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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title surpassed 5 million units sold, this is in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as quite a shock to Sandfall. I was convinced that we would have a solid title garnering some average sales results,” a key executive commented.

A technical director remarked the game's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, came as the greatest surprise” to the studio versus our early predictions and the final result proved to be. Once it was published all staff members were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

The positive reception has led to the studio creating new free content for the game including novel settings, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, reportedly would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. We've built a talented crew under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for this game and future concepts. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that worked for this game and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the executive noted.

The size of Sandfall sparked plenty of debate following launch. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered this studio as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the game's credits reveals numerous contributors were involved; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit slightly more definitely when facing next an upcoming production peak down the line,” the producer stated. “But I would see rather a creative atelier comprising a handful really talented people that can make a work of art together.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as a company “is more to maintain the strengths that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to say specifically what’s next — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” they explained. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell what will interest us, but it's important also to adhere to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

They mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that philosophy we will be able to do as well for future productions.”