🔗 Share this article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year contender, but also a huge sales triumph. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title surpassed 5 million units sold, this is despite it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance was a shock for the team. “I was strongly believing that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving reasonable sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

Another leading developer noted this title's review aggregate, now standing at 93, was the greatest surprise” to the studio versus our early predictions and the actual outcome of the field was. When the score released everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph has led to work on a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, reportedly will release sometime soon.

That said, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. “We have a great team under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for our work plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the close-knit size that worked for this game and do maybe one big game after another,” the executive said.

Their team size drummed up significant conversation upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, looked at Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for a studio. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team next to major studios, one glance at the title's staff list indicates numerous contributors were involved; Sandfall contracted a Korean team for animation work, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a bit more certainly when facing next an upcoming production peak down the line,” the producer stated. “However, I envision more of a workshop of a few really talented people that create a work of art together.” It was stated that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “focuses on preserving the successful elements that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans about future projects — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the developers understand what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of what we built,” they said. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell what will interest us, yet we must to adhere to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer added how this game started with their director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that philosophy will be repeated as well for future productions.”