Expedition 33 First Hours Walkthrough: Opening Chapter Through the First Boss

The opening hour of Expedition 33 throws a lot at you. Cinematics, combat tutorials, four characters to meet, a crafting system, Pictos, Luminas, and a world that looks gorgeous but gives you zero navigation help. It's a lot.

I restarted after my first three hours because I'd made enough small mistakes that the mid-game felt harder than it should. So here's the walkthrough I wish I'd had — focused entirely on the first chapter through the first major boss.

The Tutorial: What Actually Matters

The tutorial teaches you basic movement, camera control, and combat fundamentals. Pay attention to two specific things the game doesn't emphasize enough:

First, the parry timing window. The tutorial enemy attacks with a long, obvious windup. Watch the enemy's weapon hand, not their body. The parry window opens when their hand starts moving forward, not when the attack animation begins. This distinction matters for every fight going forward.

Second, the free-aim targeting system. Press the aim button during your turn and you get a reticle you can move freely. Ranged attacks consume Action Points (AP), and you can target specific enemy body parts for bonus effects. A headshot with a pistol might stagger, a leg shot might slow. The tutorial mentions this once and never brings it up again.

After the tutorial ends, you're dropped into the first hub area. Don't leave yet.

The Hub: Talk to Everyone

There are NPCs in the starting hub that give you free items if you talk to them. A merchant near the fountain gives you three healing salves. An old woman by the eastern gate hands over a starter Pictos that most players miss entirely — it gives a small HP regen after each battle, which is way more useful in the opening hours than it sounds.

One NPC mentions the expedition flag system. Interacting with the flag in the hub restores your health and items and respawns enemies. Do this once to see how it works, because every flag in the game follows the same rules.

First Combat Encounters: Three Things to Practice

Before pushing toward the first story checkpoint, fight the respawning enemies near the hub flag at least three or four times. Not to grind levels — you don't need to grind in this game — but to practice three things:

1. Parry timing on different enemy types. The slow soldiers telegraph for about a full second. The faster scouts have a much shorter tell. Learn both rhythms.

2. Switching characters mid-fight. You can swap between your active party members during battle. Get comfortable with the swap button because later fights demand it.

3. Using the free-aim system under pressure. In a low-stakes fight, practice aiming for headshots. The AP cost is worth the stagger.

You'll also earn your first Pictos from these early fights. Equip them immediately — even the basic ones give small but noticeable stat bumps.

Choosing Your First Party Setup

After the first story beat, you get access to two characters. Gustave (Overcharge mechanic) and Lune (Stance mechanic). For the opening chapter, I'd recommend keeping Gustave in the lead spot. His Overcharge builds from successful parries and dodges, which forces you to engage with the timing system rather than avoiding it. It's better to learn now than suffer through the chapter 3 difficulty spike.

Set Lune as your second. Her stances add complexity but her default stance has a decent ranged attack that costs only 1 AP. Use her to pick off weakened enemies while Gustave handles the frontline.

The Opening Area: What Order to Do Things

From the hub, you can go three directions. The game nudges you east toward the main story. Ignore that for now.

Go north first. There's a small side path with two enemy groups and a chest containing a weapon upgrade material. Nothing game-changing, but the enemies here are the slowest in the game — perfect for building parry confidence. Clear it, flag checkpoint, continue.

Then go south. The southern path has a mini-boss encounter that the game doesn't mark as a boss. It's a larger version of the standard soldier enemy with about triple the HP. This fight teaches you something important: some enemies have unblockable attacks. You'll see a red flash before these attacks land. The only response is dodge — parry won't work.

I didn't learn this until much later because I kept trying to parry unblockables and eating full damage. The red flash is your signal. Pay attention to it.

After clearing south, you're leveled enough for the eastern story path. Your Pictos will have gained a few levels, you'll be comfortable with parry timing, and you'll have some spare healing items.

The First Boss: What Nobody Tells You

The chapter 1 boss caught me off guard. Without spoiling specifics, here's what you need to know:

It has two phases. The first phase is standard — parry its telegraphed swings, punish during recovery windows. The second phase changes everything. The boss starts mixing unblockable attacks into its rotation, and the tells get faster.

Watch for the red flash. In phase two, about every third attack is unblockable. Dodge those, parry the rest.

The boss also summons adds at roughly 60% HP. Ignore the adds. Seriously. They respawn if you kill them, and the boss's HP pool is the only thing that matters. Burn the boss down and the adds despawn.

If you're struggling, check your Pictos loadout. By this point you should have unlocked at least one Lumina (permanent passive from a fully leveled Pictos). Make sure it's equipped in your passive slot. The difference between having that Lumina active and not is noticeable.

Finally, use the camp system before the boss if you've unlocked it. Rest, upgrade whatever weapon you can, and watch the companion scene for some context on what's actually happening story-wise. The Paintress lore gets its first real development here, and it's worth paying attention to.