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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY candidate, but also a massive financial hit. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title surpassed five million copies in sales, and that’s despite it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite an unexpected turn to the developers. I was convinced that we would have an enjoyable experience garnering reasonable sales results,” a key executive stated.

A technical director remarked this title's critical score, now standing at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment for everyone compared to what we anticipated and the final result turned out to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. The energy was electric.”

This triumph resulted in Sandfall developing a free update for the game including novel settings, enemies, plus epic encounters, which they said is coming in the next few months.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the team will expand. Our team includes an excellent group under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for our work and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that led to our success and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” they added.

The size of Sandfall generated a storm of discussion when the game came out. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered this studio as a perfect example for creative teams. Despite being truly compact versus large developers, checking Expedition 33’s credits reveals dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a little more for sure if we have next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” the executive stated. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “is more to maintain the strengths that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — and trust 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,” the lead programmer said. “It's a bit too early to specify future passions, but it's important also to adhere to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

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