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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title surpassed 5 million units in sales, this is even with it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite a surprise for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game garnering moderate sales results,” a senior team member stated.

The CTO and lead programmer noted the game's critical score, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” for everyone relative to our early predictions and the actual outcome of the field was. Because when it dropped all staff members was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception has led to the studio creating new free content for the title with a new environment, enemies, along with challenging bosses, which they said would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, as the title expands, it's unlikely the studio to grow. “We have a great team guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for our work and future concepts. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the producer added.

Their team size generated plenty of debate when the game came out. A few well-known creators, like Hideo Kojima, considered this studio as the “ideal” for game development. Although the team is and was indeed a small team versus large developers, one glance at the game's credits shows that many individuals participated; Sandfall hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more definitely should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” they said. “However, I envision rather a creative atelier comprising a handful really talented people that can make a work of art together.” It was stated that Sandfall’s vision as developers “is more to maintain the strengths that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans what’s next — and trust me, efforts were made — the team does know their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” they explained. “The timing isn't right to announce future passions, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our creative core featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that excites us.”

The lead programmer added how this game started with their director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that's something we can continue with upcoming games.”