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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that this title exceeded 5 million units in sales, this is in spite of its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was a shock to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience that would meet some average commercial success,” the COO and producer explained.

Another leading developer pointed out the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, was the most surprising moment for everyone versus what we anticipated and the final result proved to be. When the score released the entire team were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

That success has led to Sandfall developing new free content for players with a new environment, foes, plus epic encounters, which they said is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, despite the game's evolution, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. “We have a great team with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for this game plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the executive noted.

Their team size generated plenty of debate following launch. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for a studio. Despite being truly compact versus large developers, a quick look at the title's staff list reveals many individuals participated; Sandfall hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more for sure if we have next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” the executive stated. “But I would see rather a creative atelier comprising a handful really talented people that create a work of art together.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as a company “focuses on preserving the key advantages that led to this accomplishment originally.”

Although it's premature for the studio to reveal exact details about future projects — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of what we built,” they remarked. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell what will interest us, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds plus innovative play that excites us.”

The developer mentioned how this game started with their director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that philosophy we can continue with upcoming games.”