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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY contender, but also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title surpassed 5 million units in sales, and that’s in spite of it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was a shock to the developers. I was convinced that we would have a good game achieving some average market performance,” the COO and producer explained.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, was the greatest surprise” for everyone versus our early predictions and the actual outcome proved to be. When the score released all staff members was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception resulted in the studio creating new free content for the game featuring fresh areas, enemies, along with challenging bosses, which they said is coming sometime soon.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. We've built a great team with a strong creative director with a clear direction for this game and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that made this possible and do maybe major titles sequentially,” they said.

The studio's scale sparked significant conversation when the game came out. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, looked at this studio as a perfect example for a studio. Although the team is and was relatively lean next to major studios, one glance at the title's staff list reveals numerous contributors worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We will hire a bit more for sure should there be next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” the producer said. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier with a small number of really talented people capable of producing collective masterpieces.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as a studio “is more to maintain the strengths that led to this accomplishment originally.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, efforts were made — the team does know their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” a developer remarked. “It's a bit too early to announce future passions, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

They mentioned that the project started with the visionary developing his passion title. And hopefully that philosophy we can continue as well for future productions.”