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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive Game of the Year contender, but also a huge sales triumph. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner announced that the game exceeded five million copies in sales, and that’s despite its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was a shock to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we would have a solid title garnering moderate sales results,” a key executive explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted the game's review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the team compared to what we anticipated and the actual outcome turned out to be. When the score released all staff members celebrated excitedly. The energy was electric.”

That success resulted in Sandfall developing a free update for the title including novel settings, adversaries, plus epic encounters, which they said will release in the next few months.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. “We have a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for this game plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and do maybe one big game after another,” they noted.

The size of Sandfall sparked significant conversation following launch. Some developers, such as the famed director, viewed this studio as the “ideal” for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team versus large developers, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits indicates dozens of people worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit slightly more certainly should there be a future production surge in the coming years,” the producer stated. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier of a few highly skilled individuals that create artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as a studio “focuses on preserving the strengths that enabled this success in the first place.”

Despite being not the right time to say specifically what’s next — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of our creations,” the lead programmer remarked. “It's still premature to be able to tell what will interest us, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer noted that the project began with the creative director developing his passion title. And hopefully that's something we can continue as well for future productions.”