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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY contender, but also a huge financial hit. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title surpassed 5 million units sold, and that’s despite it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success was an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we'd create an enjoyable experience that would meet some average sales results,” the COO and producer commented.

Another leading developer pointed out the game's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock for everyone compared to our early predictions and what the reality of the field was. When the score released the entire team celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph resulted in the studio creating new free content for the game featuring fresh areas, enemies, along with challenging bosses, as announced would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the team will expand. “We have an excellent group under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for this game and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that led to our success then develop major titles sequentially,” the executive noted.

The size of Sandfall sparked significant conversation upon the title's release. Some developers, including renowned designers, looked at the development group as a perfect example for creative teams. Despite being truly compact versus large developers, checking Expedition 33’s credits shows that many individuals were involved; Sandfall hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit slightly more definitely when facing next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” the executive commented. “But I would see more of a workshop of a few highly skilled individuals that create a work of art together.” They emphasized that their core belief as a studio “aims to keep the strengths that enabled this success originally.”

Although it's premature for the studio to say specifically about future projects — believe me, I tried to get them to — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of our creations,” a developer remarked. “It's still premature to be able to tell our next interests, however, it's crucial to stay true to our creative core through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

The lead programmer added how this game began with the visionary pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that philosophy will be repeated in coming projects.”