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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive Game of the Year contender, but also a huge commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title exceeded five million copies in sales, and that’s despite its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as a shock for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game that would meet moderate market performance,” the COO and producer commented.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked the game's review aggregate, now standing at 93, came as the most surprising moment to the studio compared to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome turned out to be. When the score released everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. The energy was electric.”

The positive reception resulted in the studio creating a free update for players with a new environment, foes, plus epic encounters, which they said is coming sometime soon.

However, as the title expands, don’t expect the team will expand. “We have an excellent group under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for our work plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that led to our success then develop major titles sequentially,” the executive added.

The studio's scale sparked significant conversation upon the title's release. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, looked at the development group as a perfect example for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the game's credits shows that dozens of people were involved; the French studio hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more for sure should there be an increase in development in the coming years,” the producer stated. “But I would see rather a creative atelier with a small number of really talented people capable of producing artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that their core belief as developers “aims to keep the key advantages that enabled this success originally.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to reveal exact details about future projects — believe me, efforts were made — they are certain their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” they explained. “It's still premature to specify our next interests, yet we must to adhere to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

The developer noted how this game started with the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire this approach we will be able to do with upcoming games.”