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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top GOTY candidate, but also an enormous commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title surpassed five million copies in sales, this is in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as an unexpected turn for the team. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving reasonable commercial success,” a senior team member commented.

A technical director remarked the game's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the studio compared to “our initial expectations and the final result turned out to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

This triumph prompted work on new free content for the game featuring fresh areas, adversaries, and boss fights, which they said would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, while the game is growing, don’t expect the team will expand. “We have an excellent group guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the human scale that worked for this game then develop major titles sequentially,” they added.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation following launch. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, viewed this studio as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being truly compact versus large developers, a quick look at the title's staff list reveals many individuals were involved; the French studio partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“We will hire a little more definitely should there be an increase in development in the coming years,” they commented. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier of a few really talented people capable of producing artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as developers “focuses on preserving the key advantages that enabled this success in the first place.”

Despite being premature for the studio to say specifically what’s next — rest assured, efforts were made — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” the lead programmer said. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell what will interest us, but it's important also to remain faithful to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

They added that the project originated from the visionary developing his passion title. And hopefully this approach we can continue as well for future productions.”