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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year contender, but also a massive commercial success. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that the game exceeded five million copies in sales, this is even with it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was an unexpected turn to the developers. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience garnering reasonable commercial success,” a key executive explained.

A technical director noted the game's review aggregate, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” for everyone relative to our early predictions and the final result proved to be. When the score released everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception resulted in the studio creating a free update for the game with a new environment, enemies, plus epic encounters, reportedly is coming in the next few months.

That said, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. “We have an excellent group under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for this game plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that made this possible and do maybe one big game after another,” the producer noted.

Their team size sparked significant conversation upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, considered Sandfall’s team as the model for a studio. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the game's credits indicates many individuals worked on it; Sandfall hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit slightly more for sure if we have an increase in development down the line,” the executive stated. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio of a few exceptionally gifted creators that can make artistic collaborations.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as developers “focuses on preserving the key advantages that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Strategic combat, is integral to our identity of what we built,” the lead programmer said. “It's still premature to specify future passions, however, it's crucial to adhere to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

They mentioned how this game began with their director developing his passion title. And hopefully that's something we will be able to do in coming projects.”