they must defeat Renoir to gather enough Chroma to resurrect the citizens of Lumiere.
They, along with the help of Aline, manage to defeat Renoir and expel him to the real world.
Two Endings
As Renoir and Aline exit the Canvas, a rift appears, which is implied to be the bridge between Verso’s Canvas and the real world. There, a childlike being, implied to be Verso’s soul, is painting on a canvas.
Verso tries to get the child to stop painting, so that the Canvas and everyone in it is destroyed. Maelle tries to stop him.
Verso wants his immortality to end, even if he must erase the Canvas and everyone in it. He also explains to Maelle that if she stays any longer in the Canvas it will kill her, and that she and the rest of their family need to move on.
Maelle responds that Verso has no right to destroy the people inside the Canvas. And that she would rather live a short life there instead of a lonely and painful life in the real world.
You must then choose whether to fight Verso as Maelle, or to fight Maelle as Verso.
Maelle’s Ending
The scene cuts to Lumiere after Maelle wins the duel and Verso begs her to erase him.
We see the town and its citizens completely restored, including Gustave and Sophie who now have a son. Esquie greets everyone as they take their seats at the Opera House to watch Verso play the piano.
However, Verso seems not himself, his movements are almost zombie like. And everyone else seems a bit strange too, as Maelle recreated everyone in her own image, including their personalities. Lumiere is now a dream world for her to live in.
In the final shot, we see a close up of Maelle, her eyes stained with chroma just like her mother’s eyes were. Like Aline, Maelle is also trapped in the Canvas, trying to cope with her grief and depression.
Verso’s Ending
After Verso wins the duel, he tells Maelle that this is the last time they will see each other. The rest of the Expedition appears to say their farewells. They say that they understand Verso’s decision, except Sciel and Lune, who give a bitter look to Verso.
After everyone fades away, Verso takes the child’s hand and disappears. The Canvas is erased along with everyone else inside it.
In the real world, Alicia and the rest of the Dessendre Family gather at Verso’s grave. They decide to accept Verso’s death instead of running away from reality and grief.
After Aline, Renoir, and Clea leave, Alicia lingers for a little while more. Before the game ends, she sees the apparitions of Lune, Sciel, Gustave, Verso, and Maelle waving farewell, finding comfort in her memories with the Expedition.
