🔗 Share this article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive GOTY candidate, it’s also a massive sales triumph. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that the game surpassed 5 million units in sales, this is even with its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as quite a surprise to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience garnering reasonable sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

A technical director pointed out the game's critical score, now standing at 93, was “maybe the biggest shock to the team relative to our early predictions and the actual outcome proved to be. Because when it dropped all staff members were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception prompted Sandfall developing a free update for the game with a new environment, foes, along with challenging bosses, as announced is coming in the next few months.

However, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a talented crew guided by a visionary director who has a great vision for the project plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the close-knit size that made this possible and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the producer said.

Their team size sparked a storm of discussion when the game came out. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for a studio. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team next to major studios, a quick look at the title's staff list reveals many individuals participated; the French studio contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more certainly should there be a future production surge in the coming years,” the producer stated. “But I would see essentially a craft studio with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as developers “aims to keep the strengths that enabled this success in the first place.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to say specifically what’s next — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the team does know their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, is integral to our identity of our creations,” they remarked. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell our next interests, but it's important also to remain faithful to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer added that the project began with the visionary developing his passion title. We aspire this approach we will be able to do with upcoming games.”