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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive Game of the Year candidate, but also an enormous sales triumph. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that the game topped five million copies in sales, and that’s even with it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as a shock to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have a solid title achieving moderate commercial success,” the COO and producer commented.

Another leading developer noted that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock to the studio relative to what we anticipated and the final result proved to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success resulted in work on new free content for players with a new environment, foes, along with challenging bosses, which they said would be out sometime soon.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, it's unlikely the studio to grow. Our team includes a talented crew with a strong creative director who has a great vision for our work plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that led to our success then develop large projects one by one,” they added.

The size of Sandfall drummed up significant conversation when the game came out. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, looked at the development group as the “ideal” for a studio. Although the team is and was indeed a small team next to major studios, checking the game's credits indicates dozens of people participated; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a little more definitely when facing an increase in development down the line,” the producer stated. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio of a few exceptionally gifted creators that create collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as developers “focuses on preserving the key advantages that enabled this success from the start.”

Despite being premature for the studio to reveal exact details about future projects — and trust me, efforts were made — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of this project,” a developer remarked. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell what will interest us, yet we must to adhere to our creative core through compelling worlds plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

They mentioned how this game began with the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that philosophy we will be able to do in coming projects.”