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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY contender, but also a massive sales triumph. Developer the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that the game topped 5 million units sold, and that’s in spite of it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement came as a shock to Sandfall. I was convinced that we would have a solid title that would meet reasonable sales results,” the COO and producer stated.

A technical director noted the game's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock for everyone compared to what we anticipated and the final result of the field was. Once it was published all staff members were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph has led to Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, enemies, along with challenging bosses, as announced would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, don’t expect the team will expand. Our team includes a great team with a strong creative director who has a great vision for our work plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that led to our success then develop large projects one by one,” the producer added.

Their team size sparked a storm of discussion following launch. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, viewed this studio as the model for creative teams. Although the team is and was indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits indicates dozens of people participated; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“We will hire a bit more definitely when facing an increase in development down the line,” they commented. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators that can make collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that their core belief as a company “aims to keep the strengths that enabled this success originally.”

Despite being not the right time to reveal exact details about future projects — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer said. “It's still premature to specify our next interests, but it's important also to stay true to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

They mentioned how this game originated from the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something we can continue in coming projects.”