Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 actor was "nervous" to see its Metacritic score after appearing in notorious The Lord of the Rings: Gollum and witnessing "the occasional zero"

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Receiving feedback at work is almost always terrifying, but waiting for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review scores was especially intense for actor Rich Keeble. He'd been hurt before, by a shriveled thumb named Gollum…

Keeble, the voice of Expedition 33's helpful, mystic creature Monoco, the turtle boss François, plus other characters in the French JRPG, shares during the recent Clair Obscur cast panel at Game On Expo 2026 that he "was starting to get a bit nervous" before the game's 2025 release. He was used to receiving negative attention for past projects, including now defunct developer Daedalic Entertainment's action-adventure game (in theory) Lord of the Rings: Gollum in 2023.

"I've been trolled online for various commercials I've done in the UK and a game called Lord of the Rings: Gollum," Keeble says. The actor played the gaping Mouth of Sauron in the title, which critics and players all pityingly considered a flop. Our two-star The Lord of the Rings: Gollum review likewise calls the game "terrible," and its current 33 Metacritic score, plus its 1.5 Metacritic user score, suggests few people disagree.

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"I remember, actually," Keeble says, "my jaw had dropped in the same amount when I was looking at nines and 10s for Expedition [as it did for when I was reading] ones and twos for Gollum. The occasional zero."

Expedition 33 Cast Talk Fame, Fans & the Game’s Success | Live Panel from Game On Expo 2026 - YouTube Watch On

But just as the actor could never have predicted the sad sight Gollum would make – though Daedalic choosing to add what looks like hair plugs to Tolkein's already tragic character might have provided a decent hint – Keeble wasn't prepared for how beloved Expedition 33 would immediately become. It was unprecedented. Fellow actor and voice of grizzled warrior Verso, Ben Starr, didn't see it coming, either, when Keeble called him up ahead of Expedition 33's launch for moral support.

"They were getting a lot of views on those trailers, and there was a lot of attention to it," Keeble says about developer Sandfall Interactive. "So yeah, I just said to Ben, I said, 'Can we meet up and just talk about it?' And, yeah, Ben was very graciously saying, 'I think it'll be good, but I just want to manage your expectations. I think it might be Metacritic 80-something.'"

In reality, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 ended up spending most of its release year as Metacritic's best-rated game, and it still boasts the highly competitive Metacritic score of 92, placing it in a "must-play" category with historical greats like Minecraft (which has a 93 Metascore) and Guitar Hero (91).

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"I'm still nervous about it," Keeble admits, because receiving an avalanche of attention over a good thing, instead of Gollum, is still overwhelming. "It's going crazy."

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 gets a surprise update for the RPG's first anniversary and, my god, Monoco has braids now: "This expedition WILL be strutting around."

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Ashley BardhanSenior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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