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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top GOTY contender, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title surpassed five million copies sold, this is even with it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as quite a shock to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving some average sales results,” a key executive stated.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out this title's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock for everyone relative to what we anticipated and what the reality of the field was. Because when it dropped all staff members celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception resulted in the studio creating a free update for the game featuring fresh areas, enemies, along with challenging bosses, as announced is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, as the title expands, it's unlikely the studio to grow. We've built an excellent group with a strong creative director with a clear direction for our work plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that led to our success and perhaps create one big game after another,” the executive added.

The studio's scale generated plenty of debate following launch. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, considered this studio as the “ideal” for game development. Although the team is and was relatively lean next to major studios, a quick look at the game's credits indicates dozens of people were involved; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a bit more certainly when facing next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they commented. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio of a few highly skilled individuals capable of producing collective masterpieces.” He noted that their core belief as a studio “aims to keep the key advantages that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans about future projects — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of what we built,” the lead programmer explained. “It's still premature to be able to tell our next interests, but it's important also to remain faithful to our creative core through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer noted that the project originated from their director “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped that philosophy we can continue as well for future productions.”