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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY contender, but also an enormous sales triumph. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s even with its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as a surprise to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a good game achieving moderate commercial success,” a key executive stated.

Another leading developer pointed out this title's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” for everyone compared to our early predictions and what the reality proved to be. When the score released everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success resulted in Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, adversaries, and boss fights, reportedly will release in the next few months.

However, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a great team with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for the project and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that worked for this game and do maybe one big game after another,” the producer noted.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation following launch. Some developers, such as the famed director, viewed this studio as a perfect example for a studio. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean next to major studios, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits shows that dozens of people were involved; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more certainly should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” the producer said. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing artistic collaborations.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as a studio “is more to maintain the strengths that enabled this success from the start.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — they are certain what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of our creations,” they remarked. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell future passions, however, it's crucial to adhere to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The developer mentioned that the project originated from the creative director pursuing his ideal project. We aspire this approach will be repeated with upcoming games.”