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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive Game of the Year candidate, it’s also a massive commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s even with it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success was a surprise for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a solid title that would meet some average market performance,” the COO and producer explained.

Another leading developer remarked that Clair Obscur’s critical score, rated 93 by critics, was the greatest surprise” to the studio compared to what we anticipated and the actual outcome turned out to be. When the score released the entire team celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception has led to the studio creating a complimentary expansion for the title including novel settings, enemies, plus epic encounters, reportedly will release sometime soon.

However, while the game is growing, don’t expect the studio to grow. We've built a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that made this possible then develop large projects one by one,” they said.

Their team size sparked significant conversation following launch. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, considered Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is truly compact next to major studios, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits shows that many individuals were involved; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, as an instance.

“We will hire a little more for sure should there be an increase in development down the line,” the producer said. “But I would see essentially a craft studio comprising a handful really talented people that create artistic collaborations.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as developers “is more to maintain the strengths that made this achievement possible originally.”

Despite being not the right time to say specifically about future projects — rest assured, efforts were made — they are certain their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” they said. “It's still premature to announce what will interest us, yet we must to stay true to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

The developer added how this game began with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped that philosophy we can continue with upcoming games.”