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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year candidate, but also an enormous commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title topped 5 million units in sales, this is even with its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success was an unexpected turn for the team. “I was strongly believing that we would have an enjoyable experience garnering some average sales results,” a key executive explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted the game's critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the team relative to “our initial expectations and the final result of the field was. When the score released all staff members were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

That success resulted in work on a complimentary expansion for the game featuring fresh areas, adversaries, and boss fights, as announced will release in the next few months.

That said, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a great team under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for this game and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that led to our success then develop large projects one by one,” the executive said.

Their team size generated a storm of discussion when the game came out. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, considered Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for a studio. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the game's credits indicates numerous contributors were involved; the French studio hired a team in Korea for animation work, for example.

“Some hiring will occur a little more for sure if we have a future production surge in upcoming years,” the executive stated. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier comprising a handful really talented people that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as developers “focuses on preserving the successful elements that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — believe me, efforts were made — the team does know their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of our creations,” the lead programmer explained. “It's still premature to announce what will interest us, yet we must to remain faithful to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

They added that the project started with their director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that philosophy will be repeated in coming projects.”