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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year candidate, it’s also a massive commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner announced that this title topped 5 million units sold, this is in spite of it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success was an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I was convinced that we'd create a solid title garnering reasonable market performance,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer remarked that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, was the greatest surprise” for everyone versus “our initial expectations and the final result of the field was. Once it was published all staff members celebrated excitedly. The energy was electric.”

This triumph has led to work on new free content for the game including novel settings, foes, and boss fights, which they said will release sometime soon.

That said, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the studio to grow. Our team includes a great team guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for our work and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that led to our success and do maybe large projects one by one,” the producer noted.

The studio's scale drummed up a storm of discussion upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for game development. While Sandfall was and is truly compact compared to its AAA counterparts, checking Expedition 33’s credits reveals many individuals worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more definitely should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” they said. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier comprising a handful highly skilled individuals capable of producing a work of art together.” He noted that their core belief as a company “is more to maintain the strengths that enabled this success originally.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to reveal exact details about future projects — believe me, I attempted to learn more — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” the lead programmer remarked. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell future passions, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

They added how this game originated from the visionary developing his passion title. We aspire that philosophy we can continue in coming projects.”