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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that the game topped five million copies in sales, this is in spite of its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as quite a shock to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have a solid title achieving some average market performance,” a senior team member explained.

Another leading developer remarked that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, now standing at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock for everyone compared to our early predictions and what the reality of the field was. Because when it dropped all staff members celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception has led to Sandfall developing new free content for the title including novel settings, foes, along with challenging bosses, reportedly is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, as the title expands, don’t expect the team will expand. Our team includes an excellent group under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for the project and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that made this possible and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the executive added.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation when the game came out. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, looked at Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the title's staff list shows that dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“Some hiring will occur a little more definitely if we have an increase in development down the line,” the producer said. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators that can make a work of art together.” They emphasized that their core belief as developers “aims to keep the key advantages that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

Despite being not the right time to reveal exact details what’s next — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — they are certain what’s at its core. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” they explained. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell future passions, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our creative core through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

They added how this game began with the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped this approach will be repeated with upcoming games.”