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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner announced that the game topped five million copies in sales, and that’s in spite of its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement came as a shock to the developers. I was convinced that we'd create a solid title achieving moderate commercial success,” the COO and producer stated.

Another leading developer pointed out that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, was the most surprising moment to the team relative to what we anticipated and the actual outcome of the field was. When the score released the entire team celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph resulted in Sandfall developing a free update for the game featuring fresh areas, enemies, plus epic encounters, which they said would be out in the next few months.

However, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the team will expand. “We have an excellent group under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for this game and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and perhaps create one big game after another,” they said.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation when the game came out. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, considered this studio as the “ideal” for a studio. Although the team is and was relatively lean versus large developers, one glance at the game's credits reveals dozens of people participated; Sandfall contracted a Korean team for animation work, for example.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more certainly if we have a future production surge in the coming years,” they commented. “Yet I picture more of a workshop comprising a handful really talented people that can make collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that their core belief as developers “is more to maintain the strengths that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of what we built,” they said. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell what will interest us, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our studio's essence through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

They mentioned that the project started with the visionary pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that philosophy will be repeated in coming projects.”