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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year candidate, it’s also a huge commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title exceeded five million copies sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we'd create a solid title that would meet reasonable sales results,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer noted the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” for everyone relative to what we anticipated and what the reality turned out to be. Once it was published everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

This triumph has led to work on new free content for players with a new environment, adversaries, plus epic encounters, which they said would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. “We have an excellent group with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for our work and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that worked for this game and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the executive noted.

The studio's scale generated plenty of debate when the game came out. A few well-known creators, like Hideo Kojima, viewed this studio as the model for a studio. Although the team is and was truly compact compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the title's staff list shows that dozens of people were involved; the French studio partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“We plan to recruit a little more for sure if we have a future production surge in the coming years,” the executive commented. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier with a small number of really talented people that create artistic collaborations.” It was stated that Sandfall’s vision as developers “is more to maintain the strengths that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to say specifically about future projects — believe me, efforts were made — they are certain their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, is integral to our identity of our creations,” the lead programmer explained. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell what will interest us, but it's important also to stay true to our creative core through compelling worlds plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

The developer noted that the project started with their director pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that's something will be repeated in coming projects.”