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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong Game of the Year contender, it’s also a massive sales triumph. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title topped 5 million units sold, and that’s even with its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

This achievement was a surprise to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title garnering reasonable market performance,” the COO and producer commented.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, now standing at 93, came as the greatest surprise” to the team compared to our early predictions and what the reality of the field was. Once it was published the entire team were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

The positive reception has led to Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the game including novel settings, foes, along with challenging bosses, which they said is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, don’t expect the studio to grow. We've built a great team guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for the project and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and perhaps create large projects one by one,” they noted.

Their team size generated plenty of debate following launch. A few well-known creators, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the model for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team next to major studios, one glance at the title's staff list reveals numerous contributors participated; Sandfall hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a little more definitely when facing a future production surge in the coming years,” they said. “However, I envision rather a creative atelier of a few exceptionally gifted creators that create collective masterpieces.” It was stated that their core belief as a studio “focuses on preserving the strengths that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, efforts were made — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, forms the foundation of this project,” a developer explained. “It's a bit too early to announce our next interests, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our studio's essence through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

They noted how this game started with the visionary developing his passion title. And hopefully this approach will be repeated in coming projects.”