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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year candidate, it’s also a massive commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title exceeded five million copies sold, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was a surprise to Sandfall. I was convinced that we would have an enjoyable experience garnering some average sales results,” a key executive stated.

Another leading developer noted that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the team compared to our early predictions and the actual outcome turned out to be. Because when it dropped the entire team were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success resulted in Sandfall developing new free content for the game including novel settings, enemies, along with challenging bosses, as announced is coming sometime soon.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. We've built a great team with a strong creative director with a clear direction for the project and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that made this possible then develop large projects one by one,” the executive added.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion when the game came out. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for a studio. Although the team is and was truly compact compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits reveals dozens of people participated; the French studio partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“We plan to recruit slightly more certainly should there be next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they said. “But I would see rather a creative atelier of a few exceptionally gifted creators that can make collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as a company “aims to keep the successful elements that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — believe me, efforts were made — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer explained. “It's still premature to specify our next interests, but it's important also to adhere to our creative core through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game began with the visionary developing his passion title. It is hoped that's something will be repeated in coming projects.”