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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive GOTY candidate, it’s also a massive commercial success. Studio the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title topped five million copies in sales, this is even with it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as quite a surprise to the developers. I was convinced that we'd create an enjoyable experience that would meet reasonable commercial success,” the COO and producer explained.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked this title's critical score, which currently sits at 93, was “maybe the biggest shock to the studio relative to what we anticipated and the final result proved to be. When the score released the entire team was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception has led to Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, enemies, and boss fights, which they said will release sometime soon.

However, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. Our team includes an excellent group guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that made this possible and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the producer said.

Their team size generated a storm of discussion when the game came out. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, looked at Sandfall’s team as the model for a studio. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team versus large developers, a quick look at the game's credits reveals numerous contributors worked on it; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, for example.

“We will hire a little more certainly should there be an increase in development in the coming years,” the producer stated. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio of a few exceptionally gifted creators that create collective masterpieces.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “aims to keep the successful elements that led to this accomplishment originally.”

Despite being not the right time to disclose concrete plans about future projects — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of our creations,” they remarked. “It's still premature to announce our next interests, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game originated from the visionary pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that's something will be repeated in coming projects.”