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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong Game of the Year candidate, it’s also a massive commercial success. Studio the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that the game exceeded 5 million units in sales, this is even with it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as quite an unexpected turn to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a good game that would meet some average commercial success,” a senior team member commented.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out that Clair Obscur’s critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the team versus what we anticipated and the final result of the field was. Because when it dropped all staff members celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph prompted work on a free update for players with a new environment, foes, and boss fights, reportedly would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. “We have a talented crew under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for this game and future concepts. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that led to our success then develop one big game after another,” the producer added.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion following launch. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered this studio as the model for game development. While Sandfall was and is truly compact next to major studios, a quick look at the game's credits indicates dozens of people worked on it; the French studio partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“We plan to recruit a bit more definitely should there be next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they stated. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier of a few exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as developers “is more to maintain the successful elements that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

Despite being premature for the studio to reveal exact details regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the team does know their essential identity. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” the lead programmer explained. “It's still premature to specify our next interests, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

They noted how this game began with their director pursuing his ideal project. We aspire that philosophy we will be able to do in coming projects.”