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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that the game surpassed five million copies in sales, this is despite its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance was a surprise for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create an enjoyable experience achieving reasonable commercial success,” a key executive explained.

Another leading developer pointed out the game's review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, came as the greatest surprise” to the team versus our early predictions and the actual outcome proved to be. Because when it dropped all staff members were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception has led to Sandfall developing a free update for the game with a new environment, foes, and boss fights, reportedly will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, despite the game's evolution, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. We've built an excellent group guided by a visionary director who has a great vision for the project and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the human scale that made this possible and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” they said.

The studio's scale drummed up significant conversation when the game came out. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered this studio as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team next to major studios, checking the title's staff list shows that many individuals participated; Sandfall hired a team in Korea for animation work, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit slightly more for sure if we have a future production surge down the line,” the executive commented. “But I would see rather a creative atelier of a few highly skilled individuals that can make a work of art together.” It was stated that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “is more to maintain the key advantages that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” the lead programmer explained. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell what will interest us, however, it's crucial to stay true to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

They noted how this game began with their director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped this approach we will be able to do in coming projects.”