Andy Serkis: Clair Obscur proves video games are finally being treated like film
- Andy Serkis used Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to argue Hollywood’s old snobbery toward game acting is fading, after praising the RPG’s visuals and craft. - Serkis plays Renoir in Sandfall Interactive’s breakout hit, which has since piled up awards, a film adaptation deal, and 8 million sales. - The bigger shift is cultural — prestige actors now chase game roles instead of treating them like second-tier work.
Video game acting is having one of those quiet status shifts that only looks obvious after it happens. Andy Serkis put that shift into words this week when he talked about *Clair Obscur: Expedition 33* — the breakout RPG where he voices Renoir — and said the old Hollywood snobbery around games is finally starting to crack. That matters because Serkis is not some random celebrity cameo. He’s one of the actors most closely tied to performance capture as an art form, so when he says games are being treated more like film and TV, he’s naming a change people in both industries have been circling for years. ### What did Serkis actually say? The core point was simple. Serkis said there “has always been that snobbery” around video game acting, but that attitudes are changing, and he tied that change directly to projects like *Expedition 33*. He also praised the game itself — especially its look — saying he loved the idea, the visuals, and how beautifully it came together. (eurogamer.net) ### Why does Serkis saying it carry weight? Because Serkis has spent decades sitting right on the border between film acting, digital performance, and motion capture. He isn’t just lending a famous voice to a game for a paycheck. His whole career helped legitimize acting through pixels, rigs, and animation. So when he talks about games being taken seriously as performance spaces, he’s basically describing a wall he has watched slowly come down. (eurogamer.net) That makes his comments feel less like hype and more like an industry temperature check. ### Why *Clair Obscur* in particular? Because this was not a disposable celebrity casting exercise. Sandfall Interactive built *Clair Obscur: Expedition 33* as a prestige RPG from the start — Belle Époque-inspired art direction, a heavily cinematic presentation, and a cast that also includes Charlie Cox and Jennifer English. Serkis said the team first sent him a pitch deck, and the concept itself grabbed him before the game was even finished. (eurogamer.net) That detail matters — it shows the project was being pitched more like a serious screen production than a novelty game gig. ### Did the game actually back that up? Yes — pretty emphatically. *Expedition 33* turned into a real hit. It earned strong critical scores, won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2025, and even had a live-action film adaptation announced before launch. By spring 2026, coverage around the game was also pointing to 8 million sales, which is a huge number for a debut title from a new studio. In other words, Serkis is attaching this argument to a game that genuinely broke through. (expedition33.com) ### So is this really about games being “like film”? Sort of — but the more useful point is that the production culture is converging. Games still are not films. They have different design goals, player agency, and technical constraints. But the craft stack now overlaps a lot more than it used to — screen-style performances, prestige casting, cinematic direction, adaptation pipelines, and awards attention. *Expedition 33* looks like proof of that overlap because it succeeded as a game without hiding the fact that it was also built with film-grade performance ambitions. (metacritic.com) ### What changed inside acting culture? Serkis gave the clearest tell there too. He contrasted the old era — when actors looked down on games — with a newer one where drama school graduates actively want game roles. That is the status flip. Once younger performers start treating games as desirable creative work, not fallback work, the hierarchy changes fast. And once that happens, better talent keeps flowing in, which makes the work better, which pushes the status even higher. (blog.playstation.com) ### Why does this matter beyond one game? Because prestige is contagious. One acclaimed project does not settle the argument, but it gives agents, actors, studios, and audiences a cleaner example to point at. *Clair Obscur* is useful because it combines artistic ambition, commercial success, and adaptation interest in one package. That is exactly the mix that changes how an industry talks about itself. (eurogamer.net) ### Bottom line? Serkis is really describing a class upgrade. Games do not need film’s approval to matter. But when actors of his stature start talking about them as serious performance work — and a game like *Clair Obscur* keeps winning both acclaim and audience — the old “lesser medium” posture gets harder to defend. (eurogamer.net) (variety.com)
