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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top GOTY contender, it’s also a massive financial hit. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that this title topped 5 million units sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success was an unexpected turn to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have a good game achieving reasonable market performance,” a senior team member explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, was the most surprising moment to the team versus our early predictions and what the reality turned out to be. Because when it dropped all staff members were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception has led to the studio creating a complimentary expansion for the title including novel settings, foes, plus epic encounters, as announced is coming in the next few months.

However, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. We've built a talented crew under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for our work plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and do maybe major titles sequentially,” they said.

The studio's scale sparked significant conversation following launch. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being relatively lean versus large developers, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits reveals many individuals worked on it; Sandfall hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit slightly more for sure should there be next an upcoming production peak down the line,” the executive stated. “But I would see rather a creative atelier comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing artistic collaborations.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as developers “focuses on preserving the key advantages that enabled this success from the start.”

Although it's premature for the studio to disclose concrete plans what’s next — and trust me, efforts were made — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” the lead programmer said. “The timing isn't right to announce our next interests, however, it's crucial to adhere to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

They noted that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from the creative director developing his passion title. We aspire that philosophy will be repeated in coming projects.”