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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY candidate, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title exceeded five million copies sold, and that’s even with it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as a surprise to Sandfall. I was convinced that we'd create an enjoyable experience garnering reasonable market performance,” a senior team member commented.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked that Clair Obscur’s critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” to the team compared to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome proved to be. When the score released all staff members was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception resulted in work on new free content for players featuring fresh areas, foes, plus epic encounters, which they said is coming sometime soon.

However, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. Our team includes an excellent group under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for our work and future concepts. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that made this possible and perhaps create one big game after another,” the producer said.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion following launch. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, viewed this studio as the “ideal” for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team versus large developers, checking Expedition 33’s credits shows that dozens of people participated; Sandfall contracted a Korean team for animation work, for example.

“We will hire slightly more for sure if we have an increase in development down the line,” they stated. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that can make collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that their core belief as a studio “is more to maintain the successful elements that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Despite being premature for the studio to say specifically what’s next — and trust me, efforts were made — the developers understand their essential identity. “Strategic combat, forms the foundation of this project,” a developer said. “The timing isn't right to announce our next interests, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

The developer added that the project originated from their director developing his passion title. And hopefully this approach will be repeated as well for future productions.”