🔗 Share this article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top GOTY contender, it’s also a huge commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that the game exceeded five million copies sold, this is even with its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success was an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving some average sales results,” the COO and producer commented.

The CTO and lead programmer noted the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the studio relative to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome of the field was. When the score released everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

This triumph resulted in work on a free update for the game including novel settings, foes, plus epic encounters, reportedly will release in the next few months.

That said, while the game is growing, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. We've built a talented crew guided by a visionary director who has a great vision for our work and future concepts. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that led to our success and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the producer added.

The studio's scale sparked significant conversation when the game came out. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, considered Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for a studio. Despite being truly compact versus large developers, a quick look at the title's staff list indicates numerous contributors were involved; the French studio partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We will hire slightly more definitely when facing an increase in development in the coming years,” the executive stated. “However, I envision more of a workshop of a few exceptionally gifted creators that can make collective masterpieces.” He noted that their core belief as a company “aims to keep the successful elements that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

Despite being not the right time to reveal exact details regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I tried to get them to — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer remarked. “It's still premature to specify our next interests, yet we must to stay true to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began with the visionary developing his passion title. And hopefully that's something we will be able to do with upcoming games.”