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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year candidate, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that the game exceeded 5 million units sold, and that’s even with it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite a shock to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we would have a solid title garnering moderate commercial success,” a senior team member commented.

A technical director noted that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, rated 93 by critics, was the greatest surprise” for everyone relative to our early predictions and what the reality turned out to be. Once it was published all staff members was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph prompted the studio creating new free content for the game featuring fresh areas, adversaries, and boss fights, as announced would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, as the title expands, it's unlikely the team will expand. “We have a talented crew under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for this game and future concepts. We'd like to keep the human scale that worked for this game and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the producer added.

The studio's scale drummed up a storm of discussion following launch. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, looked at the development group as a perfect example for a studio. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the title's staff list shows that numerous contributors were involved; Sandfall hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, for example.

“We plan to recruit a bit more certainly if we have next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” the producer stated. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio of a few exceptionally gifted creators that can make collective masterpieces.” It was stated that Sandfall’s vision as developers “focuses on preserving the strengths that enabled this success from the start.”

While it may be not the right time to disclose concrete plans about future projects — and trust me, efforts were made — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” a developer remarked. “It's a bit too early to specify our next interests, yet we must to adhere to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer noted how this game originated from their director pursuing his ideal project. We aspire this approach will be repeated with upcoming games.”