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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY contender, but also a huge sales triumph. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that the game surpassed 5 million units sold, and that’s despite its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as a shock to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we would have a good game that would meet reasonable market performance,” the COO and producer stated.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out this title's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as the most surprising moment to the studio versus our early predictions and the final result of the field was. When the score released the entire team was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception prompted work on new free content for the game with a new environment, foes, along with challenging bosses, reportedly would be out sometime soon.

However, while the game is growing, don’t expect the studio to grow. We've built an excellent group with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for the project plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that made this possible and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the producer added.

Their team size generated significant conversation when the game came out. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, considered this studio as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being relatively lean versus large developers, a quick look at the title's staff list shows that many individuals participated; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a little more for sure should there be next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they commented. “But I would see rather a creative atelier of a few exceptionally gifted creators that create collective masterpieces.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as a company “focuses on preserving the successful elements that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

Although it's premature for the studio to say specifically about future projects — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — they are certain what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of what we built,” the lead programmer remarked. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell future passions, but it's important also to remain faithful to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

They mentioned how this game originated from the creative director developing his passion title. We aspire that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”