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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year candidate, it’s also a huge commercial success. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that the game exceeded five million copies sold, this is in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as a surprise to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game garnering moderate commercial success,” the COO and producer explained.

A technical director remarked this title's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” to the studio versus our early predictions and the final result of the field was. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

That success prompted the studio creating a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, foes, and boss fights, which they said will release sometime soon.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. Our team includes a great team with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for our work plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that made this possible then develop one big game after another,” they said.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion upon the title's release. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, looked at this studio as the model for a studio. Although the team is and was indeed a small team next to major studios, a quick look at the title's staff list shows that dozens of people worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit a bit more for sure when facing next an upcoming production peak down the line,” they said. “However, I envision rather a creative atelier comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing artistic collaborations.” It was stated that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “is more to maintain the strengths that enabled this success originally.”

Although it's premature for the studio to disclose concrete plans what’s next — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” a developer remarked. “It's still premature to be able to tell our next interests, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from their director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”