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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top GOTY contender, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title surpassed five million copies in sales, this is in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as an unexpected turn to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title garnering some average sales results,” the COO and producer stated.

The CTO and lead programmer noted that Clair Obscur’s critical score, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the team compared to “our initial expectations and the final result of the field was. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception resulted in work on a complimentary expansion for the game including novel settings, enemies, plus epic encounters, reportedly is coming in the next few months.

That said, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. Our team includes a talented crew guided by a visionary director who has a great vision for our work and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that led to our success and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the producer added.

The studio's scale generated a storm of discussion when the game came out. A few well-known creators, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for game development. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team next to major studios, checking Expedition 33’s credits shows that numerous contributors worked on it; Sandfall hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“Some hiring will occur a little more certainly when facing a future production surge down the line,” they said. “Yet I picture more of a workshop of a few really talented people that create collective masterpieces.” It was stated that their core belief as developers “aims to keep the key advantages that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

Despite being not the right time to reveal exact details about future projects — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — they are certain what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” a developer said. “It's still premature to announce our next interests, yet we must to remain faithful to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game started with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire that philosophy will be repeated in coming projects.”