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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title topped 5 million units in sales, and that’s in spite of it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement came as an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I was convinced that we would have a good game that would meet some average sales results,” the COO and producer stated.

Another leading developer noted this title's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the team compared to what we anticipated and what the reality proved to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph resulted in Sandfall developing a free update for the title including novel settings, foes, plus epic encounters, as announced is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, as the title expands, don’t expect the team will expand. We've built a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for our work and future concepts. We intend to preserve the human scale that worked for this game and perhaps create large projects one by one,” they noted.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, viewed the development group as the model for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, a quick look at the title's staff list indicates many individuals worked on it; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, to illustrate.

“We will hire a little more definitely when facing a future production surge in the coming years,” they stated. “However, I envision rather a creative atelier of a few exceptionally gifted creators that create a work of art together.” He noted that their core belief as developers “aims to keep the successful elements that enabled this success from the start.”

Despite being premature for the studio to disclose concrete plans what’s next — believe me, I attempted to learn more — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” the lead programmer explained. “It's a bit too early to announce our next interests, yet we must to stay true to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

They added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped that's something we will be able to do as well for future productions.”