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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong Game of the Year candidate, but also a massive sales triumph. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner announced that the game exceeded five million copies in sales, this is even with its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as quite a surprise for the team. I was convinced that we would have a solid title garnering moderate market performance,” a senior team member explained.

A technical director noted that Clair Obscur’s critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the studio relative to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome proved to be. Because when it dropped all staff members were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph resulted in Sandfall developing new free content for the game including novel settings, foes, plus epic encounters, which they said would be out in the next few months.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the studio to grow. We've built an excellent group under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for the project and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that worked for this game then develop large projects one by one,” they said.

Their team size generated significant conversation when the game came out. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, looked at Sandfall’s team as the model for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits reveals numerous contributors worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea for animation work, as an instance.

“We will hire a little more for sure if we have next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” the producer said. “But I would see rather a creative atelier comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators that can make artistic collaborations.” It was stated that their core belief as developers “is more to maintain the key advantages that made this achievement possible originally.”

Although it's not the right time to reveal exact details what’s next — rest assured, efforts were made — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, forms the foundation of what we built,” a developer said. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell what will interest us, but it's important also to adhere to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

The lead programmer noted that the project originated from the visionary developing his passion title. It is hoped that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”