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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY contender, but also a massive commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title topped 5 million units sold, this is even with its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as quite a shock to the developers. I was convinced that we'd create a solid title that would meet reasonable commercial success,” the COO and producer stated.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, was the most surprising moment for everyone relative to our early predictions and the final result of the field was. Once it was published everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

That success has led to Sandfall developing new free content for players including novel settings, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, as announced would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, as the title expands, it's unlikely the studio to grow. Our team includes a talented crew with a strong creative director with a clear direction for our work and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the close-knit size that made this possible and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the producer added.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion upon the title's release. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, looked at the development group as a perfect example for game development. Despite being indeed a small team versus large developers, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits shows that many individuals participated; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit slightly more definitely if we have a future production surge in upcoming years,” they said. “But I would see essentially a craft studio with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators that can make artistic collaborations.” It was stated that their core belief as a company “is more to maintain the key advantages that enabled this success originally.”

Although it's premature for the studio to disclose concrete plans what’s next — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the team does know their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” they said. “It's still premature to specify future passions, but it's important also to adhere to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game started with the visionary pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped this approach we can continue in coming projects.”