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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner announced that the game surpassed 5 million units sold, this is even with it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I was convinced that we'd create an enjoyable experience achieving reasonable sales results,” a senior team member commented.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, was “maybe the biggest shock for everyone relative to “our initial expectations and the final result turned out to be. Once it was published all staff members were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

The positive reception prompted Sandfall developing new free content for players including novel settings, enemies, plus epic encounters, as announced is coming sometime soon.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. We've built a talented crew under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for the project and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and perhaps create large projects one by one,” they said.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation following launch. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, viewed the development group as the model for game development. Although the team is and was truly compact compared to its AAA counterparts, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits indicates many individuals participated; the French studio partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, for example.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more definitely if we have next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they said. “But I would see more of a workshop of a few really talented people that can make a work of art together.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “is more to maintain the successful elements that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Although it's not the right time to reveal exact details what’s next — and trust me, I tried to get them to — they are certain their essential identity. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer said. “It's still premature to specify our next interests, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

They noted how this game originated from the creative director developing his passion title. And hopefully that philosophy will be repeated in coming projects.”