🔗 Share this article

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

This achievement was an unexpected turn to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we would have a solid title that would meet some average market performance,” the COO and producer stated.

A technical director noted this title's review aggregate, rated 93 by critics, came as the most surprising moment to the team relative to our early predictions and what the reality of the field was. Because when it dropped all staff members was screaming and jumping. The energy was electric.”

The positive reception has led to work on a free update for the game with a new environment, foes, plus epic encounters, reportedly would be out sometime soon.

However, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a great team under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for our work and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that led to our success and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the executive added.

Their team size sparked significant conversation when the game came out. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for a studio. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits shows that numerous contributors worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea for animation work, for example.

“We will hire slightly more for sure when facing an increase in development in the coming years,” they commented. “However, I envision more of a workshop with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing a work of art together.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as a company “aims to keep the successful elements that led to this accomplishment originally.”

Despite being premature for the studio to say specifically what’s next — believe me, efforts were made — the developers understand 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 be able to tell what will interest us, but it's important also to adhere to our creative core with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

The developer added how this game began with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped this approach we can continue as well for future productions.”