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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY contender, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner revealed that this title exceeded 5 million units sold, and that’s despite its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success was a surprise to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have a solid title that would meet reasonable sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

Another leading developer remarked that Clair Obscur’s critical score, now standing at 93, came as the most surprising moment for everyone versus what we anticipated and the final result proved to be. When the score released the entire team were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph prompted work on a free update for players including novel settings, enemies, along with challenging bosses, reportedly would be out in the next few months.

That said, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect the team will expand. We've built a great team guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for this game and future concepts. We'd like to keep the human scale that worked for this game and do maybe one big game after another,” the producer added.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation following launch. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, considered the development group as the model for a studio. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team versus large developers, one glance at the title's staff list indicates many individuals worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“We plan to recruit a little more certainly if we have a future production surge down the line,” the executive said. “But I would see more of a workshop comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators that create artistic collaborations.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as developers “focuses on preserving the strengths that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to say specifically about future projects — and trust me, efforts were made — the team does know their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of what we built,” the lead programmer said. “It's a bit too early to specify what will interest us, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

They noted that the project started with their director pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully this approach we will be able to do in coming projects.”