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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive Game of the Year candidate, but also a huge sales triumph. Studio the development team and publisher their publishing partner announced that this title exceeded 5 million units in sales, this is despite its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as a shock to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title garnering reasonable sales results,” a senior team member explained.

Another leading developer pointed out that Clair Obscur’s critical score, now standing at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” to the team versus our early predictions and the actual outcome of the field was. When the score released all staff members were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph resulted in the studio creating a free update for players featuring fresh areas, foes, plus epic encounters, which they said will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. “We have a great team guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the human scale that worked for this game and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” they noted.

The studio's scale generated plenty of debate when the game came out. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is truly compact versus large developers, one glance at the title's staff list shows that many individuals participated; the French studio contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur a little more for sure when facing next an upcoming production peak down the line,” they commented. “But I would see more of a workshop with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make a work of art together.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as developers “aims to keep the key advantages that enabled this success originally.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to say specifically what’s next — and trust me, 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,” the lead programmer remarked. “The timing isn't right to announce future passions, yet we must to stay true to our creative core with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that excites us.”

They noted that the project originated from the visionary developing his passion title. It is hoped that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”