🔗 Share this article

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive GOTY candidate, it’s also a huge commercial success. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that this title topped 5 million units sold, and that’s despite it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as quite an unexpected turn for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a solid title that would meet some average commercial success,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer pointed out that Clair Obscur’s critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock for everyone compared to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome turned out to be. When the score released the entire team was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph resulted in work on new free content for the game including novel settings, adversaries, and boss fights, as announced will release sometime soon.

That said, while the game is growing, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a talented crew with a strong creative director with a clear direction for our work plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that made this possible and do maybe large projects one by one,” the producer added.

The size of Sandfall drummed up plenty of debate when the game came out. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, looked at this studio as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being indeed a small team next to major studios, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits indicates many individuals participated; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a little more certainly when facing an increase in development down the line,” the producer stated. “However, I envision more of a workshop of a few really talented people that create collective masterpieces.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as a company “is more to maintain the strengths that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to say specifically about future projects — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of our creations,” a developer remarked. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell future passions, but it's important also to adhere to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began with the visionary developing his passion title. It is hoped that's something will be repeated with upcoming games.”