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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive Game of the Year candidate, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title surpassed 5 million units in sales, this is despite its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was a surprise to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we would have an enjoyable experience garnering reasonable sales results,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer noted the game's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, was “maybe the biggest shock to the studio relative to “our initial expectations and what the reality proved to be. Once it was published everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. The energy was electric.”

That success prompted work on a complimentary expansion for players including novel settings, enemies, and boss fights, reportedly would be out in the next few months.

That said, as the title expands, don’t expect the studio to grow. We've built a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for our work and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that led to our success then develop major titles sequentially,” the producer noted.

Their team size generated a storm of discussion following launch. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, looked at this studio as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is truly compact next to major studios, checking the game's credits shows that dozens of people worked on it; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, for example.

“We plan to recruit a little more definitely if we have next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they said. “However, I envision more of a workshop of a few exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing collective masterpieces.” It was stated that their core belief as a company “is more to maintain the successful elements that enabled this success in the first place.”

While it may be not the right time to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — believe me, efforts were made — the team does know their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” a developer remarked. “It's still premature to announce future passions, however, it's crucial to stay true to our studio's essence through compelling worlds plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with their director developing his passion title. We aspire that philosophy we will be able to do with upcoming games.”