While the player-generated faces in Oblivion Remastered are notoriously unsettling, they can’t quite compete with the anatomical horrors discovered within Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. These digital monstrosities—first unearthed by developers during testing and now by the community—are a byproduct of the game’s remarkably unrestrained Photo Mode.
“In many titles we examined, Photo Modes often felt far too restrictive, which leads to immediate player frustration,” QA coordinator Naja Dalmagne noted in a recent developer blog. “Our primary objective was to facilitate creative expression by removing as many barriers as possible.”
However, granting players total autonomy over the camera has led to some unintended, often grotesque, visual consequences.
Dalmagne revealed that the QA team stumbled upon several “severe” yet comical glitches during production. These included characters with displaced torsos or jaws resting on the floor. According to the developer, these distortions typically occurred when a character had been off-screen for an extended period, causing their models to de-sync or deform the moment Photo Mode was activated.
This creative freedom also invites players to peek behind the technical “smoke and mirrors” used during cinematic sequences, often revealing the messy reality of game development.
“When we built this tool, the mission was to provide unfettered access: infinite camera distance, the removal of collision physics, and a suite of bizarre filters,” explained senior gameplay programmer Florian Torres. While this level of access is a boon for virtual photographers, it exposes everything the developers usually keep hidden. “It’s a way to see how the world is constructed outside the camera frame,” Torres added, sharing images of characters with missing limbs and haunting expressions that were never meant to be seen by the public.
The community has leaned into these glitches, producing surreal, zoomed-in portraits that emphasize the engine’s most awkward rendering moments. Despite the viral popularity of these accidental horrors, Sandfall Interactive remains committed to polishing the experience.
Photo Mode consultant Ludovic “Shinobi” Helme confirmed that the team is still actively addressing stability issues. “We are working on fixes for persistent problems,” Helme stated, encouraged players to stay tuned to official social channels and Steam forums for future updates.
Source: Polygon
