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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive Game of the Year contender, it’s also a huge financial hit. Developer the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that this title surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s even with it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as a shock for the team. I firmly believed that we would have a solid title achieving some average market performance,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer pointed out that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, rated 93 by critics, came as “maybe the biggest shock for everyone compared to our early predictions and what the reality of the field was. When the score released everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success resulted in work on new free content for the game featuring fresh areas, foes, along with challenging bosses, reportedly will release in the next few months.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, don’t expect the team will expand. Our team includes a talented crew with a strong creative director who has a great vision for our work and future concepts. We'd like to keep the human scale that led to our success and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the executive said.

The size of Sandfall drummed up a storm of discussion upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for game development. Although the team is and was relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the game's credits reveals many individuals worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, for example.

“We will hire a bit more definitely should there be next an upcoming production peak down the line,” they stated. “But I would see essentially a craft studio of a few really talented people capable of producing a work of art together.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as developers “is more to maintain the key advantages that enabled this success in the first place.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — believe me, I tried to get them to — they are certain their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” a developer explained. “The timing isn't right to announce our next interests, but it's important also to stay true to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game began with their director “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped this approach we will be able to do as well for future productions.”