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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year candidate, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Developer the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title topped five million copies sold, this is even with its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was a surprise to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we'd create a solid title achieving some average commercial success,” a key executive stated.

Another leading developer noted that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the team compared to “our initial expectations and the final result of the field was. Because when it dropped all staff members celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception has led to the studio creating new free content for the title including novel settings, adversaries, and boss fights, as announced would be out sometime soon.

However, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect the team will expand. “We have a great team under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for the project and future concepts. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that made this possible and do maybe one big game after another,” they said.

The studio's scale sparked a storm of discussion following launch. Some developers, such as the famed director, considered this studio as the model for game development. Although the team is and was relatively lean versus large developers, checking Expedition 33’s credits indicates numerous contributors participated; the French studio contracted a Korean team for animation work, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit a little more for sure when facing next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” the executive said. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio of a few exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing artistic collaborations.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as developers “focuses on preserving the strengths that led to this accomplishment originally.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of this project,” a developer said. “It's still premature to specify what will interest us, yet we must to adhere to our creative core with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that excites us.”

The lead programmer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something we can continue as well for future productions.”