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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year contender, but also a massive sales triumph. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that the game exceeded 5 million units in sales, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as quite a surprise for the team. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title achieving moderate sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted this title's critical score, now standing at 93, came as the greatest surprise” for everyone compared to what we anticipated and the actual outcome of the field was. Because when it dropped the entire team celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

That success resulted in the studio creating a free update for players including novel settings, adversaries, plus epic encounters, as announced would be out sometime soon.

However, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the studio to grow. We've built an excellent group with a strong creative director with a clear direction for the project and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the close-knit size that led to our success then develop large projects one by one,” they said.

The studio's scale generated significant conversation following launch. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, looked at Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for creative teams. Despite being relatively lean versus large developers, checking the title's staff list reveals numerous contributors were involved; the French studio contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, for example.

“We will hire slightly more for sure should there be an increase in development in the coming years,” the executive stated. “However, I envision rather a creative atelier of a few exceptionally gifted creators that can make artistic collaborations.” It was stated that their core belief as a company “focuses on preserving the key advantages that enabled this success originally.”

While it may be premature for the studio to disclose concrete plans what’s next — and trust me, efforts were made — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of what we built,” a developer explained. “It's still premature to specify future passions, but it's important also to stay true to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer mentioned that the project started with the visionary pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that philosophy we will be able to do with upcoming games.”