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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY candidate, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that the game topped five million copies in sales, this is even with 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 strongly believing that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving reasonable commercial success,” a key executive explained.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, now standing at 93, was “maybe the biggest shock for everyone compared to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome of the field was. Because when it dropped all staff members celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception has led to Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for players including novel settings, enemies, plus epic encounters, which they said will release in the next few months.

That said, while the game is growing, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. Our team includes an excellent group under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for this game and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the human scale that made this possible and do maybe major titles sequentially,” they noted.

The studio's scale drummed up significant conversation upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, viewed the development group as the model for a studio. Despite being truly compact next to major studios, checking Expedition 33’s credits indicates dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall hired a team in Korea for animation work, as an instance.

“We will hire a little more certainly when facing an increase in development down the line,” the executive stated. “But I would see rather a creative atelier of a few exceptionally gifted creators that create collective masterpieces.” It was stated that their core belief as a studio “aims to keep the successful elements that enabled this success from the start.”

Although it's not the right time to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — rest assured, efforts were made — the developers understand what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” a developer explained. “The timing isn't right to specify our next interests, yet we must to adhere to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the creative director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that's something we can continue with upcoming games.”