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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year candidate, it’s also a massive financial hit. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner revealed that this title exceeded 5 million units sold, this is even with its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as quite a shock to the developers. I firmly believed that we'd create a solid title that would meet moderate market performance,” the COO and producer commented.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, was the greatest surprise” to the team compared to “our initial expectations and what the reality proved to be. When the score released everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. The energy was electric.”

The positive reception prompted Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the title with a new environment, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, which they said will release in the next few months.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, don’t expect the team will expand. “We have a great team with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for our work plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that worked for this game and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” they said.

The studio's scale sparked a storm of discussion when the game came out. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the model for game development. While Sandfall was and is truly compact compared to its AAA counterparts, a quick look at the game's credits indicates dozens of people worked on it; the French studio contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We will hire a bit more definitely if we have an increase in development in the coming years,” the executive commented. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio comprising a handful really talented people that create a work of art together.” They emphasized that their core belief as a company “aims to keep the successful elements that enabled this success from the start.”

Although it's premature for the studio to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” they explained. “It's still premature to specify future passions, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds plus innovative play that excites us.”

The lead programmer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something we can continue with upcoming games.”