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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive GOTY candidate, it’s also a huge sales triumph. Developer the development team and publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title topped five million copies sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as an unexpected turn for the team. “I was strongly believing that we would have a good game achieving moderate commercial success,” the COO and producer stated.

A technical director remarked that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock for everyone relative to our early predictions and the final result proved to be. Once it was published the entire team celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph prompted work on a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, foes, plus epic encounters, reportedly will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, while the game is growing, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. “We have an excellent group under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for the project and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that led to our success and perhaps create large projects one by one,” they said.

The size of Sandfall generated plenty of debate upon the title's release. Some developers, including renowned designers, looked at the development group as the model for game development. Although the team is and was relatively lean next to major studios, a quick look at the title's staff list reveals many individuals participated; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a little more for sure when facing next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” they said. “However, I envision more of a workshop of a few really talented people that create artistic collaborations.” It was stated that Sandfall’s vision as a company “aims to keep the key advantages that made this achievement possible from the start.”

While it may be premature for the studio to say specifically about future projects — rest assured, efforts were made — the team does know their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” the lead programmer remarked. “The timing isn't right to specify our next interests, yet we must to adhere to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the creative director pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”