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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY contender, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner announced that the game exceeded five million copies sold, this is in spite of it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as an unexpected turn to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we'd create an enjoyable experience that would meet moderate market performance,” a key executive stated.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked that Clair Obscur’s critical score, now standing at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment for everyone versus what we anticipated and the final result turned out to be. When the score released all staff members was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

That success has led to the studio creating new free content for players featuring fresh areas, adversaries, plus epic encounters, which they said is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, while the game is growing, don’t expect the team will expand. “We have a talented crew with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for our work plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that worked for this game and do maybe one big game after another,” they noted.

The studio's scale generated plenty of debate following launch. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for a studio. Although the team is and was indeed a small team next to major studios, one glance at the title's staff list reveals dozens of people were involved; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a little more definitely if we have an increase in development in upcoming years,” the producer said. “But I would see more of a workshop comprising a handful really talented people that can make a work of art together.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as developers “is more to maintain the strengths that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Although it's not the right time to reveal exact details regarding upcoming titles — believe me, I attempted to learn more — the team does know their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, is integral to our identity of what we built,” a developer explained. “The timing isn't right to specify future passions, but it's important also to stay true to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

The developer mentioned how this game originated from their director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something we will be able to do in coming projects.”