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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year contender, but also a huge commercial success. Developer the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s in spite of it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance was an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving moderate commercial success,” a key executive stated.

A technical director remarked the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the studio versus what we anticipated and the actual outcome turned out to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success resulted in the studio creating a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, foes, and boss fights, which they said is coming sometime soon.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, it's unlikely the studio to grow. We've built a great team with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for the project and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the human scale that led to our success then develop large projects one by one,” the producer noted.

Their team size drummed up a storm of discussion upon the title's release. Some developers, including renowned designers, viewed this studio as a perfect example for creative teams. Although the team is and was relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the game's credits indicates many individuals were involved; Sandfall contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“We will hire a bit more definitely when facing a future production surge in upcoming years,” they commented. “But I would see more of a workshop of a few really talented people that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as a company “is more to maintain the key advantages that enabled this success originally.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans what’s next — and trust me, I tried to get them to — they are certain their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of what we built,” the lead programmer said. “It's still premature to announce future passions, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

The developer mentioned how this game began with their director developing his passion title. And hopefully that's something we will be able to do in coming projects.”