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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY contender, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Studio the development team and publisher their publishing partner disclosed that the game exceeded five million copies sold, this is in spite of it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as quite a surprise to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have a good game achieving some average market performance,” the COO and producer commented.

A technical director remarked the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as the most surprising moment for everyone relative to what we anticipated and what the reality proved to be. Because when it dropped the entire team celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception has led to the studio creating a complimentary expansion for the title including novel settings, enemies, and boss fights, as announced will release sometime soon.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. “We have a talented crew under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for this game plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that led to our success and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the executive added.

The size of Sandfall generated plenty of debate following launch. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, viewed this studio as the “ideal” for creative teams. Despite being truly compact compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the game's credits shows that many individuals were involved; the French studio contracted a Korean team to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit a little more for sure when facing next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they commented. “But I would see more of a workshop of a few exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing a work of art together.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as developers “aims to keep the strengths that enabled this success originally.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” they explained. “The timing isn't right to announce our next interests, yet we must to stay true to our creative core through compelling worlds plus innovative play that excites us.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game originated from the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire that philosophy we will be able to do in coming projects.”