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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year candidate, but also a huge sales triumph. Studio the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that the game exceeded five million copies in sales, this is in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as quite a shock to the developers. I firmly believed that we would have a good game that would meet moderate sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

A technical director pointed out that Clair Obscur’s critical score, rated 93 by critics, was the most surprising moment to the studio compared to what we anticipated and the final result proved to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception prompted the studio creating a free update for the game featuring fresh areas, enemies, along with challenging bosses, which they said would be out sometime soon.

However, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. We've built a great team with a strong creative director with a clear direction for this game and future concepts. We intend to preserve the human scale that led to our success then develop large projects one by one,” the executive added.

The studio's scale sparked plenty of debate following launch. Some developers, including renowned designers, looked at this studio as the model for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team versus large developers, a quick look at the game's credits shows that dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit slightly more for sure should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” the executive commented. “But I would see essentially a craft studio with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing a work of art together.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as developers “focuses on preserving the key advantages that led to this accomplishment originally.”

While it may be not the right time to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the team does know their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of our creations,” the lead programmer remarked. “The timing isn't right to specify what will interest us, yet we must to remain faithful to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

The developer noted how this game began with the visionary developing his passion title. We aspire that philosophy we can continue in coming projects.”