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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top GOTY contender, but also a massive financial hit. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner announced that this title surpassed five million copies sold, this is despite its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as an unexpected turn for the team. I was convinced that we would have a good game that would meet moderate commercial success,” a senior team member commented.

The CTO and lead programmer noted this title's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, came as the greatest surprise” to the studio relative to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome of the field was. When the score released everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph prompted the studio creating new free content for the title with a new environment, foes, plus epic encounters, as announced is coming in the next few months.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. Our team includes an excellent group with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for this game and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that worked for this game and do maybe one big game after another,” the executive noted.

Their team size generated a storm of discussion when the game came out. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered this studio as a perfect example for creative teams. Despite being relatively lean versus large developers, one glance at the game's credits shows that dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“We will hire a bit more for sure if we have next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” the producer said. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio with a small number of highly skilled individuals capable of producing artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as developers “aims to keep the strengths that enabled this success from the start.”

While it may be not the right time to reveal exact details regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their essential identity. “Strategic combat, is integral to our identity of our creations,” a developer said. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell future passions, but it's important also to stay true to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

The developer mentioned how this game started with their director developing his passion title. And hopefully that's something will be repeated with upcoming games.”