🔗 Share this article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title exceeded five million copies sold, and that’s despite its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was a shock for the team. “I was strongly believing that we'd create an enjoyable experience garnering moderate market performance,” the COO and producer commented.

A technical director noted this title's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the most surprising moment for everyone versus “our initial expectations and what the reality proved to be. Once it was published all staff members celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph prompted work on new free content for the title including novel settings, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, reportedly is coming sometime soon.

However, despite the game's evolution, it's unlikely the team will expand. We've built an excellent group guided by a visionary director who has a great vision for the project and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that led to our success then develop one big game after another,” the executive added.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation upon the title's release. Some developers, including renowned designers, considered this studio as a perfect example for game development. Although the team is and was indeed a small team next to major studios, checking Expedition 33’s credits reveals many individuals participated; Sandfall contracted a Korean team to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a little more certainly when facing next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they said. “Yet I picture more of a workshop comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as developers “is more to maintain the successful elements that enabled this success originally.”

Despite being not the right time to reveal exact details about future projects — and trust me, I tried to get them to — they are certain their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, is integral to our identity of what we built,” the lead programmer said. “It's still premature to be able to tell our next interests, yet we must to stay true to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with their director “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped this approach we will be able to do as well for future productions.”